As a person who knows little about the lifestyle of iron palm but some about herbs, I'd like to say that Chinese medicine sure has changed over the years. Change is due to time, location,interpretation of formula colligraphy, experience, and relationships.

Time is a basic premise in Chinese medicne along with the changes of Yin and Yang. There was a time when certain herbs were easily accessed but then the FDA has stepped in. Animal parts are harder to obtain as are certain herbs like catechu, mahuuang, and other aristolochia. Besides that, the closest some herbalists will get to a tiger or rhino is when it dies in the zoo.So much for rare ingredients. Time was that wasn't the case. Also some herbs need to harvested in a timely manner, and are in smalll supply, thinking about liquid amber sap. Strchnine is an ingredient in some jow and I'm sure your local Chinese herbalist will raise their eyebrows when seeing it listed, possibly not even adding it to the formula.

Having a varied ecosystem, a Chinese iron palm master/ plan old practitioner could move from Sichuan to Harbin and not be able to access the special herbs of his old location. You use what is available ; I'm not saying use junk, just that some herbs are easily found in particular locations.

Yang jwing ming has some formula ingredients that are translated as three taoist herbs, what are those, the three yellows? and there's also the shell of a crayfish from some river in China. Few Americans will know where that river is, let alone get crayfish from there. Unless you have a special guy harvesting for you, as if...

With experience a jow maker may decide the cinnamon bark from Vietnam is really better then the cinnamon bark from Guangcho. I my the formula changes. Here comes broken hands.....no I don't believe so. Amounts may vary because the freshest herbs picked in China or Siberia or Hebei dry out, may be sulfered/fulmulgated by the time they get to a USA China town. Thus the li, fen qian,liang( a big batch for sure) may vary.

Chinese medicine definately has shamanism, so snake breath, chants, monks, may be part of the formula. Think of hupo, amber, tiger spirit.The likelyhoood of an American/non-Chinese to access the Shamaonism aspect is pretty small. A lot of learning, kung fu, medicine, is based on relationships. I doubt Allen, Ong, Chicoine, had access to such esoteric stuff. Even if they were the second son of whoever. Some precious things occur over time and if you live in Ohio and the master teacher is in China- well even if you speak Chinese have a Chinese wife, and can hold a horse stance for 15 minutes, 30 minutes- few are let in. But then again maybe they did really know such people.

I don't know if it matters. lineage is important but what matters is what you can do. When the time comes, time tells. Are you doing the Sifu's suggestions and training daily.The "wow" part of the Ong, Allen Chicoine claims probably played a major part of their Ohio stories. Stories that wouldn't be told or would be accepted as a norm in an area of a large Chinese population, such as California, New York, Vancouver, BC. But if they're true that's very cool but what can I do is the point of my training

Mike B. I really appreciate the visit to my place, the visit to your school, what you showed and gave me , along with teaching me the two exercises. Mike seems to have known a lot back in '96 and since he's been wood shedding on his own and learning from others, he clearly must be better then he was.

Meaning what he makes is authentic jow, good medicine.

Steve H AKA Monkey boy by Big Bob