internal iron palm training

Can anyone tell me what internal iron palm training consist of Also, any sites on this

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Iron Palm mainly consists of crushing blows delivered by the palms only. I myself do a type of iron palm in the shaolin system I'm learning. I can try to find some sites...

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Nick Tien

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi

Thank you Nick.

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There are various types of Iron Palm training, and just like other martial arts it consists of levels. The one I am learning, the Internal Iron Palm, consists of 10 levels. I'm only on the first, but I know others who are beginning the 4th level.

With this ability one is able to gather chi within his hands and use it to deliver powerful strikes that can channel the energy through a targets outer shell. If you've ever seen Bloodsport (first of all I'm sorry for you), but when Van Damm breaks the bottom brick, that's an Iron Palm inspired break.

Also, with this technique you are NOT just restricted to palm strikes, but any with the hand and eventually more. You're training the whole hand, but its actually more powerful (scientifically proven) to strike open handed than closed fisted.

If you'd like some more info you can visit our school's website at www.dokungfu.com
click on the Headquarter School In Winston-Salem link
then Click on the Internal Iron Palm link

Hope that helps!

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"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell

THANK YOU FOR THE INFO

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I thought about posting our page but I waant shure if I should or not. You can also check out some of the stuff from Wing Lam, I hear its pretty good.

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" Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed." -Sun Tzu

Hey Fuzzy - I'm definately no expert on iron palm, but have trained internal for a while and went through a stage of doing a lot of "condititoning" exercises for the hands and forearms. A lot of this was because I was taking a tui na and de da sun sang (bonesetting) course with my instructor (massage, acupressure, joint and limb manipulation) and you need to develop strong hands, and also be more aware of the flow of your own energy - the exercises he showed me were great for this and they were probably similar to iron palm training in a lot of ways.

Most of the exercises consisted of sitting in a low horse stance in front of a steel tub filled with fairly coarse sand (as with iron palm training, the sand becomes coarser the more you train). You then carry out various conditioning forms, trying to use your whole body to perform the exercises (as in the internal forms). The exercises I did consisted of rising and falling - slapping the inside and outside of your hands onto the sand, piercing - forming your hands into eagle claws and "poking" them into the sand (again using your whole body to move), drilling - actually putting your hands into the sand and then sinking them deeper into the sand and spiralling in and together at the same time and pounding - as per piercing but with fists. These and a few others (more difficult to describe) formed the basis. The training also consisted of lots of standing meditation, adopting various hand shapes - borrowed a lot from the element fists of hsing-i, the palms of bagua and some animal shapes too.

As with any conditioning of this sort it's really important to get hold of some GOOD dit da jow, too (I was lucky, my grandmaster makes his own).

I got some fairly good results from doing this for about a year, I still do it, but not as frequently. If you speak to iron palm stylists, they'll tell you that to really progress, you will probably have to stop your other training and just do this for the rest of your life (mmmhh, fun).

Anyway, hope this helped a bit - but you'll probably do better to listen to someone who specialises in this sort of thing.

If you talk to an Iron Palm stylist they WILL NOT tell you to drop everything else and only do iron palm, thats absurd. What good is Iron Palm if you can't apply it Yes you must do it everyday and maintain a regimine but its definately not going to be the only thing you do.

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" Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed." -Sun Tzu

This is very true. The iron palm is a sort of bonus to augment your martial training. You can think of it like this, how effective are bullets without a gun

You musn't quit former training at all, just like when you learn more advanced techniques and forms in class you can not neglect to practice the basics.

__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell

Sorry, probably a bit of an over-statement. Just trying to say that iron palm takes a lot of time and dedication. - You've probably heard the comparison of training iron palm to rowing a boat against a very strong current - if you stop, you actually lose what you've gained. I didn't mean to upset anyone with my absurdity.

but there are iron palm pratitioners who don't train in anything else apart from iron palm, believing that the art is enough in itself. To attain the level of these guys, you're going to have to spend a lot of time training iron palm - impossible if you train another style too (unless you live in a monastery and don't have a job). For a true iron palm martial artist, iron palm is their art, not a means of conditioning their hands to supplement another art.

As I stated in my previous post though, I'm no expert. Is there anyone on the board who does train iron palm exclusively

I'm unfamiliar with the analogy of rowing against a current. Benefits from practicing the internal iron palm supposedly stay with you for the rest of your life even if you do not continually practice (once completing the first level that is). Now you are advised to continue to practice iron palm to maintain higher levels of the strength attained, but it honestly does not take a LONG time to do, just something you have to make time for everyday.

But then again, that's what I have been taught. Its possible that there are other methods, but I trust the source of my Sifu since all his credentials are documented and verified.

__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell

There are very few if any people practicing Iron Palm without also studying some other form of martial arts. You can't train in Iron Palm all day long because it would be overdoing it and could cause some pretty bad damage. From my understanding in the temples most do their Iron Palm three times a day, a period during the morning, noon and night. Well the guys I know doing Iron Palm do it once in the morning, afternoon , and at night and what I've seen Im very impressed with.

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" Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed." -Sun Tzu

Morning, yup, you guys are right. Did a little reading and very few people train iron palm exclusively - live and learn.

Those that do most often have also trained in another style first. Also, those that do do it exclusively, often lose dexterity in their hands and fingers (I suppose it depends on how often and how hard they're training) - The boat analogy is more for traditional "external" iron palm training too - I don't really know the difference, but I'm guessing it's more of an external, bone and skin type of conditioning than the sort of thing I've been doing. I did find out, however, that iron plam does exist as a complete art by itself, with striking drills etc- similar to wing chun in some ways I think, but I have no way of finding out whether this is a recent art or not. I can't imagine much sparring happening in this style!

I'm interested, what sort of results have you guys obtained from training iron palm or witnessed others demonstrating Was reading about one old-school Chinese master who had amazing penetrative power, but had worked his hands to the point where he couldn't pick up a coin lying on a flat surface!

I've met three really good Master's in my area that teach the same system of Iron Palm (all from the same school) so I've had a chance to meet many Iron Palm practitioners. I've seen single and double brick breaks, penetration strikes, and I've been nocked back from a soft strike on the opposite side of the punching bag I was holding.The common thing in all these people though was the softness of thier hands. They weren't callused or bruised, the skin isnt rough, the bones aren't chipped away, and they have optimum strenght (in all parts of thier bodies) and health. For many it has even helped cure arthritis in the hands. This isnt to say however that the external method is bad, I shure wouldnt want to get hit with it. I'm just stating that "Iron Palms" isnt the only upside of Iron Palm training of the internal kind. From what I know many of these systems hae "striking sets" like you were referring to. Some also have a set of chi gung exercises and forms.

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" Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed." -Sun Tzu

I've met different sifu and students who practice iron palm internal and external.

Like MonkeyFist said i was impressed by the hands of the internal iron palm sifu.Their hands were really soft almost like a womans hands,but when they flexed their hand it became hard as a rock.

The sifu i met that practiced external iron palm hand was much darker than the other.It was very hard looking full of calluse ,and he was not really able to use it.It was nothing more than a club he could not grip anything with it.

external iron palm is not practiced much these days because of the loss of use in the hand.

Thats what i was told by my sifu's who practice iron palm.
jmd161

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