Iron Palm/Body Dit da jows

[Kevin73]

I have recently started to train (through my karate) some of the makiwara training and forearm conditioning.

My question is, do you need seperate jows for each of those activities or can you use one type of jow? I have read that you can use the same jow for makiwara training as you do iron palm and some companies sell a jow that is for both of those. Other companies say that you can't use their jow for iron body training, but only iron palm.

New to using jows and would like some input.

Thanks

[KTS]

my opinion, you can probably use a regular iron hand die da jui/dit da jow for your conditioning. though, i don't quite know why you would wanna put your fists through makiwara training.

just dont apply to severely broken or open cuts. apply before and after. massage well and towards the heart.

and, just gotta say, try to get into a softer method that will not brutalize your fists as much. that will come back to haunt you later.

[Kevin73]

Thanks, but when makiwara training is done correctly it will not harm the hands. Granted smashing them over and over into an immovable object will harm them.

[Dale Dugas]

You can use an Iron Palm dit da jow for your fist training as well as your forearm training. The herbs are designed for bone hardening and conditioning.

What you do not want to use is an injury formula for hand training. That is what most people who make and sell liniments will tell you.

Injury Dit Da Jow medicine is not as strong as Iron Palm Dit Da Jow and has different herbs in it for different reasons.

People that tell you, you can use one formula on everything and anything are not in the know, and can cause serious injury.

Please be careful if you buy herbs from people who are unlicensed, untrained and who do not have a professional degree from an accredited Acupuncture/Herbal Medicine graduate program.

Let me know how I can be of assistance. I am getting my Masters in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MAOM) in August from New England School of Acupuncture.

[JamesC]

Dale,

Check your PM.;)

[Kevin73]

You can use an Iron Palm dit da jow for your fist training as well as your forearm training. The herbs are designed for bone hardening and conditioning.

What you do not want to use is an injury formula for hand training. That is what most people who make and sell liniments will tell you.

Injury Dit Da Jow medicine is not as strong as Iron Palm Dit Da Jow and has different herbs in it for different reasons.

People that tell you, you can use one formula on everything and anything are not in the know, and can cause serious injury.

Please be careful if you buy herbs from people who are unlicensed, untrained and who do not have a professional degree from an accredited Acupuncture/Herbal Medicine graduate program.

Let me know how I can be of assistance. I am getting my Masters in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MAOM) in August from New England School of Acupuncture.

So could you use the Chan Ning Tong for the forearm conditioning as well?

[Dale Dugas]

You could use it, buts it is not designed for that.

Arm conditioning will cause more pain than Iron Palm training as you hit the arms harder and for longer periods of time than most people will hit a bag for Iron Palm training.

You want a medicine that has more pain killers and blood movers than Iron Palm medicine which will have more channel opening herbs and bone hardening herbs in it.

I have a formula that people swear by for injuries and it works great for arm and shin conditioning.

Let me know if you are interested.

[Dale Dugas]

That is why there are so many formulas out there for training and conditioning.

Using the Chan Ning Tong formula is okay for hand and arm conditioning but would not be suitable for body or leg conditioning.

There are herbs that go down and herbs that move up with their energies.

Hence you can customize your formulas to go where you want them to go.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Dale's stuff is top notch, I have used it for years and never had an issue with my Iron Hand training.

[Dale Dugas]

Thanks for the kind words, brother.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Truth is truth dude :)

[Kevin73]

I have used Dale's Stone Dragon for my hands before, but never really did any type of forearm conditioning. That was why I wondered if you needed two jows or just one.

It seems that alot of people sell one for both and I was wondering why.

[PlumDragon]

Preference comes into play as well here:

As examples, while the Chan Ning Tong is quite popular for iron palm, I dont really like it for conditioning the hands or arms. Its just not what I prefer. On the same train of thought, some people dont really care about putting pain-killing herbs in their conditioning jows as there are more root issues to deal with--if pain is something that you cant handle well, then of course pain-killing herbs become more important. Lots of formulas out there with a multitude of variations on design philosophy...Thats why its never a bad idea to try a few different things and see what suits your needs best.

