Buddhist Shaolin Warriors highly skilled in the martial art of Kung Fu are coming to Penn State to stun viewers with their performance at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The Chinese production company Shaolin Warriors is on its fourth North American tour, and this time, it includes Penn State's Eisenhower Auditorium.

"It's a choreographed performance, which is very energetic and displays incredible discipline," said Laura Sullivan, marketing and communications director for Penn State's Center for Performing Arts.

"Generally, this show is some kind of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon live on stage with a lot of incredible things in the show. There will be no tricks," Yucheng Zhan, production manager for the Shaolin Warriors, said.

The company has been together for two years.

Prior to its four North American tours and one in Australia and New Zealand, it performed nightly in Beijing.

However, the performers have been practicing martial arts for much longer than that.

"Most of them started their training at the age of 4 or 5," Zhan said.

"The leading guy, for example, is only 20 years old," Zhan added. "He was born into a family of martial arts tradition."

Yik Fai Tam, a professor of religious studies at Penn State, emphasized the importance of Buddhism within the Shaolin Warriors' performance.

"By training yourself to be disciplined, you are also training yourself to be focused and be aware of the outside world, which is important in Kung Fu," Tam said.

Buddhism encourages people to help those in need, and in order to do that, a warrior must have strong will and a strong body, Zhan said.

The correlation between Kung Fu and Buddhism can be traced back a long time, Tam said.

"The Kung Fu of the Shaolin monks was originally from an Indian monk who was honored as the first patriot of the Chinese ch'an [Chinese for "zen"] Buddhism and they say he meditated for nine years," Tam said.

"From this, he not only achieved awakening in a religious sense, but he also developed a sense of Kung Fu," Tam added. "The Shaolin temple was founded at the latest in the fourth or fifth centuries."

Guests can expect to see some incredible athletic ability, which is part of their spiritualism and discipline, Sullivan said.

Zhan said the show will exceed expectations.

"It's an amazing Kung Fu show ... There are a lot of highlights with demonstrations of weapons, boxing and drunken boxing," Zhan said.

"I think people can also learn something basically about Buddhism or meditation or physical exercise," Zhan added.