Bruises

[golgo]

So, I have been training in WC for a few months now and I am getting a little banged-up on my forearms. I am not complaining about the pain - they don't really hurt that bad (not enough to actually bother me). I dont think these are very deep bruises. My question is, will I always continue to bruise? Do your skin/muscles, etc. get more resistant to bruising the more you train?

[TenTigers]

it's a catch-22. You will get more resistant to bruising, but as you and your Hing/Dai's skill increases, you will also be playing harder and harder, thus more bruising. Ask your Sifu for some good Dit Da Jow, and ask him to instruct you in the proper way to "rub out a bruise."
"Pain is weakness leaving the body"

[golgo]

Thanks for the info.

[couch]

From my Chinese medicine/acupuncture perspective, I have a question:
Do you bruise easily?

[stonecrusher69]

Just be careful not to cause any internal injuries which sometimes it hard to recover from.

[golgo]

From my Chinese medicine/acupuncture perspective, I have a question:
Do you bruise easily?

As far as I know, I do not bruise easily. Dont really have much to compare to though. I guess I will find out over time.

[Museumtech]

As far as I know, I do not bruise easily. Dont really have much to compare to though. I guess I will find out over time.

The advice on the Jow is good. I found that I bruised easily as well early on. Bong Sao Larp Sao drill in particular comes to mind. I am sure, however, that, along with conditioning, an unconscious improvement in my and my partners techniques also reduced my bruising. i.e. a rolling/lifting pushing Bong rather than a clashing one.

Peter

[bennyvt]

yeh man dit dar jow is heaps good. Its funny that even through we dont do hardening stuff we get pretty hard from doing the training anyway. The guy that i train with on the ground is a shootfighter and he says my arms are like iron bars when i lock him up. I said due to the dummy (i have a metal dummy at work out of again link fence rolled up and metal roles for arm and legs, works not too bad). Well we trained on sat and he was on top and jumped up and tried to kick me in the butt. I tried to kick his leg but missed and he hit my shins. His ankle was twice as big and purple two minutes later. He said my legs like iron too. I said id have to hit a guy that does kickboxing that conditions their leg.

[k gledhill]

In my old school we did an exercise called 'gat sao'. It involved arm clashing using the forearms as in a mutual toughening drill of the 'bridge' . It takes 3-4 weeks to 'find' the electric shock areas you have missed :D...bruising/pain recovery can be aided by doing palm strikes , it helps to dissipate the blood from the bruises and massages the muscles ...
Any good heat rub can help with the recovery. The dummy will be a place to find more places you missed :D BUT remember your doing deflections that strike in and /deflect as they go forwards along your line , no lateral forearm smashes aka arm chasing , except lower gaun sao , taken from bil gee. The rest 'slap' to the line like the executive toy
of the metal balls o>---ooo ooo--->o / ooo---<o o<---ooo etc.. energy to the line to open it , not bruising force , or trying to do force on the arms alone.
The ideas of VT > dan chi>chisao>dummy all share deflection strikes not lateral line x'ing back and forth arm smashing aka chasing like windshield wipers...

Dont fall for the arm toughening bs ,,, when they try to smash your arm take it away quick and hit them instead ;) then take that idea to the bank.:D while their arms swinging through the air you have the 'idea' , if they train to 'block' your arms in the air before them, you can use this against them by 'offering' arms to get them to do this . If they 'train ' to do this , then pressure them with attacking strikes , rather than blocks with strikes added, you can make people just defend , rather than counter attack/strike defend.
Man sao shoots in as a lead strike and acts like a magnet for arm chasing /sticky hand people ;)

[golgo]

The advice on the Jow is good. I found that I bruised easily as well early on. Bong Sao Larp Sao drill in particular comes to mind. I am sure, however, that, along with conditioning, an unconscious improvement in my and my partners techniques also reduced my bruising. i.e. a rolling/lifting pushing Bong rather than a clashing one.

I agree, that a lot of my bruising comes from doing things hard when they should be softer. At the same time, one of Sifu's strategies (and I dont know if this is a WC principle) is that when he fights a guy who is being defensive, covering up, etc, he sometimes likes to punish the guys arms so he cant/doesn't want to cover up anymore. But I guess that is a completely different situation than what we are talking about here.

[punchdrunk]

When you learn the basic facing drills with bong, lap, pak, tan etc. at first your arms are clashing hard because your both squarely facing the center line. Later as you gain more mobility and start shifting and stepping you will find bridge clashing to be softer because your partner will have trouble staying on the line. Either that or our arms get used to it. hehe. Seriously though sports rubs or rubbing alcohol can help with the pain (or dit da jow if you prefer) but keep them off cuts.

[Dale Dugas]

Let me know if you need a good source for STRONG Dit Da Jow.

[Liddel]

The bruising will go over time.... i used to get black and blue forearms but not in years. I first used dit da Jow to heal before going back to training.

I also had hairy wrists and forearms... My buddies joked about having robin williams wrists LOL and there were spots where i had rubbed of hair at the wrists from lots and lots of Gor Sao hard sticking etc
Its grown back somewhat :p


Dont fall for the arm toughening bs ,,, when they try to smash your arm take it away quick and hit them instead

While thats sound advice, ive found that if one has good inch power during Lop Sao drills etc even small seemingly soft actions can leave someone bruised... ive had younger guys come in with battered arms making me wonder how cause i dont hit heavy...but sharp...

One guy showed me the day after training bruises in individual fingers marks on his chest from me flicking him softly with my wrist / hand during drills like Poon Sao. (when we get in at that stage we juct touch we dont smack)
Apparently my touch has inch power too LOL

VT forces are cool man :cool:

DREW

[bennyvt]

man one of the guys I used to train with used to shave his arms, which was ok until it grew back and he would only shave every now and then. It ripped you up like nothing.
My whole point was that simply by training you will get a resistance to training and any time your arm or hand hits some thing the bones will get stronger and thicker. So while the dummy is not a toughening tool it will do that just because you are hitting it.