is iron body useful?

[j-himself]

first of all, i'm new here, so hiya all.

now to my question. You keep hearing stuff about iron body, iron palm, etc. u see ppl breaking boards, bricks, etc. And I'm pretty sure it's a part of shaolin kung fu curriculum, cuz i've seen it at demonstrations.

My knowledge about hard qi gong isn't very profound. What i've witnessed at the demos, is prelimilary to any hard qi gong breaking, they do some sort of (hard) qi gong exercise to get their qi up or something....

Anyhow, to my question now. Is qi gong really useful in real life? Does it help to strengthen your body, externally, so you can withstand blows to your body without being hurt, or minor hurt? Now if this is true, what about the qi up they do before getting beat/breaking soemthing? I dont think you can induce your opponent to give u a break before he jumps you.

This whole senario just baffels me a little. I mean, I dont see the point in learning iron body skills if they are not useful on the streets, or are they?

again, i don't know too much about any iron skills so i hope anyone could fill in the gaps for me.

thanks

[Ford Prefect]

Yes. During the Boxer's Rebellion people stopped bullets with it.

[Royal Dragon]

Basically it is a conditioning system that hardens your body against impacting blows. If trained properly, it's there whether you "Charge up" or not. If you know your going to do something extrodinary, like break a pile of briks or something, your going to take a moment to collect yourself before you do it. This is what your seeing when you say they are bringing up thier Chi. It's the same thing you see when a gymnast takes a few moments to prepare for a difficult tumbling run before she tears of into it.

Is it usefull? Think about it this way, your i a fight, and someone slips a few shots through. Do you want to have the cconditioning nessasary to weather the blow and keep going, or do you want to fold and have ribs broken?

As for Iron Hand, the training of Kung Fu develops tremendious hitting power. You realy do need it to keep from breaking your hand when you hit. It's worth it for the injury prevention if nothing else. All the brick breaking is just for fun.

[Former castleva]

For a modern,average man in modern,average times...
I think it´s about as useful as repeatedly slamming your hands into hard,inanimate material to get "iron palm(s)" or whatever you´re after.And at times it may not be easy to say whether harm is greater than benefit.
Just imo,in terms of practicality.

Ford Perfect has it.
They stopped bullets,even though they eventually had to stop themselves.

[David Jamieson]

Hard Chi Kung will toughen you up some and will allow you to recover from strikes faster.

It does this by conditioning the physical body through methods, by conditioning the mind and by restoring and strengthening the chi flow in your body.

an example would be an increase in shen chi (upright chi) that is to say, the chi the keeps your organs supple yet with tension so they do not collapse onto themselves from force of gravity.

(it's much more than that, but as an example...)

Practical use of iron skills can indeed be very handy for health enhancement as well as protective and defensive chi development.

It's not for everyone and everyone who starts it may or may not continue with it. But that can be said of anything really.

cheers

[Judge Pen]

I've been doing iron hand and iron shin training for about a year now and I can tell a difference sparring. If I block a kick shin to shin it does not hurt me near as much as the other guy and I seem to heal faster. My punches seems to be more effective to the point I really need to be careful in that I don't realize I am hitting someone as hard as I really am. Anyway, that's my experience.

As for Boxers and bullets; I thought the Boxers were not trained martial artists but religious zealots who thought that bullets would not hurt them through becasue of their faith. Am I wrong on this?

[j-himself]

Judge Pen,

what does your training of iron body incorporates? I know how to get hard shins, so i'm more interested in the iron fist training. Would u mind sharing some of the exercise you do? Is there any qi exercises, or do you simply just keep pound your hand against a wall?

BTW, does that really work? Is there any other things u can do to strengthen your wrist and hand overall, so you wont break it?

[Former castleva]

Judge,
Boxers might have been zealots of some sort,but they were martial arts zealots nonetheless.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by j-himself
Judge Pen,

what does your training of iron body incorporates? I know how to get hard shins, so i'm more interested in the iron fist training. Would u mind sharing some of the exercise you do? Is there any qi exercises, or do you simply just keep pound your hand against a wall?

BTW, does that really work? Is there any other things u can do to strengthen your wrist and hand overall, so you wont break it?

I do qigong, but not for the iron hand training. That comes from other forms and sets.

My iron hand training consists of multiple strikes against a wood block with knuckle, side hand and palm. 150 to 200 strikes per type with the application of jow afterward. I also incorporate isometric tension exercises to strengthen my wrists.

As for if it works, Pan Qingfu will strike a piece of iron 1000 times a day. He has ugly hands, but I wouldn't want to get hit by it.

Does anyone train differently?

[j-himself]

first of, whats a jow?

2nd. when u throw a straight punch (say a jab) on the wooden block, do you punch as you'd punch a punching bag? Cuz i've tried that, and i have to say, it hurts.
so, how do you punch?

and what about doing push ups on the knuckles?

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Judge,
Boxers might have been zealots of some sort,but they were martial arts zealots nonetheless.

You may be right. I was thinkning of a former thread where Ben Gash said:


"The majority of participants in the Boxer Rebellion were not martial artists. None of them believed that Iron body Qigong would protect them from gunfire.
They were in fact what are known as "spirit boxers" and believed that they were possessed by spirits. They believed that THIS would protect them from the gunfire. This is really a tragic tale of how people (most of them uneducated rural people) were manipulated to meet the goals of others."

After this quote the general consensus was that the boxers would have won had they remebered to wear their cool glasses.

[Former castleva]

Yes,yes.If they only had cool glasses on... lol

They had this MA of their own I believe.

Without doubt they were manipulated I agree,those were harsh times under shaky control.

edit:
Welcome.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by j-himself
first of, whats a jow?

2nd. when u throw a straight punch (say a jab) on the wooden block, do you punch as you'd punch a punching bag? Cuz i've tried that, and i have to say, it hurts.
so, how do you punch?

and what about doing push ups on the knuckles?

Jow is herbal treatment to facilitate healing and the help with the toughing of the hands. You can buy it on the interest, but I don't have any experience with those jows. My sifu makes the batches for us and I don't have the complete ingrediant list.

We don't hit with full force. Lighter blows designed to condition gradually. It is a tedious process. Hard enough to sting a bit, but not too hard to risk injury. As you progress you should be able to hit harder.

Push ups on the knuckles are another way to toughen the hands and wrists. I don't do as much of that, however.

Hope that this helps.

[Sho]

I remember reading from my history book that the Boxers were namely martial artists and that they acquired their western name, Boxers, from their fighting skills.

[Richie]

Judge is right. Most of them werent martial artists. There are books and videos about it. The history channel also had a specia about it. Very few knew hard chi gung. Their power was through their faith. If the bullets killed one of them, that person wasnt a true believer.