Can finger conditioning cause heart damage?

[phantom]

I think I read somewhere that there are certain meridians in your fingers that are connected to your heart, and, because of this, conditioning your fingers can lead to heart damage. Does anybody know if there is any truth to this? Thanks in advance.

[IronFist]

I've heard fingertip conditioning can damage the eyes.

You may want to ask on the Internal Forum if you haven't asked there yet.

:confused:

Good luck.

IronFist

[ricksitterly]

that explains a lot. someone slammed my finger in a door once and i immidiately crapped my pants.

[PLCrane]

I doubt that there's any good evidence to support the idea. The Heart channel runs down the soft side of the arm and the palm to the little finger. Depending on what kind of conditioning you're doing, it is possible to damage the fingers.

[Cheese Dog]

If it were true that finger conditioning caused eye or heart problems, wouldn't practitioners of eagle claw or tiger claw be going blind, having heart attacks, etc.? As far as I know, this doesn't seem to be the case.

[Repulsive Monkey]

Any kind of of accident or even atmosphereic condition can effect the points around the fingers, however as there are superficial points they can self regulate pretty well. However Jing Well points on all of them (for a description of the heart Jing Well point see Guohen's description) for that matter do have a strong function in expelling internal heat from those specific organs and if the Jing Well point for the heart or Pericardium become deficient through damage, pathogenic invasion etc then it is possible to develop palpitations, night sweats, anxiety and in some more extreme circumstances, panic attacks, frequent cold sweats, heart murmurs and chest pains.
So this is some truth in it and thats why its good to incorporate some kind of Qi gong into ones art so as to have a corrective measure to such eventualities. Pummelling the hands will bring about some disorder at some point merely for the sacrafice of hardening the hands. I have a good Karate friend of mine who went mad doing this from his teens and now has Arthritis in both hands at the age of 32 already.

Its just a thought.

[Former castleva]

It is a good point to consider beyond mere "Chinese belief" thing,you will find the people saying how "Joe Blow did and survived" but you can as well do something as or more productive and without possible damages...as the saying goes,better safe than sorry.

You are talking about heart damage,but there are actually six meridians located to fingertips of one hand (if memory serves) but of course there are numerous points among the hands themselves. :)
As these are the "inside/out" pathways of energy and meridians,you do not want to damage them (I think the injury that you may hear about is that of decreased eyesight) considering that there are various "pathways" (namely meridians) results might vary.
Of course,there are the joints to think about too.

There is more to finger conditioning than directly toughening the tips of them,you can always strengthen the muscles,tendons,joints and bones responsible with safe exercises (more specific finger conditioning is around I think,but it is not something to recommend to be done on one´s own)
When it comes to eagle and tiger claw practitioners,I do not imagine them banging their fingers into hard objects without distracting thoughts.

:)

[Repulsive Monkey]

Yes, true there are 6 meridians that run to and from the fingers aswell as extra points too, however my line of answer cam from the assumption that some one was just asking about Heart channels. By the way why do say that its mainly poor eyesight that tends to about from finger damage?????

[Former castleva]

Repulsive Monkey,

Yeah.I was in no means trying to question your lines.
I mentioned eye issues because it seems to be a thing that I have heard various times,with some ppl being worried about.
:)

I did not mean that it is the major effect to arrive.

[Repulsive Monkey]

I was wondering as really for damage or degeneration to the eyesight one would expect the Liver meridian to be damaged which lies on the medial side of both the legs.
Sorry for sounding a little too reactionary there I guessed it wasn't a purposeful dig at me!

[Former castleva]

This is all fine.
:)

A good point about liver meridian by the way,little liver points to jam around there.
That´s for it but I´ll go with utter speculating and ponder if it could be associated with interrelated organs of the liver,roots of it etc.? :confused:

BTW OT,I just ran to a good site on tcm:
http://tcm.health-info.org/

I do not know if you can benefit from it,decent basic info.

[Mr. Bao]

This is competely false or there is no scientific research on this matter. Except old tales of kung fu lore. I also heard in catholic school, if you play with your gun you go blind. Yeah right!

[Ben Gash]

I'd worry more about your intake of saturated fats ;)

[Former castleva]

"I also heard in catholic school, if you play with your gun you go blind. Yeah right!"

That´s a relief! ;)

[Mr. Bao]

If that was true, most priests would be blind and maybe some nuns? I am going to hell for this joke. LoL. It is all good tho.

[David]

There have been several posts on here over the years indicating damage to eyesight where spearhand conditioning was thought to be the cause.

It may or may not be of interest to know that the fingertips contain many of the retinal rods and cones which sense light and colour. The earlobe also has a relatively high concentration. These cells do actually function but their inputs are translated in a synaesthetic manner to touch e.g. touching a red light might feel 'slippery' while a yellow light may be 'rough'.

