how do u develop your iron bridges

[5thBrother]

how do u guys train and develop ur iron bridge?
what kinda exercises or drills do u use? any interesting exercises you use?
is iron bridge important in your art?
general discussion on bridge

:)

[Lowlynobody]

A form called Ying Ching. It contains "dynamic tension" if you want to call it that. Also iron rings on the arms while training.

Other than that I do a standing exercise that is said to develop iron bridge (different to above which makes the bridge hard). It is much like standing post. Though I don't think iron bridge is the main goal of the standing exercise.

Also 5 star or arm bashing, etc.


Lowlynobody.

[Pakmei]

Bridge hands within the Chinese Martial Arts is most probably one of the importants aspects of training.

On a logical level, anatomically the arms and hands are what come into contact first while fighting, so with this in mind pretty much all Traditional Chinese Martial Arts places a heavy emphasis in training their Kiu Sau (Bridge Hands).

This can be done in many various ways like:

1) Saam Sing: 3 Stars - this is where you and a training partner stand opposite eachother and bang arms, gently at first then as you progress you can gradually increase the power.

However, it is always better to bang arms gently that way the musclo-skeletal system dosn't go into shock so easily.

2) Rolling: This is where you roll your arms on a stick / rolling pin.
Repetitions is kept small at first then gradually increase the repetition.

3 Heavy Leather Punching Bag: You can adapt the Saam Sing approach to the heavy leather bag. Important point is that there should be some 'give' in the bag.

4) Wooden Dummy: Mainly popularised by Wing Chun stylists, though other Chinese styles still use the wooden dummy but it is usually adapted to their styles characteristics.

All the above is all very well in conditioning the bridge arms, however it is very important to apply Dit Da Jow to the arms before and after training the bridge arms. This is to minimise any external / internal injury that may be caused through the training.

I'm sure other people will have some other suggestions about bridge conditioning.

[mantis-1]

I kind of understand how you guys develop some bridge from the conditioning excersises you mention but I see that as more of a by product of the excersise, these are considered conditioning excersises not bridge building excersises. Seeing as I dont know your systems I cannot comment on other tecniques of building bridge. As I read the question:

how do u guys train and develop ur iron bridge?
what kinda exercises or drills do u use? any interesting exercises you use?
is iron bridge important in your art?
general discussion on bridge

we train specific excersises for the development of our bridge or hanging power.... this iron bridge is different to what some call iron arm.

In our system we train a lot of chy sau (grinding arm) there are many different ways of chy sau about 18 I think, then we have doyi jong, pic jau jong and many more jongs with emphasis on training bridge, there is of course jongs for conditioning the banging of arms, legs, feet,wrists and back of palms. then there ae jongs that have more emphasis on teaching tecniques or principles.
so going back to the original question 5thbrother do you mean the conditioning element or the develpoing bridge power?

Regards

[5thBrother]

hi. could u describe the 5 star exercise u do.. i know the basic 3 star exercises in-out-down ...


thanks :)

[5thBrother]

hi mantis one..

well all aspects of bridge arms .. wide area hey ... such as produced from doi jong, chy sao, sam sing etc..

so tougthening , sensitivity, strength, etc etc.. any and all aspects of bridge arm.. as stated above kiu sao is vital for most nam kuen ..

then of course ur bridge is only as strong as its supports (your horse) :P

thanks.. interesting posts :)

5thbro

[brothernumber9]

I could be wrong but I thought the idea of forearm conditioning was to build calcium deposits and muscular skeletal density. From what I understand (which could also be mis-understood) Dit Da Jow breaks down calcium deposits, so in effect one would negate a degree of thier conditioning if they were to use Dit Da Jow after conditioning. Anyone know for sure?

[WanderingMonk]

5thBrother,

If you don't know what 3 star exercises and want to know how it is done, go to this site.

http://home.attbi.com/~uechiryu/

You'll get the idea.

wm

[Lowlynobody]

5 Star - after doing the strikes from 3 star then soy kuil + bin choy.

Soy kuil and bin choy are hammer fists but you meet at your center on the inside of your arm.

You can also do things like sip kuil at each other and grind your arrms.