Iron Foot Training Methods?

[mickey]

Greetings All,

I am looking for information on training the feet . Iron palm we all have heard of but I have yet to see anything on Iron Foot. The only contemporary reference to it that I can recall was in a classified ad many years ago by a master by the name of Sun Feng Chi and that trail seems ice cold (unless someone here knows otherwise). Other than that, all that I have seen are statements that training the feet were not necessary because the practitioners wore shoes. I do not think so.

Any insights to this method out there?

mickey

[stimulant]

maybe Iron foot is covered in steel leg training?

I'm curious to know...think I'll do some asking!

[GeneChing]

Check out our Iron Body Master kit (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/tckprat102.html). If covers almost every part of your anatomy, except for your crotch (http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/prjt001.html).

[mickey]

Thank You Gene,

It looks like I am going to have to spend some money. What happened to the freebies?

mickey

[blooming lotus]

I heard something about chinese woman and iron toe training not so long ago..no idea where or what exactly I heard, but do a search on that. Unless Gene has something?

[GeneChing]

Iron toe? Hmmm, that's a good one.

I was recently looking at some research in Taiwan Wulin with attributed the stance work of soem traditional Crane styles to a female founder who had bound feet. The stance stuff was really weird, like doing horse stance but instead of being flat footed, you stood on pointe, like in ballet. It was a very strange article, but well researched as Taiwan Wulin generally is.

[MasterKiller]

Originally posted by GeneChing
Iron toe? Hmmm, that's a good one. How about this quote from "Fading Styles" e-zine article:
Take the stabbing leg technique. It could be adopted either to kick high at the opponent's head or to kick forward by moving fast close to the ground. It can also be used to attack the opponent's crotch or costal regions. It can be both cruel and clever. But this technique can only be executed effectively with a well-conditioned big toe. Due to this factor, some similar techniques are fading in the martial art world and finally out of the sight completely.

That implies some sort of toe conditioning.

[mickey]

Greetings All,

I did read the Kungfu ezine today. It mentions the technique but not method to develop it.

That White crane training method rings a bell, Gene. I remember seeing a photo of the late Wan Laisheng of the Natural Style in a Horse stance with pointed toes. I really did not think about it until you mentioned the method. As I suggested to you before, even when you were at WLE, there is a need to seriously document (via video and book) the training methods. Kung Fu Elements was a good book; but I felt a lot was left out for fear of liability or simply being lost. For every external method there is usually an internal one.

Thank you all for your insights! Any more would be appreciated.

mickey

[GeneChing]

It's sort of like that feet poking style - chou jiao. I've heard from many that you can condition your toes like you can condition your hands, so the idea of iron toe is as feasible as iron finger, at least in theory.