I´m talking about hardening in general

[Former castleva]

When it´s summer,I strike trees and I do have a phoenix eye striking board for winter.Now I use logs for fist&palm hardening.

[DelicateSound]

......being a hard ******* anyway...... *cough* (sniff)

I just use a really hard bag, and work with various levels of hand protection.

Maybe I am just a wuss........

[umgong]

...and we want to be ....HARD?...for what reason?

Suggestion? Have a lot of Chinese medicine handy.

Please remember the story of the rigid oak tree and the lowly bamboo as they both stood up against a major incoming hurricane wind....which one survived?...and why?

Good luck, in your choices.

[DelicateSound]

That sounded like a Judo philosophers statement there!
What style(s) do you train in?
Also you mention that you're a bit older than most of us here (no offense intended but I'm 17, and so anyone over 30 is old to me :)

My question is: Is it better now, with the recent commercialisation of the martial arts, or was it better in the late 60's early 70's when they were first emerging into the public eye? You mentioned about meeting a few masters - Bruce Lee etc. and so I'm guessing you were around to see the "golden age" of MA's

[shaolinsheep]

*When it´s summer,I strike trees and I do have a phoenix eye striking board for winter.Now I use logs for fist&palm hardening.*

I think hardening doesnt give you any advantage in a real combat situation,sparring etc.
I would like to hear your opinions.

[Ish]

I can see why you might want to condition your fists as theres no point in generating enough power to knock someone out in one punch if its going to smash your hand. I don't however punch trees or logs, just a wall bag and sometimes a heavy bag, cant forget my brother.

[dunbarj01]

I use a wall bag too as well as 2 person conditioning.

I think the thing is to build up gradually. You can really do some damage if you condition too quickly.

Just my thoughts.

[red_fists]

HI.

I use the "water hardening" method.

Filll a tub with Water and strike it with your hand repeatedly and often. Vary the angle of the strikes to train different areas.

BTW, Fist to the head is a bad idea:
Head -1, Fist - 0

Cheers.

[Kristoffer]

conditioning:

We have big, long logs of hard wood that we punch, elbow, forearm, strike fingers, knife hand, knuckle jump on.. sometimes we kick it too... We lay the (swedish word: kant) uhh,, end of the log, the sharp end in our solar plexus, hands over head and count to 100.. slowly :D then we lay the pointy end under our navel (around the dan tien I think) and do the same. We kick eachother Hard in the chest and solar plexus.

We have a really though one that is:
Everyone lays on their back, hands behind the head and the first one in line throw a huge medicine ball in the solar plexus and then JUMP on the solarplexus,, then on the next one. When he has jumped everyone he lays last in line and the new guy that is first in line does the same. Everyone does this twice. (so u get 'jumped' many times. And most of these guys weight like 70-80 kg.) It hurts like h.ell!!

hmmm, and we do alot of knuckle jumps on the floor. yeah I think that's it...