Bruises

[batesy]

This is really a follow on from a point Sam Wiley made in the dim mak thread. I practice a fair amount of arm conditioning as part of bagua training. This results in a reasonable bit of bruising to my forrarms, which I use Zheng Gui Shui from a TCM doctor to treat. However, I was told by my teacher once that bruising on the arms (or anywhere I guess) can be bad news in terms of energy movement/damage to the meridian system. Any thoughts folks?

[Chris McKinley]

You were told right. And btw, why would practicing Baguazhang be the source of the "fair amount of arm conditioning" you are doing? It's not an art known for that kind of thing normally. What you are doing sounds more like it belongs to Hung Gar than any internal art if you're regularly receiving bruises which need to be treated.

[Cody]

In a realistic martial environment, one eventually works to condition the body to blows, internally and externally. That is missing from the T'ai Chi (for that is what I have been exposed to) classes I've been part of. Yet, when I initiated contact in form applications, the teacher encouraged it. And, I had bruises too. That teacher also had people who could take a punch, put on the gloves. Energy work provides a primary source of protection from incoming, but nothing substitutes for the plain ol fashioned hit. It has to be done eventually, and I feel it is best to start very gradually.

batesy, you might be hitting too hard too soon. You might also be prone to bruising and that can be worked on, both internally and externally. It is definitely something that cannot be run roughshod over; you have to work with it, as you are trying to do. Zheng Gui Shui is something I have used, but moved on to other formulas made by teachers I had at the time when I was studying the so-called external arts. With progress, you might find that sometimes you bruise a lot and others, with the same blow pressure, nothing happens. It takes a lot of work. I wish you well.

Cody

[Sam Wiley]

You shouldn't be getting bruises from conditioning training. Sounds like you are doing things a bit harder than you should. Conditioning should be built up over time, not plunged into headlong. Try and do things a bit softer and take things a bit slower. And try and avoid bone on bone contact.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Bruising is inevitable, it's part of the process.. Caring for the bruising is another part of the process, the balance of healing.. When we are training for contact, first we apply Dit Da Jow to the surfaces to be trained.. massaging in a generous amount.. Then, after training we do the same, but massage away from the heart .. this pushes out stasis (stagnant blood which forms bruises).. Additionally, over time the Dit Da Jow (depending on the formula) transforms the tissue, making it more resilient and resistent to bruising.. Formulas are usually highly guarded family secrets, but occasionally the Teacher reveals it to a "worthy" student.. If you are so fortunate, brew 2 five gallon batches.. one can be used after the first year.. the second to be used after the first is depleted (+/- 7-10 years).. the second is liquid gold.. my second batch will be 10 years old this October, it is priceless in its healing abilities.. For serious bruising, like bone bruising, first apply Zheng Gu Shui.. this opens up the pores.. then +/- 5 minutes later apply Dit Da Jow, massage away from the Heart and.. moisten some cotton gauze and wrap it over the injury for 2-3 hours..

Can bruising affect the flow of Chi?.. absolutely !!.. Can we treat the injury and minimize this effect?.. Indeed.. More importantly, with proper guidance we can do both.. we can train the body AND greatly minimize the chances of bruising.. Those that race up the mountain are prone to many falls.. the slow steady pace usually wins the race.. (or at least feels better when at the top)..

Be well, do good deeds (deeds define us)..

[EARTH DRAGON]

Excellent advice fom both sam and taichi bob, I would do as they suggested and you should have better results. And If may I would like to add from a medical point of view if you are still experienceing brusing with the above advice try increasing the amount of daily intake of iron. Just 10 miligrams of iron perday will alevieate blood stagnation and speed up pre stagnated blood. This will definaty help your problem.....

[batesy]

Thanks for the replies guys. In answer to the question why am I getting bruised in the first place, I came to bagua from studying wing chun & Choi Lay Fut, I still like to do the knocking arms drills now and again but will take the pro-offered advice and slow down on the conditioning. Thanks again, good luck.

[dfedorko@mindspring.com]

What you need to do is find a good liniment. And you need to put it on before, during and after the forearm training. The liniment will keep the chi flowing and, hopefully, you won't bruise too badly. Train well.

Damian

[Repulsive Monkey]

There is another possibility that no one has covered yet. You may in fact be doing the conditioning correctly yet just have some Spleen Qi deficiency where it controls the blood in the body. If this is the case then one of the classic symptoms is that one bruises very easily. If this is the case (and I do say IF) then the training maybe fine but your Spleen needs a little pepping up a bit. Spleen Qi deficiencies are mainly due to dampness via damp forming foods or just too many cold/uncooked and raw foods, and or damp evnvironments.

