Practicing iron Palm in tai Chi
Many of the moves and applications of tai chi require palm strikes. I have done a lot of investigation into the 'real' fighting side of tai chi.
From what I have learnt, striking with the fists causes damage to the knuckles. From personal experience, conversations and video documentation, fighting with the knuckles easily causes damage.
I used to kickbox and practicing on the heavy bag with handwraps and gloves I could put quite a hard punch out. But without gloves or handwraps my power was severly reduced because my wrists felt like they were going to break on impact. Add that to the knuckles striking bone and the hands are going to sustain damage. If a boxer punched you barehanded he would knock you out but he would also damage his hands.
Iron palm trains the wrists to withstand impact and tempers the knuckles making it possible to bare knuckle fight. Tempering the knuckles is a dangerous thing to do because it is a joint and can get nerve damage and arthritis. I have heard of people left with no feeling in their hands or constant pain. I would not reccommend this form of training.
Training the palms and the backs of the hand are much safer as there are no joints. Develop gradually by striking semi hard substances like large rice bags. Use a form of Dit da Jow (massage ointment like deepheat). This stops bruising (blood clotting) and helps with healing. Also, use those wrist strengthening grips you can buy from MA shops. it will help you with striking and applying qin na techniques.
In my opinion tai chi emphasis more palm striking because you can exert more force and there is less damage. A hard palm strike is equall to or possibly more effective than a fist.
Check out youtube for real fights and you will see that fist fighting is the most common form but then there are also clips of russian and U.K. special forces. The U.K. special forces use many open palm strikes because a broken trigger finger is bad news for them.
I personally train wrist strengthening exercises for qin na and palm and back of the hand conditioning. It does make a difference a it feels like they have alot more power to exert force i.e. deliver a more effective strike.
Be careful in your training, start slowly.
Leigh