However, I wouild certainly agree that forearm-based formulas tend to be proportionally higher in Blood invigorators and lower in the Wind-Damp and channel opening herbs that are so necessary when dealing with all the small and fragiles bones and joints of the hand and wrist...

[Dale Dugas]

spot on as always Josh.

That is why there are so many formulations and you need to find one that works for you.

what works for some does nothing for others.

[Dale Dugas]

I have used Dale's Stone Dragon for my hands before, but never really did any type of forearm conditioning. That was why I wondered if you needed two jows or just one.

It seems that alot of people sell one for both and I was wondering why.

As mentioned above, you can use it but it might not work for you if you cause lots of swelling and pain with your arm pounding.

I have friends who use my Tiger Exits for all conditioning programs with great success.

[LaterthanNever]

Shrfu Dugas,

Thanks for starting a great thread as always. Do you feel that charging $45 dollars for a 2 oz. bottle of Dit Da is unreasonable? Thank you.

Best,
LTN

[Dale Dugas]

LTN,

I did not start the thread but responded to those asking questions.

I started my company because there are way too many people who charge insane prices for a 2 ounce bottle of medicine.

I sell 8 ounces as well as 4 ounces of my injury formulas and oils.

45.00 for 2 ounces is insane. period.

[Kevin73]

As mentioned above, you can use it but it might not work for you if you cause lots of swelling and pain with your arm pounding.

I have friends who use my Tiger Exits for all conditioning programs with great success.

Would you recommend using the Tiger Exits for heavy makiwara training and forearm conditioning then?

[Dale Dugas]

For heavy Makiwara work I would use the Chan Ning Tong as you are training the hands and want to insure that you are not going to be causing any injuries to them.

You can use it for forearm training as well.

When I first learned Iron Palm years ago, my teacher had us put medicine all the way up to the elbows.

[KC Elbows]

Dale, a number of friends who train are running out of the jow they had before, hope it's all right if I refer them to you.

[Dale Dugas]

I will help out anyone looking for strong Dit Da Jow

Let me know how I can be of service

[martiallist]

Great thread! It's awesome to have someone as knowledgeable in Dit Da Jow/Chinese medicine as Dale on this forum. Dale, I read on another board that you mention, you should never have to wait longer than 8 weeks for medicine (dit da jow) and it will not get any stronger. Can you please explain so I can understand why, because I keep hearing the longer the better and 6 months should be minimum and have heard that after a couple of years the dit da jow is strongest. Thanks in advance! Have a great weekend everyone.

[Dale Dugas]

There are a lot of myths and old wives tales about Dit Da Jow.

Due to using higher proof solvents, there is no need to wait months for something that is ready in weeks.

You do not have to let anything sit that long.

I feel that it comes from using lower proof solvents back in the day and storing them to let the lower proof solvents extract as much active components into the solution.

after 2-3 months there is nothing happening. the medicine is not going to get stronger, as its already at maximum saturation for active components.

You can do things to help extract more from the herbs. Breaking the cell walls down helps, you can do this by grinding the herbs, or by cooking them for specific periods of time.

Let me know how I can be of service.

[martiallist]

Thanks Dale for the reply. Makes total sense. Take care.

[omarthefish]

I got a question for you, Dale, if you don't mind.

I have this traditional iron palm training formula that calls for rhino skin. What's a good substitute? Can you just use donkey skin or something like that? I suspect what the formula actually needs from a scientific perspective is just collagen and that the call for rhino skin in particular is just superstition.

Also, I'm having a hard time finding "gui wei"/归尾(the 'carda' part of angelica sinensis) which I believe is just the thin strands at the end of a piece of dang gui/当归. Can you think of any reason why regular old dang gui should be replaced with gui wei (literally "dang gui tails")

If you don't feel like giving out the free advice, I understand. I have all my herbs ready except for the two mentioned above and, ironically, the herb shops I have been to did not have doctors present. In Xi'an, they are like pharmacies. You just bring in your prescription and the clerks get your meds. Eastern and western "drugs" all under the same roof. Usually you have something like western drugs on the left, eastern formulas in bottles or oinments etc. on the right and the dried herbs at the back of the store.