[batesy]

Repulsive Monkey,
Thanks for the post. My TCM doctor blames an excess of damp in my system for my asthma. Do you think this could link to the spleen? I'm afraid that my knowledge of TCM is a little limited. I am taking herbs designed to to dry out the excess damp. I have asked my doctor about dit da jow, she maintains that zheng gui shui will do the trick, do you agree?
Cheers

[dfedorko@mindspring.com]

batesy -

I am not a bagua practitioner but I had Wing Chun training. While training in Wing Chun, the Master would bring out the jow for forearm training. We would apply the jow before, during and after training. I am surprised that your Master does not pass out the jow/give you a recipe to make your own. He should have a good recipe. What you need is a jow that is good for the circulation of chi/blood. I am not a doctor but the Zheng Gu Shui is an external analgesic lotion that does nothing for circulation. Besides that I will bet you a cup of green tea that the Zheng Gu Shui is in a plastic bottle. No matter how good the Zhen Gu Shui is, its potency has been taken away being in a plastic bottle. If it is in a glass bottle then it is good stuff.

Find a Hung or Iron Palm practitioner and they should be able to help you get the Jow you require in your training. Best of luck to you.

[taijiquan_student]

We practice banging arms, inside and outside of he forearm, and banging legs, on the ligament next to the shin lower down on the outside of the leg, and the ligament on the back of the leg down low, above the achilles tendon. I'm told the way we bang arms is different from the Shaolin way of banging arms, although I haven't practiced or seen the Shaolin way, so I'm going with trusting my teacher on this one.

We don't use any jow for the banging arms and legs. After the conditioning we have certain ways to massage the arms and legs to bring the blood back to the heart, and away too, down into the arms. I have never gotten any trouble or a single bruise or lingering pain from the training, except a couple times when I hit bone by accident.

We do, however have a jow that is in a glass bottle with no label or anything that my teacher got while in China (I recall him saying he got it from some taoists at laoshan or at least somewhere around laoshan/qingdao, but I could very well be mistaken). We use the jow for any particularly nasty bruises or injuries sustained from sanshou practice, but not for the arm and leg tendon and ligament conditioning.

[bamboo_ leaf]

My arms don’t or haven’t bused in a long time. Nor do I feel much if any pain when I did practice three star or five star hitting among other things.

At one time I used to pride myself on having iron forearms now I can see this was not really that good for my body.

I don’t do it now nor would I recommend it to anyone. This type of conditioning is called the direct method, most people like it because the result is very evident. But as you noted it is very hard on the body.

There is another way :) if you practice a lot of standing or play a lot of TC you will find that your arms become very pliable and can neutralize the blow very fast, this will result in the other receiving their own power back.

Many don’t believe this but in my experience I have found that with some high level players of TC hitting them unexpectedly actually hurts you more then it dose anything to them.

there are many reasons for this but the basic one is that by being relaxed and aligned the force tends to bounce back instead of being absorbed. Maybe bounced is not such a good word redirected might be more descriptive.

Anyway if you play the direct way some good jow, should take care of any burses.

[Nexus]

bamboo_leaf, excellent post (that being the one before this one). As I have learned, all of the tai chi development I have experienced has been completely internally focussed. My teacher when I asked him about iron palm training explained his belief that the same results could be achieved through internal training rather than beating on trees. I too have experienced the results of high level tc players who have that bouncing effect when struck. The peng is one of the most obvious energies. I like to describe it as a beach ball being pressed under water, and how the force of that pressure bounces it back up, that being how difficult it is to hold an air filled ball under water. This becomes especially obvious when you take a beach ball and try to float yourself ontop of it, and it just rolls you right over. After I saw this image in my minds eye, I later saw it on the movie "T'ai Chi Master - w/ Jet Li"

Keep up the informative posts!

- Nexus

[red_fists]

Like TaiJiquan_student.

We also have a method for forearm conditoning. It involves 8 blocks with the forearm.

I think we also got a 32 method that uses forearms & shins. :cool:

I think I have felt what nexus described, some of our students complain that blocking my forearms during the "8 Blocking" hurts them but I feel like I just gave them a gentle dab myself.

Sifu makes sure that we use the right part of the forearm for blocking as others can result in pain & bruises.

[Repulsive Monkey]

If you already have excess Damp in the body then there is a good case for it hindering the Spleen's functions in the body. The main function of the Spleen in a TCM perspective is to transport and transform. Thus when the tissue is hit and naturally creates a little Qi stagnation the Spleen doesn't do a get good job of transforming the stagnation and transporting it away thus it retains its imobility and thus advances to a state of finally causing the blood to stagnat in that affected area and thus discolour the skin, causing bruising. This is one possible link between excess dampnes already in the body and the bruising you talk of. Other symptoms of Spleen dificiecy are: tiredness espcial between 7 am and 9 am; muzzy heads; unclear thinking; loose or partially digetsed stools; abnormal or deficient diet; excess worry or pensiveness/overthinking. A simple sign to see if you have damp in the body is to stick your tongue out the next time you look in a mirror. If you notice that you have teeth marks/scallops on the side of the front to mid section of the tongue, then you have damp in the body.

[SLC]

Given the scalloped tongue, but lacking the other symptoms of fatigue or muzzy headedness, what is perscribed?