What are the different forms of iron body?

[KC Elbows]

Just curious how many approaches people are familiar with.

[lkfmdc]

Just curious how many approaches people are familiar with.

well, OBVIOUSLY, there is "real" and then there is the fake, mma knucklehead way that people learned incorrectly

pssssttttttt like you didn't know that

[sanjuro_ronin]

Every contact MA does IB, in one way or another.
At one point it MUSt be dynamic, in which you are getting hit while actually fighting so as to understand how to "take a shot while giving a shot".
In many ways, sport arts have the edge over other systems that only do the static training.

[KC Elbows]

Iron body is only Chinese!

[TAO YIN]

One of the 'different' iron body training techniques that I saw was kind of 'cool.'

One person wore a full vest filled with sand, chick peas, rock, and steel shots, as they progressed.

The other person bashed the person with the full vest with what basically looked like a paddle/ore. Developed over time until they could take a full shot with the steel vest.

Apparently they meditated in cauldrons of jow afterwards, in the old days...

[wenshu]

I've learned to appreciate break fall as a form of conditioning. I don't necessarily feel it can be classified as "iron body" but there is definitely a progression in the amount of punishment one can endure. The first couple of times my coach threw me it hurt to breathe for a couple of days. Now; still rings my bell (i'm relatively green) but it is not as bad.

Heavy bag work, provided the bag is heavy enough and the strikes are powerful enough, gives a shock to the entire system. I used to get pretty bad head aches after intense bag sessions, especially once I learned to throw stiff. I think sometimes people overlook this aspect of bag training, the bag kind of does "hit back" so to speak.

Again, not necessarily "iron body" but conditioning to withstand blows. A lot of it is just getting over the initial shock.

[TAO YIN]

Another 'cool' method of iron body to train, when not pro fighting that is, is water training.

Grab some old beach towels and head to the beach. Stand in the surf about waist high. Take those towels, and slap them in the water, figure x, and reverse figure x. Do it with one or two towels. Try not to let the towels out of the water comign back through, and try to keep them moving in their patterns, not slamming into your head, and etc. After a while, move as you are doing it, or practice stances, pay attention to body structure or alignment. Contract muscles to make the towels move faster. etc.

After you do it, you will notice that you're hart beat will increase, much as it does just after a good combat swim. Great for developing hammerfists and the C back. Cheers

[GeneChing]

Seriously, we held this as a competitive event at Tiger Claw's KungFuMagazine.com Championship III a week ago. It went very well.

[Lucas]

what was the top weight?

[KC Elbows]

Isn't competitive iron crotch usually called sword fighting?

[KC Elbows]

One of the 'different' iron body training techniques that I saw was kind of 'cool.'

One person wore a full vest filled with sand, chick peas, rock, and steel shots, as they progressed.

The other person bashed the person with the full vest with what basically looked like a paddle/ore. Developed over time until they could take a full shot with the steel vest.

Apparently they meditated in cauldrons of jow afterwards, in the old days...

Where'd you see this? Sounds like fun folk.

[SPJ]

I used to condition my forearm, shoulder, chest and back

or kao with bag.

not too much on hands, as I need them to play musical instruments and perform surgery

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[TAO YIN]

KC,

I saw that kind of training take place in an out of the way village some 20 miles North of Hebi, Henan China. Craziness!

[Dale Dugas]

I practiced internal iron body after practicing external Pai Da Gung for years in Uechi Ryu, a very intense system with tons of conditioning.

I then went through fascial training and now practice standing with twisting as well as tapping with a copper hitter all over.

So I went from Wai to Nei and now do a combination of Wai/Nei.

Interesting.

[David Jamieson]

I don't want to divulge a method here on the forum because I genuinely fear that someone will go out and do it wrong and hurt themselves badly.

But I will say that it is a progressive system of conditioning. Starting with light cupping and tapping strikes and culminating in what can be deemed effectively harder striking towards the end of the training cycle, then fluctuation of power in the maintenance cycles.

Once again, if not maintained, it will not stay.