DOES ANYONE USE AN IRON BALL IN CHI KUNG HERE?

[Blacktiger]

YKM kung fu has 3 internal hand forms, the last form is called the lion rolling the ball form. has any of your kung fu systems have iron, wooden, concrete ball training? i understand taiji has ball training although i havent seen it, is the ball hollow? how big is the iron ball?

what is its purpose in your chi kung?


peace

bakmeimonk@hotmail.com

Yes we have this training as part of the Ziranmen system.

Its called the Mother and Son Ball
Here two iron balls are used, one 8kg and the other 10kg for conditioning the hands. You should train twice a day, gradually increasing you power, qi and repetitions. Do not use hard force. Here the practitioner would assume horse stance and practice lifting, catching, pushing, pointing, and drilling the balls with their fingers. There are also different dynamic movements that can be used also instead of remaining in horse stance.

I have been using the 8kg (son) ball (its hard work) and have not moved onto the 10kg (mother) - you need to be careful and gentle as if you go in to hard to soon you can injure your hands, wrists and tendons easily.

[Lucas]

arent uki's balls 9 lbs?

[KTS]

the iron or wooden sphere training is just another tool people used. i have heard of lots of interesting training devices. gotta get creative, and a ball or sphere can be pretty handy little tool.

the old school, known from boxing, medicine ball has been around for some years.

i have used a medicine ball in my xingyi practice. i have used it as a weight and used it to add physical endurance by coordinating footwork with swinging or throwing of the ball. there are a few other ways i used it as well. not sure if i heard about it being used by any famous xingyi guys from the past though. but, it doesnt mean that such tools were never used.