[Dale Dugas]

Omar,

I can imagine they wanted Rhino Skin as it was thick and strong and they wanted it to do the same thing for a student training their hands.

I would substitute some pig skin.

Funny that you are having a hard time finding Gui Wei which are the tails of the root. They are easy to find here in the USA.

They are more blood moving than the entire root which is more blood tonifying compared to blood moving.

If you can locate San Leng and E Zhu these two are very strong blood movers. 18 grams of each will be strong.

You can use them to replace Gui Wei.

Hope this helps.

[omarthefish]

Thanks much Dale.

I can imagine they wanted Rhino Skin as it was thick and strong and they wanted it to do the same thing for a student training their hands.

I would substitute some pig skin.
[/quote]
That's sort of what I was thinking. I was leaning towards Donkey but pig skin is widely available too. Does it need to be dried or could you just cut the skin off of a pork belly from the meat market? I actually have a small baggie of pig skin in the freezer. It wasn't for jow. It's something my mother-in-law saved for some sort of cooking ingredient. :p


Funny that you are having a hard time finding Gui Wei which are the tails of the root. They are easy to find here in the USA.
Do you have any idea how much Wisconsin ginseng is imported into China@!?


If you can locate San Leng and E Zhu these two are very strong blood movers. 18 grams of each will be strong.
Got Chinese characters or maybe latin names for those? For "san leng" I am guessing 三棱：

http://imgsrc.baidu.com/baike/pic/item/58af236d10c569b8431694a7.jpg

"e zhu" = 莪术 = RHIZOMA CURCUMAE ?

Thanks a bazillion for the suggestion. I had to give up iron palm for a while when I moved from my 1st floor apt. to a 2nd floor flat above a bunch of senior citizens who were very particular about the noise. This past month I moved again, and while I am still not on the 1st floor, the apt seems to be more solid. If I put my bag on top of my weight bench, it doesn't seem to rattle the apt. when I slap it like it did at my last residence. Been meaning to get back into it but my 2 formulaes have been hard to make. One of them uses a kind of musk called "she xiang" which, by weight, is actually more expensive than gold. The other one, the one I am asking for advice on, is highly toxic so lots of herb shops don't carry certain parts of it...the poisonous parts. Their afraid someone might drink it or something. Just this afternoon I finally found a shop that could almost make the whole thing for me...minus the rhinocerous skin (which I wouldn't want anyways for ethical reasons) and the gui wei which is odd. I think since TCM is so popular here a lot of people actually buy stuff on their own and don't always even get doctors prescriptions so, in their minds, buying gui wei is like a stoner buying a bag of shake. But then again, why do they like the western ginseng so much? It's milder and less potent.. . which is why it's good but that's not how I think they tend to think.

[TenTigers]

Hi Dale,
what can I substitute for snake, bear bile, bear paw, and opium?
(or, what kind of snakes can be used?)

[Faruq]

The rhino skin thing is interesting. I thought rhinos were native to Africa, and never would've thought it would be such a common thing in China that martial artists would start putting their skin in their jow. The things I've learned via this forum, lol. Now I've gotta go google rhinos...

[Dale Dugas]

Hi Dale,
what can I substitute for snake, bear bile, bear paw, and opium?
(or, what kind of snakes can be used?)

You can still get snakes, they are not endangered just hard to located.

I sell them by the gram and the snake.

Opium can be substituted with Yan Hu Suo for pain killing.

Bear paw, you can still get paw bones from people here in the USA.

But I use Deer Tendon for that instead.


No need for bear bile, just leave it out and it will be okay.

Omar, you are correct with the Hanzi for the herbs mentioned.