dose and training formulas

[pilgrimsunwukun]

Coming from a place where herbs are prescribed to balance yin and yang, I have been intriqued by herbal training formulas but have yet to use them. Back in Ohio I saw some folks who definately used herbs for training and the herbs really helped. These were folks who were very strong and dedicated. Some of the guys had pretty sick tongues though- red thick dry coat, quivering. Have no idea if that was due to the herbs, diet and lifestyle, other herbs and supplements the person was taking. So i was curious and leary.

Here's a simple Fx: Morinda, cornus, dioscorea, lycium and psoralea. Some yang tonics, astringents, chi tonic basically.A dose per herb for a decoction could be 4 to 12 grams or so.

For those who know, would a perfectly healthy person who wanted to increase his kidney energy/ nei gung abilities take this once a day or three times a day? If they were ground up, made into pills, how would that change dose, amounts used per ingredient? It seems teas are quicker, pills are easier, what do you think?

I also wonder if the idea is that the herb formulas, while not fitting a person from a Chinese acupuncture school perspective, ie most 18 or 24 year olds don't need yang tonics, at small dosages may enable a person to grow from 36 to 72 to 108 reps without burning out- and that's where the balace aspect comes in. Along with whatever the exercises do.



Mike, can I contact you through the e-mail found at the Sifu from Texas's web site?

Pilgrim Steve

[Piercinghammer]

Steve:

My e-mail is MantisBxr@aol.com. I pretty busy Sun-Wed so you might not get a reply until the weekends.

Mike Biggie

[pilgrimsunwukun]

Iron tiger

You seem to have some knowledge about herbal training. Can you and others give some input?

Pilgrim Steve

[herb ox]

At just about any age, a kidney yang tonic should also nourish the kidney yin, as the warm, often dry properties of yang tonic herbs can injure the kidney yin, giving rise to 'empty heat' - facial flushing, insomnia, feeling of heat in the palms, feet and chest, etc. As blood and the precious fluids (jin/ye) are yin, a deficiency in the kidneys could lead to deficiency of blood and jin/ye, which may manifest ultimately by 'drying' the tendons and ligaments which reduces their elasticity and makes one prone to injury.

Adding an herb such as nu zhen zi (fructus ligustri lucidi) would nourish the kidney yin as well as the liver yin (liver is responsible for tendons). The 'lycium' (gou qi zi) in the formula would likely function in this way, along with nourishing the blood.

I've actually heard of a trend in Asia of kidney yin deficiency in older men as there is a great emphasis placed on over-tonifying the kidney yang (esp for sexual prowess), but winds up leading to a deficiency state.

I know we all like to be 'home experts', but I would recommend consulting a Chinese herbalist as every formula is customized per the individual.

The formula you listed is very warm and drying - the only neutral herbs are the lycium and dioscorea (shan yao), but morinda (ba ji tian), psoralea (bu gu zhi) are both quite warm, and cornus (shan zhu yu) is is warm and sour, therefore drying.

Small doses... moderation... patience... these will lead to better success than blasting yourself with herbs and going crazy during workouts.

just 2 cents from the herb ox

peace

[pilgrimsunwukun]

Thanks herb ox
You're coming from a TCM school perspective, which makes sense. Seems right about the herbs, the formula's name is tan tien storm.

I remember hearing about folks getting training herbs, and the idea is that the herbs could do things like purify the body, help open the gates/ blocks/ worms in the spine so that the ren and du connect, increase the endurance, or enable one to train really hard and delay fatique, strengthen the tendons ,ligaments, faciliate the flow of Qi all over the body......

Of course that extra energy can make people want to do the wand-dang-doogle, which interferes with the training.

Some training programs seem to have a 100 day foundation, when herbal supplementation occurs.

What I wonder is if people really do the training, take the probably smaller dose of a herbal supplement, then chances of blowing out the yang and also being yin deficient are unlikely.

Green Dragon used to advertise programs that rrequired herbal supplementation. O quess some of their programs came from Hung gar/ Choy La Fut whatever and I've never read anywhere that a high level form like iron thread required herbal supplementation.

That's part of my curiosity, are internal herbs really required for high level kung fu training. Are internal herbs used for quick results that could occur over time anyway.

Pilgrim Steve