I have some tapes from the wing lam series with one of them being a 2 man set. I noticed that allot of the strikes seem to rely on the iron palm technique. For instance the way they block down with a “slap of the palm” also the backhand strike performed with an open hand.
I now these techniques can be effective without the iron palm but my question is, is the bak sil lum school relient on the iron palm, meaning is the iron palm the key to “unlock” the effectiveness of the system?
Good Observation
Shaolindynasty,
Good observation but wrong conclusion.
NSL is a very versatile style and one would expect the use of a variety palm techniques. Do you know of any CMA style that limited itself to just fist strikes? If any style relied on the Iron Palms as ‘the key to its style’, then the number of techniques would not be as deep as in NSL, rather they would be very plain, simple, direct and straight forward.
Think about it…why kick and use a lot of energy lifting your leg when you could just use your iron palms and use less energy but strike as powerful as a kick?
The ‘key to NSL’ is the Theory of Time and Energy.
Hahaha, not saying that BSL is limited. Although I see how you could get that from my post. I guess this is a better way to put it, KYC was famous for his iron palm technique right? Well i was curious if he intentionally put certain moves in the sytem like those listed above to specifically utilize this tool. Sort of like without it you will still be feective but with it you will have an even greater advantage.
Allot of schools train iron palm but BSL seems to have actually taken this into acount when KYC created the techniques.
To quote my BSL sifu Wing Lam…
“(BSL) without iron palm is like a gun without bullets.”
Personally, I don’t agree with this and side with Northern Shaolin’s stance above, but I do concur that the way Sifu Wing Lam trains, iron palm is critical to the effectiveness of his BSL.
That’s intersting.
The teachings I was given in BSL included Iron Palm as supplemental training, or rather “augmentation” training.
It went hand in hand with the overall training.
peace
Wing Lam doesn’t teach sparring in BSL anymore
He used to, but not anymore. So the only actually striking his most recent generation of BSLers do is Iron Palm, the sparring set and some basic blocking drills. This makes iron palm critical to his curriculum.
hi.
if possible could u tell why he no longer does the sparring, whatis teh reasoningbehind his change of mind. do his hung gar students do free fighting still?
thanks
No sparring at Wing Lam? Wow, you’d think with the advent of MMA, he’d be doing MORE sparring.
good question
I think Sifu Wing Lam stopped sparring for to reasons. The main one is that he personally has moved more into internal training, so in his own practice, he is more into push hands now. Now I should qualify this and mention that some of his students do spar, but this is done on our own time. Wing Lam doesn’t coach, or offer lesson in it anymore. The second reason was a run of bad luck - the last time he taught sparring, we had a bunch of us get injured in quick succession. Nothing serious, a few dislocated fingers, I took a blow to the knee which had me on a cane for a week or two, this was back in the very late 80’s. But it really knocked a lot of us out of practice at the same time and it was just when we had moved to the new school, which was a big investment. So that was a little crazy and I thinki it turned him off of it for a while. Wing Lam was never into padded sparring at all.
Interesting. Does he allow use of the facillities for you guys to sparr? or when you do it on your own, do you need to find your own place for that?
I’m NOT a certified BSL practitioner, but I can offer my take on the “iron palm” in the sets.
Any time I see an “iron palm”, I allow myself to make the hand into any shape I wish depending on the combat circumstance.
For example, the Tan Tui line 6 has a “Single Whip” type of motion with that iron palm shooting out linearly from a reverse position after a low frontal arm sweep.
When I’m in combat, I’ll use that lead arm sweep to pin the guy’s guard down (my arm across his chest) and GRAB whatever I can of the opponent (e.g. throat, eye, ear, head, etc . . .)
As a fighter, I’ve thrown that iron palm with limited success. I’m only 5’4" and 130, so I don’t have much mass or leverage to inflict damage even on smaller opponents. Similarly, I’ve taken some pretty hard direct Iron Palm style hits from guys a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier and not even had a bruise afterwards.
Hence I find the grasping aspects of Iron Palm more useful to me than the striking ones.
rd & hkv
rd- Yeah, we can use the facilities, as long as there isn’t another class going on. We found our own places too. 
hkv- I’m not a certified BSl practitioner either. 
This message is kind of off topic!
I only recently started learning BSL and my sifu has told me that there are two way in training iron palm. And when you do train in iron palm the fingers and palms starts to callous and something about the finger widdening. In the end losing all sensation from your hands.
