Hi All,
There are a lot of liniments (such as Tiger Balm, Wood Lock, Eagle Brand Oil, Zheng Gui Shui, Kwan Loong) for treating various aches, pains and aliments. Just wanted to know if anyone has a favourite or one that they feel works best, either for a specific problem or as an all-round treatment. 
Cheers,
liniments…
Vlad,
You raise a nice point here.
What is it you wish to treat with your liniment/salve/balm/etc.???
Most of the oil based liniments (woodlock, kwon loong, white flower, green oil, eagle, etc.)contain methyl salicylate as their primary ingredient - this is a derivative of aspirin. These products also contain a variety of other substances such as wintergreen oil, menthol, peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil, etc.
Most of these substances work as a topical irritant and pain killer. In other words, they provide strong local stimulation to mask pain.
This is quite different than a traditional die da jiu (dit da jow) which shouldn’t provide any particular sensation when being applied (except for a slight cooling sensation as the alchol evaporates). What you should notice with traditional die da jiu is that your pain just seems to disappear. It’s not masked by local stimulus, instead the obstruction of qi and blood is moved by the medicinal nature of the substances in the liniment and your pain is gone.
Tong Ze Bu Tong, Ze Tong Bu Tong. Where there is pain there is no flow, where there is flow there is no pain.
Zheng Gu Shui is a mix between a traditional liniment and the oils. It contains some topical stimulants as well as some herbs. A bit more of a happy medium in my opinion but still not as good as traditional formulas.
In general, with these products the topical stimulants are added to make up for the lack of strong medicinals within the substance.
Personally, I keep a bottle of Po Sum On at home but have yet to use it on any of my patients. To be fair, however, I do know plenty of people that are happy with things like woodlock oil, white flower, etc. They make people feel good but I just feel there is always a lesson in the pain and more to treating it than just masking the symptoms…
regards,
Justin
vlad
i will be selling dit dar medicine soon, if you need any iron palm, chi kung, general dit dar jow for bruises etc let us know.
do you use the supermarket brands or does your school sell you dit dar jow? 
peace
buying and selling die da jiu
Fiercest Tiger’s comments brings up an interesting topic about liniments. However, please don’t take my comments as being directed towards him. These are just some general comments to consider before purchasing die da jiu from somewhere.
First, what is the background of the person and their formula(s)? How is the liniment made (there are many ways)? What is it made of (not only the herbs that are in it, but also what type of substrate are the herbs soaked in)? Is it pure or is the liniment diluted? These are just general questions but the person you buy from should be able to answer every question. EVERY QUESTION.
This leads me to a more important issue that I find quite annoying. Secrecy. There is a very long history of secrecy in the martial arts on many levels. This includes medicine. SO many people say my lineage’s liniment is the best, it has this really special and powerful herb in it that no one else uses.
Guess what - in just one of my books on hit medicine there are over 1000 formulas. Are they all the best? There are formulas that are more appropriate for certain types of training and which do contain stronger or more toxic herbs. This isn’t always better. What you will see after studying a large cross-spectrum of formulas is how similar they all are. The differences are minimal and more often then not are only due to the fact they come from different areas of China where not all herbs were historically available.
Someone should be able to tell you what each herb does, why it is in the formula, and how that relates to the way you use that particular formula. They should also be able to warn you about any toxic herbs (yes, we use A LOT of them in die da) and about any possible side-effects, safety isses, etc.
The next issue is related to the previous. What is the training of the person selling it? Do they really understand how to use hit medicine as it relates to martial arts training? I’m not saying they must be a doctor of TCM, but traditionally they would have been trained by their sifu on how to use the medicine as well as how to make it. If they sell die da jiu for iron palm or some other specific type of training ask about their training in that area and how their liniment facilitates that training.
In general if a person can’t answer these questions I would tend to question their knowledge and the quality of their products. If they won’t answer these questions then I would tend not to trust them and not buy their products on principle. This is just my personal opinion.
Hit medicine is complex but it’s not magic. Chinese medicine is very systematic. Find someone that will teach you. Even if you don’t want to learn at least you’ll know they’re less likely to be hiding something from you.
I could go on more about this but I think I’ve covered the main points.
Feel free to contact me directly with any specific questions.
cheers,
Justin