Originally posted by phantom I don’t mean to offend you mmaers, for I really like mma myself. However, I think some of the conditioning methods advocated by martial sports will do you more harm than good in the long run.
like what? running? lifting weights? sparring? calesthenics? It’s just like CMA conditiong - when done properly, it’s fine, but if done wrong, you can injure yourself.
I tend to think that having somebody drop a medicine ball on your stomach is not good for you. Look at the average life span of professional boxers and it just has to make you wonder if that kind of training takes years off of your life.
It’s not the training at all - it’s the competition. they fight and are constantly taking shots. If there was a venue for full contact wing chun, for example, and it reached the level of competiton that boxing has, then you would see similar results.
I am not sure if having somebody whack you with a thai pad into your stomach is a good idea, either. The chinese martial arts do a better job of taking into consideration the possible ill effects of conditioning and they protect the practitioner’s health from them, imho. I welcome any constructive criticism about this. Peace.
I’m not sure I want to take a chance on iron palm, as it can have adverse effects when improperly done. Doesn’t the same apply to golden bell and most other forms of conditioning? just like a good sifu will show you the proper way to do something, so will a good coach.
They say that for some reason, there’s a lot of pyschological effects. One of them is that your mind goes through basically every bad moment in your life and relives it.
Remember getting beat up and picked on in 2nd grade? You’ll relive it.
Remember that first girl you had a crush on that broke your heart? You’ll relive it.
Ever lose a friend or loved one, deal with depression, feel suicidal, etc? Yeah, you’ll relive that too.
They do say that once you go through it your psyche will heal itself, but that’s a little too intense for me.
Oh no way!! Hmmm… OK, I’ll have to confess that I had trained in Iron Shirt about 8 years ago… was really into it and regular. I also started following chikung exercises from Mantak Chia and read through a couple of Yang Jwing Ming’s books. So I was pretty much along the path to training up to Golden Bell.
Interestingly enough, I DID start getting flashbacks of uncomfortable times from my past. Was very unusual. I really didn’t think much of it, other than feeling I had some issues when I was younger and was only then really able to deal with them.
Anyways, I only trained regularly along that path for about 18months before normal life stuff reduced my training time. I haven’t done any real chi work since, beyond basic chi circulation exercises, meditations and some taichi.
I think the idea that a little bit of iron palm training makes for a deadly kung fu killer is one of the things that gives kung fu training for fighting a bad name.
I have rarely seen anyone go through the training (diet and chi kung included) long enough to really learn to generate the power to make a slap or a finger poke powerful, yet they think they have.
yet they train techniques that I think were originally developed, and valid at the time, for chinese fighters whose life was fighting/bodyguarding/caravan guarding. So, they did have the time to train these things to the level needed to be effective with it.
I understand what you mean by training regularly enough to make a difference. In my particular case I happened to train rather diligently for about 18 months and it did make a difference. My skin definately thickened up, yet retained flexibility and smoothness. I worked out with heavy weights quite a bit back then, too, and despite not using gloves, I never developed the calluses that the other weightlifters had… something I attribute to the iron palm training (my previous heavy weight training prior to iron palm training DID leave me w/calluses rather quickly).
But yah, most of the guys I knew who took the same iron training courses didn’t train as often as I and didn’t follow the diet and meditations and medicines.
I do intend to being iron training again, since its one of the things I do still remember after the years of inactivity. The diet may be a bit more difficult nowadays, considering where I’ve moved to. I haven’t found any reliable information on ordering medicines over the internet yet, but am researching what’s available.
Oso, I understand, I didn’t take it as such. My response was more of an illustration of my experiences, including support of your observation (since I observed the same thing with most of those who were in the initial training with me).
I didn’t get lazy or anything…instead I ended up traveling quite a bit, which really reduced the amount of time I had to train. Then I ended up with the responsibility of a family, etc… Basically life hit me ::
Now I’m finding I’m able to find time to train again. My challenge being the sole practitioner (that I can find) in the area.
The key is what kung lek said, without preventative medicine, which is what mmaers do not use when they are conditioning. I have heard that some muay thai people use a thai liniment, although some people claim that it is not as good as dit da jow, I don’t know if it is or not. There was once an article in Tae Kwon Do Times magazine that talked about how many karate people of old who regurlarly hit a makiwara died from cancer at fairly young ages. Perhaps if they had used herbal medicines in their training, they would not have gotten cancer. I certainly don’t disagree with you guys about taking head shots contributing to taking years off of a person’s life though. Peace.
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