So how do you guys deal with it? or is it all different?
the 6th line in my Tam Tui is all fists but what you mentioned does sound like the 4th line in my Tam Tui where one arm sweeps with the hand in a crane, and the palm strikes out with focus on the heal of the palm to make contact. I think…
IP
You’re not supposed to lose sensation. And there are many, many ways to train iron palm. They are all mostly variations on the same.
FWIW, I saw a new variation in this Hidden Qi DVD The master trained IP by jabbing his fingers in a bucket of mung beans (typical) but he added hot peppers. Then he jabbed his fingers into a bucket of rusty nuts and bolts. He probably lost some sensation…
Gene… I’ve got that video too… I saw him doing that & just had to say not for me…
These are some great posts about Northern practice.
From my humble point of view I’d say Iron Palm is an integral component of the style but the style is not necessarily reliant upon it. The style is built upon very powerful geometries aligned through the body.
Ku was a phenomenal exception among men. There have been many great Northern teachers and practitioners from this line yet no one has yet to have duplicated the level of Ku?s legendary skills. (the one’s who imagine they have should take their ego for a walk, haha!)The content of the training forms however contains the essence of all of the great Master?s learning’s. If I have learned anything form practicing this style it is that the Iron Palm is manifest only when striking with the entire body in a harmonious, coordinated effort.
Thank you all for your postings and keep them coming.
Peace
Lokhopkuen
sean
I know what you mean. I love that scene where he’s coming home and slamming his hands into the cement walls of his housing complex. I mean, really, what do his neighbors think? What are you going to do, yell at him to keep it down. He’d slap you silly. 
Actually I have that same habit as him. I walk around my office building slapping the walls. They’re marble. At my kwoon after warming up I slap the floor a good bit as I’m running thru basic stretches.
I thought the scooter over the belly though a bit over the top.
What got really over the top for me was Master Tu’s “Schlong Qi Gong”. 
(Sorry Master Tu) The guys lifting a couple of hundred pounds/kilos with their units… not me… :eek:
sean
Boy I bet you’re real popular at the office. Here comes slappy Sean!
And for the record, the iron crotch master in the DVD is not our iron crotch master Tu - it’s his brother, master Tu. It’s a family style.
Getting back to Iron Palm practice.
I have always been lead to understand that there is the -indirect- and -direct- methods.
each of these of course will have sub sections.
But in short, indirect is starting with the mung bean bag, graduating to river stone and finally to Iron shot. Starting with a falling hand technique and culminating with actual striking of the bag from shifting horse and bow&arrow stances.
Followed up with dit da jow after -x- amounts of strikes per hand and per hand form. fwiw, there are many types of jow from light liniments to heavy herbals that break up blood stasis via increased blood flow and pain killing. This method when done correctly will not cause damage, loss of sensation or even callousing.
The -direct- method is where a bin or large urn is filled with mung beans and spear hands are thrust into the beans, then clutched and squeezed. When the beans have become dust, they are replaced with riverstone and the process is continued until the rivers stones are broken. The stones are when the urn is heated from beneath, the muing beans in the urn are not heated. The drying of the stones from the heat will cause them to break down a bit as well.
Once the stone sessions are done, the steel shot or iron shot is filling the urn now and the process continues. the shot is heated and this process is carried on for -x- amount of time until ready for the final mixture which is iron filings. Heated from below, the filings are sharp and the hands can get a little bit cut if the previous process has not been carried out correctly. THis indirect method is the method which often leads to callouses, loss of sensation and other negative effects. But the effect is quicker to achieve than the indirect method. The indirect method can be used to maintain and sustain the Iron Palm. There are other methods to sustain and maintain the Iron Palm as well such as water palm exercises, mook jong exercises and various other methods to essentially maintain that which you have developed through the practice of the method.
I myself prefer and use the indirect method and occaisionally test it for maintenance reasons with some simple breaking tests.
Can’t say that I have ever killed a horse though
I wouldn’t want to.
A small word of advice for those who would try this method of training.
-BE CAREFUL AROUND CHILDREN AND FRAIL PEOPLE WHEN YOU TOUCH THEM-
Also be careful in how you shake hands with people. You may not realize just how much hand strength you have and you can indeed hurt somebody with no intention of doing so. The slow building of the process is what makes you a little unaware of how much you have progressed.
Be aware as well that these methods will take the better part of a year to get to the beginning of the intermediate levels.
cheers