(I posted this in a Hun Gar group on fb, but not familiar with editing or anything and kind of wanted to add a little more. It's really just reminder, (preaching to the choir) but something maybe for younger or hard trainers.)
Disclaimer: I don't write gong fu and this is about as close to a word processor as I have atm. I'll return to it
Hands are complex, delicate and formidable instruments which can be hardened, softened, built up and all too easily destroyed.
Taking better care of your hands and wrists helps prevent injury and increase deftness. Practically any time of day your hands can benefit from simple enough routines that can be performed about anywhere.
I remember my grandfather stretching and flexing his hands for relief from arthritis when he was older. I remember how great an amount of work I saw his hands do day after day, for years - it would be daunting for the best of us, that even have farm skills.
Having blacksmithed before the depression, he knew the rules about strong arms, powerful hands and how deceptively easy it is for one to damage the other considerably. The arm uses a tool too heavy for the bones of the hand. The hand can grip stronger than the arm can support. Fractured hand and wrist bones add to the discomfort and structural infirmity of one of our most important survival tools, those effects increasing with age.
Martial arts people share the same hazards in various degrees, the most common being the ability to strike with more power than the fist can endure or the power to push a leg with more force than a foot can take on impact and the same applies with lifting, pulling, pushing, throwing and etc.
We use our hands for more purposes than we can usually recall, but they are our instruments of
Blocking
Striking
Catching
Holding
Gripping
Separating
and the representatives of our manual deftness, which rewards our efforts accordingly. The fellow who says "I only use my hands for hammers" should still devote time to tieing intricate flies or maybe plant propagation, where the finer motor skills are rewakened and exercised frequently. The nervous system plays a primary role in whole body health and despite training routines, repetative unvaried tasking is really not good for the marvellous hand. All severe training (iron) has rules that protect as well as develop.
The art of developing and maintaining the body even in a regular, un-enhanced way is still vital, if we are to enjoy good health in modern times. The hands as instruments of the mind and will should be taken care of daily in a balanced discipline, both inner and outer.
While no one is perfect and most of us grab our good things on the run these days, even fundamental steps of warm up or restoration help reduce our stress, discomfort and increase our sense of wellbeing.
Warm up and Exercises
Range of motion to the "push" limit. Expand the hand and fingers and push for a one count
Stretching - start by rolling the skin between your fingers across the hand, loosening and invigorating skin. Then use the other hand to stretch past the "push" limit as in noal warm up stretching.
Isotonic - close and open hands applying resistence
Styles/forms - model all hand forms, in as much of an open/close, flexion/extension order as you can devise. Think in terms of every cell, every bone, every piece of connecting tissue. Use normal chi breathing and in/up, down/out.
Dexterity exercises and tasks - rolling a pencil in your fingers, flipping coins, playing instruments etc. Any and all things which cause you to concentrate on point accuracy, delicacy, point strength (applying force) and timing. They need not be "reed tossing" or anything connected normally to gong fu, but pursue the gong fu of them.
Hand massage
The hand functions almost entirely by tension and flexion of muscles and tendons. Hand massage is so beneficial to the health and training progress, it is difficult not to label it "essential". In the monastic environment it is often easier to benefit from regular hand care, however most people enjoy only infrequent or rare therapeutic hand massage. While quick rub outs will do on a daily basis, one should enjoy whole hand, deep tissue hand massage at least once a week of at all possible. Hands become hardened quickly with regular use.
Can you think of one style that does not use dynamic tension in the hands?
Tension remains and begets tension/hardness in surprising, but not really, places.
If you use your thumb and index finger to apply pinch pressure to the muscle between your thumb and fore finger, like in the picture, and it hurts, you could use the whole hand massage.
After your hands have been worked completely out a few times, you become more aware of residual tension and the muscles themselves. "Deadliest hands alive!"
But if you do this and it hurts....
The need for hand development and maintenance is universal in gong fu because the same level of training and dexterity is required in all areas of gong fu (daifu, nongfu, wu shu, craft etc) and the hands are sensory instruments of reception and transmission as well as refined tools.
The task of locating out of place body parts, less delicate than separating the roots of seedlings perhaps, is a comparison that seems more obvious - but is secondary to organic skill. The ability to acquire or create one's food, keep it, treat any food poisoning (so to speak) and fend off predation is the basis of survival which is a prerequisite to civilization of any kind.
We rely on our hands to physically bring about all these things every day and they are marvels in themselves though seemingly built on simple principals.
Give them the Cadillac treatment for many, many years of solid service.
Those hand stretches your grandfather had to do. Well, I do that all the time for my back and neck. Sometimes being a tough guy just makes you weak in the end. Hopefully not forever.
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