conditioning and sensitivity

[mad taoist]

Ok, a few different teachers I know are against physical arm conditioning with the rationale that it destroys sensitivity, as in toui shou and chi sao sensitivity.

What's your guys take ?

[Ish]

i think that i get enough conditioning from using a wooden dummy cos you dont realy need to condition yourself too much. I agree that too much would reduce your sensitivity so i guess that could be another reason why i dont bother

[mantis-1]

We do a lot of conditioning in CG SPM esspecially the arms...but we also rely a lot on sensitivity, it depends how you condition and what type of sensitivity...if you train in a style that does a lot of destruction, ie breaking boards etc then the build up of hard dead skin and deadened nerves occurs. We condition against each other (as in striking each others arms, palms,wrists etc), this way it is built up slowly and none of the sensitivity is lost.We do also use bags with various fillings mung beans sand etc but you have to condition against an object with give to avoid damaging yourself, slowly build this up changing the fillings as you progress...but we have always been told never use anything that has no give (I have noticed that following the correct lines in the forms helps to condition aswell), even a bag filled with shot will give a little, and after use some dit da jow.

[Savage Knight]

I'll second the above, but whatever you use, take conditioning slowly. Never go to the point where you actually become bruised. Yes, it can take years before you're properly conditioned.
Oh, and you can never be too conditioned. :)

Adam

[mad taoist]

thanks guys ..... my teacher and this other wing chun teacher I know are against conditioning the arms .... and then I have 2 friends who do southern tong long (in another country) who have hard as iron, sensitive arms.

Cheers !

[BSH]

It's the Internal vs. External arguement. I think it is Master Lee in Canada who conditions his hand by hitting steel everyday. He has built up massive calouses to protect his hands. Very external. My Sifu trains us with an extremely heavy bag made of canvas. Our conditioning involves Dit Da Jow which gives us the protection our hands need without the calouses.

The same thing when we do arm conditioning. We keep our sensitivity, but our arms are very conditioned.

My thought is that if you can condition without loosing sensitivy, what is the negative??

[TaoBoy]

Conditioning is very important and - if done correctly - will not adversely affect the sensitivity of the hands/arms.

I train/teach a Southern Mantis stlye, we do a lot of conditioning. As mentioned previously - by mantis-1 - it is generally trained with a partner. It is always trained in order to condition the arms not to damage them.

After this person-to-person training, we move to log training. Again, the object is not to destroy the arm. The practitioner must let go of the ego and do only as much as is required. Over time the student has iron arms.

We practice chi sao religiously at the higher levels. My instructor has amazing chi sao ability and is from the old school of conditioning [very hard], his sensitivity is unbelievable.

It is all a matter of how you train.
Always respect yourself!