Iron Palm

[SANJKING]

Iron Palm is a very advanced technique- is this a compulsory training for a shoalin student- say brown/black belt- I assume the hardness of the arms must be developed- or can a novice also practise this- before training all parts of the hand- I am also told great caution must be taken when handling small children- like smacking, even light slapping!!!

[zachsan]

Iron Palm is a very advanced technique- is this a compulsory training for a shoalin student- say brown/black belt- I assume the hardness of the arms must be developed- or can a novice also practise this- before training all parts of the hand- I am also told great caution must be taken when handling small children- like smacking, even light slapping!!!

there are no belts in shaolin, and to my knowledge external conditioning isn't compulsory. and you're not going to have to be any more careful with children then you would already.

conditioning can be a valuable part of TMA, but it doesn't have nearly the effect that you seem to think it does. your palms will never be anywhere close to as hard as iron, it's just an expression.

[doc]

There is a part in the site, in the Seidokan section, devoted to Iron Palm training. Also, this topic has bee discussed before, somewhere in this current forum, and also in the ARCHIVE.

There's a lot to learn in there. You might want to start reading.

Also, there are no belts in traditional Northern Chinese martial arts. It's a Japanese invention. However, there are many schools, professing to be "shaolin", that use belts. And, lol, refer to their masters as "sifu" (as opposed to "shifu")

[blooming tianshi lotus]

Cheers to you 2 ! Ditto and Nicely caught .

................... same old same old on the shaolin thing though. Classic example of how a case makes itself.

At least my own sigungs sell only "gongfu". Now that's the diff. ( lol @ respect and realisms ha ................. )

B

[Maestro]

SANJKING- iron palm in shaolin can be done alot of different ways, for example an eagle claw specialist would train his IP differently then say Tiger claw, but in the end for the IP effect the result is the same for the practitioners, the goal is to make the hand heavy like iron, in the end hitting the varios bags is meant to not only condition your hands but to focus your qi and blood into your hand continuously so that when you strike your hand is like iron

also, the hands can get very hard, my sifus sifu has hands like stone from IP training, but the difference between IP conditioning and other external methods like hitting makiwara, si gungs hands are also soft and sensitive

you mention arm conditioning, to my knowledge nothern shaolin doesnt train the iron bridge like alot of southern styles do..but forearm training isnt part of traditional iron palm, but if you want to go about it visit some hung ga web pages and you can find good information on training da sam sing which is three stars hitting, its an exercise that can be done solo or with a partner and if done correctly it will make your arms very dense but you will loose none of your sensitivity

[blooming tianshi lotus]

Great post. I may even check that out myself.

cheers

BL

[shaolinstylee]

We do three star drill for forarms.. also hit the bag with forarms...

shin to bag for shins (some of us supplement with rolling a wooden dowel up and down our shins from time to time).

I don't do anything I'd concider to be anywhere near higher level. Basics can go a decent distance compared to nothing.

[tetsumaru]

"putting jow on before any conditioning will irritate and nullify the healing effect. the sole purpose of using jow is mainly as a lubricant, the massage is really the healing effect, the jow just helps some blood flow to the effected area. when u apply jow you should be rubbing in a counter clockwise manner to remove the stagnant blood(bruise etc) from the effected area." - maestro

How can it nullify and irritate the healing effect? My understanding of "jow" is that it helps blood flow. After doing my warm-up qigong for IP I can feel the energy in my hands and even more so once I apply the "jow". With the increased blood flow, my hand feels heavier, I have more solid hits, and less "blow-outs" or injuries. Ever hit the bag on a cold day? Why do you rub in a counterclockwise motion? as opposed to rubbing away from the heart?

[Maestro]

u should always rub away from the heart, although ive also been taught to rub away from the heart because "you dont want that blood going back to your heart" this reasoning is ridiculous because all blood goes back to the heart anyway.

and it nullifys the healing effect because i said the massage is what is healing you not the jow, the jow is a lubricant thats it, it helps increase some blood flow but if u put it on and then go hit the bags your nullifying any healing effects you were seeking.

putting the jow on before is a waste and isnt giveing you the benefits you think it is. not to mention i dont exactly understand what u mean by "energy" in your hands, when i train iron palm all i feel is qi and blood, but whatever...

if your hellbent on using jow in this way i dont care really, to each his own i guess lolo

[blooming tianshi lotus]

Are you sure Maestro it's not because the jow draws the blood away from the surface and to protect yourself while practicing you need it there???

