chow gar southern mantis iron shirt training ?

[AdrianUK]

Hi All

I am fairly new to Southern mantis, well 6 months or so in, and have some concerns about the iron shirt training I am doing. We don't do it every lesson so its maybe once every couple of weeks, theres a short exercise for the ribs then into the light kicking of the ribs, another southern mantis school I saw said it should all be internal, am I being trained wrong and/or dangerously ?

Thanks for the opinions

Adrian

[kismet]

Nothing to be concerned about. All the training you do in chow gar mantis involves training the ribs (dip gwut gung). You may not be aware of it but you are making this area stronger and using it more than you normally would simply from the training (forms, chy sau (grinding arm), doy chong, chee sarn garp press ups and so on.) These exercises are in internal (but the term internal is open to discussion on its practice and methods)...still whilst doing the SPM training you are making the body stronger.

Chow Gar mantis has many gungs and conditioning (training exercises) for strengthening all parts of the body that use tension, medium tension and soft relaxed methods as far I know. Training these specific exercises will come much later though as it is quite demanding on the body. For now speak to your Sifu of your concerns. I dont think you have anything to worry about.