The rods and cones thing came into my head while I was typing the first paragraph - I mention it as an aside.

-David

[Repulsive Monkey]

There is plenty of scientific proof and evidience for this but one will have to view through the science of Chinese Medicine thats all. And Mr Bao please don't show any ignorance and say things like if Western science doesn't recognise it then don't exist, c'os this is plainly just not so. Please widen your scope a little.

[Mr. Bao]

Monkey

I am not ignorant and do not believe that any one system of science has all the answers. But when you take an metaphysical object and force it to conform to physical laws, you have the problem of dualism. This is not a philosophy forum nor do I wish to speak about this now.

I can not see the truth in how thrusting fingers tips can damage your eyes. I do not know any chinese research documented
studies showing this to be the case. Only old tales from kung fu lore like ripping out a heart or tearing out eye balls.

Can you show where in their journal that shows this to be true. My sifu is a Dit dar doctor and I know there is a real journal of traditional chinese medicine. I am not going ask him this dumb ass question. I dont waste my teacher's time with silly questions except when it is about sex and food. But if you can show me where I go research this study of the damaging eyes and hand thrusting pls show me with it. If you can't produce it, i rest my case.

Here is a thought: If I cut off the nerves in me finger tips, would I go blind? Is is possible treat a blind man by working on his finger tip's nerves or whatever? The answer is a practical "NO" Come on people, I am all for having an open mind and I do believe some chinese medicine has merits and strengths but this is not one dog I care to pet and entertain.

[Repulsive Monkey]

I'd of given you more credibilty if you had read my posts more clearly. I was suggesting the truth of heart damage as is the original question. The European Journal of Oriental Medicine by Peter deadman is always a good source.
I'm sorry but whats metaphysical about Chinese Medicine? It has history (i.e. it is long founded and pre-dates thus has spent more time in clinical trials), it has hypothesis and pronosis like most styles of medicine to a high degree. It sets about redress imbalances in the body and within the processes that are impaired. So what are you actually saying here?
If he's a doctor within the field of Chinese medicine then I know for a fact that he will surprise you with his answer. He will know that there are points on the fingers that govern heat retention in the heart and that damage to them could bring about Hypertension, palpitations, shen disturbance etc.

None of these are old Kung fu stories there are all modern day theory and practice of chinese medicine.

You do seem to have a problem here in holding a balanced view about things. If you had studied Chinese Medicine and then decided you didn't agree with it then I would repsect your standpoint a little more but it seems like that you know precious little.

[Mr. Bao]

Monkey:

I am aware of the theory of chinese medicine based yin and yang and the concept of chi which is beyond my understanding that I would admit. The Chinese government has often tons of money to chi kung masters to produced their chi powers under the light of science and guess what no one has gotten the evergreens from the chinese governent yet. THis is the dualism problem of mind and body. If the mind is not physical how can something non physical interact with the physical? If the mind is physical, then all things are material. The problem is then what physical thing defines the mind. Can all things from love to bliss be purely material? People have argued this over and over in modern philosophy which I do not want to do here. E.g., AI is one example of such philosophy problems of dualism. We can also mentioned that this is the same problem for the existence of chi, if it is nonphysical how can it interact with the physical? For that matter can we prove the existence of mind, yes, can be objective prove the existence of chi (yes and no). With this saying, I trust more on the materialism party which I know for sure will work in the physical world. Where has the other is in God's hand whom I never had the pleasure of knowing on a one to one basis.

My teachers has mentioned the pro and cons of TCM and with that in mind I have always expressed much doubts in his treatments as he treated me when his cures. I think more and more westerners believe this stuff than your average chinaman.
This is a joke among us yellow people.

You have not answered my questions nor shown the requested documents showing the link between blindness and the nerves in the hands. I firmly do not believe in the mumbo jumbo of chinese medicine, but I do not and can not deny the successful cures and treatments I have seen my sifu done with herbs and etc. I am sure there is solid physical reason to it and not some metaphysical force behind it.

Thank you for giving little credit. I dont deserve so much. Best Cheers, mate.

[Former castleva]

I like David´s explanation.
Considering that it includes modern (universally acceptable) information on the subject with possible physiological links.
Other explanation which I could think of,would have included nerve endings...but physiologically,I believe alternative medicine would prefer explaining this a bit more...(which is paradoxal though since therapies like refloxology,and well acupuncture too are based on such hypotethical physiology.Of course considering that nobody knew a thing about advanced physiology those days)
Now for me to diss the theory of internal damage to finger conditioning would require me to delete my former posts which I am not doing.
We do already have modern scientifical explanation for tcm related medical physiology theory which does not drop tcm off the boat but rather strengthens it by bringing solid (solid,in our terms) evidence for at least some of it´s generally&naturally less scientifically explained methods.
In this light,it is undesirable at least for me to consider this as a myth but rather leave some space for it.