Anyway, as for conditioning, and training , ...what about old school BaguaZhang Iron training...
There's none of that crap at all! The oonly thing they do is reeeally slow pole slaps alternating with meridian slap throughs and some stretching qigong or part brocades . You see alott of this from older ppl all through China but in Henan especially. i'm pretty sure they might've conditioned earlier inlife, but maybe that's only because by that lvl of conditioning is how you actually acheive the type of cellular awareness that you need to pull it off.. and once you know ..you just do.??
It's a huge misconception about hard qigong... and if you ever do actually work that hard.. you'll likely understand.

[blooming tianshi lotus]

The reason you rub away from the heart though, is because it your arteries carrying the blood away from where the injuries might have occurred through that type impact that may cause them to burst and clot and pool in that practice ( ie :- bruising) that is the point.. and particularly if you are doing it regularly where those arteric hemorrhages are cumulatively occuring and potentially going to cause serious local damage and potentially whole systemery blockage.

By applying the jow before hand , it overstimulates the blood flow away from the heart and back up again . So to have it be effective afterward , if you were to do that, during the arteric drain post iron practice, ,the blood needing to be more mobile than during the exercise ( the movement away from the site impact being the key to the healing ..like a hot flush away / heat = faster movement and smaller matter) which would mean that you would put your heart in danger of either too high blood pressure that your heart couldn't pump fast enough or at a heart rate that it couldn't keep up with or on the back flow, should it actually manage that load and cool in time, by concious regulating control of the heart rate itself a flooding within the heart from where the blood's come back in too quickly meaning that too much blood would be going out at too much velocity and volume for the vessels to properly contain.
I don't know what you're doing Tets, but I think I'd probably rather just stick to the instructions.

[Maestro]

the jow isnt going to protect u from anything when u practice iron palm. if your practiceing iron palm right, u should need to massage the hand afterwards everytime.

were talking about iron palm, not iron sands palm or water palm or anything like that. my first sifu learned iron palm from wing lam, and he comes from ku yue cheong's lineage, and ku yue cheong is probably the most famous shaolin iron palm from this century, hes the guy that slapped the horse and killed it bla bla

then my second sifu had a different method but still the same dynamics different focus. not to mention iron palm is a staple of MY style.

as for whatever the hell u were getting at about bagua, if u understood bagua youd understand there is alot of conditioning involved, iron palm and iron arm is found in this system. but it isnt emphasise as much, go figure for a palms only style. but the reason for this is found in dong hai chuan and his lineage. everyone that comes from dong hai chuan the founder(who was a shaolin master) EVERYONE were already accomplished fighters, cheng ting hua etc were accomplished fighters, and this system was usually taught to those already on a high level, so maybe they expected more out of the students.

[Maestro]

hes listening to a shithead.

and hes wasteing precious jow.

if u want the same feeling u get from your jow use ben gay it will work. if thats what your after.

jow isnt magical, and neither is iron palm. get over it or stop talking about this.

[blooming tianshi lotus]

And there's a good reason that it was only taught to ppl with some kind of advanced understanding.. particularly when you have idiots who want to give themselves a heart attack by f*cking around. It's a shame that theres not better understanding from ppl who teach.
Anyway, the jow protects you from the after effects of cumulatively bursting local arteries... and aas for stopping talking about it, I think you'll Actually find Maestro that if anyone here talks about this crap alot that would be you who mentions your fangle skill in almost everything you post. No wonder they're curious. @l.

[tetsumaru]

Never thought or said iron palm was magical....but i do need to discuss it because i dont know anyone around that knows it...wait yeah i do...but i'd like to hear what the people on the internet have to say...Blooming are you saying jow application beforehand is bad...sorry seriously i couldnt understand what you were saying...

maestro no need to be mean with the shithead comment but I do need to understand things like this better and its why i came here...lol the internet has all the answers, right?

I'd hate to learn something I knew was true but i didnt know any better...