To Gene Ching

[FANWOO]

dear gene,

i was watching the "extreme qigong" dvd from your company,and i was wondering if you could tell me what type of bricks are used for the iron hand competition ? they look like adobe. would it be possible to get the name of the company that provides them for the competition?or where i could get bricks of similar construction? i would like to purchase some for myself to test my iron hand on. :)

[FANWOO]

hello, :)

i was watching the "extreme qigong" dvd from "Kung Fu Magazine",and i was wondering if anyone could tell me what type of bricks are used for the iron hand competition ? they look like adobe. would it be possible to get the name of the company that provides them for the competition,or where i could purchase bricks of similar construction?
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[David Jamieson]

should just be red construction grade bricks.

If there's no mortar, they are cheating. If they rebake them, they are cheating.
If they get them from anywhere other than a regular hardware store that sells construction grade bricks, they are cheating.

bricks that are made for breaking are cheater bricks, they are weak and are meant to break with relative ease.

just sayin.

[GeneChing]

I wasn't at that tournament personally. Even if I did, importing bricks from China to test your iron palm seems extravagant. Is that seriously the intention behind your inquiry?

I'm glad you enjoyed Extreme Kung Fu Qigong (http://www.martialartsmart.net/tc-ca105.html). That remains one of our most popular demo videos.

P.S. I merged your parallel post on the Shaolin forum FANWOO, but left a permanent redirect, so you'll still get the same amount of eyeballs for your question.

[FANWOO]

dear gene, thank you for your response. no, i do not intend to import bricks from china. but i was hoping to find out what types of bricks are being used in the competition. see, all the bricks in my area are concrete. now while i have broken concrete bricks before, i notice that the bricks in the competition are made of a red clay. i just thought it would be a differant experience to break the same stuff the masters use.:)

[Shaolinlueb]

bricks made up north are stronger then bricks made down south i have been told. how true is it? i do not know.

[Andy Miles]

Living in Cheng Du, Sichuan I have gone to constuctions sites to practice. The bricks here are of very low quality. Some of the thick ones break relatively easily. Once they have mortar they are hard to break. I only used bricks that were already chipped or unusable, but the rest were supprisingly light and not so dense. In the South the weather is relatively consistant so you don't tend to have freezing cold. I would imagine that Northern bricks are slightly more sturdy.

As an aside, if anyone wants to come to China and train with Taoists, I have some connections to some head Abbots at Qing Cheng and E-Mei. Friends of friends. I'm going to try and get some interviews, but those guys are fairly quiet. I know one Master here who turned down a national T.V. interview because he just wanted to practice kung fu in peace and believe that fate alone will bring them the right students who have "yuan" with them.