Hand Conditioning-Internal/External

LawDog

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Hand conditioning:
Internal - how does it work.
The bone structure inside of your hand is designed to support the grasping by your fingers or holding etc. This type of structure is not effective against a frontal type of impact against the knuckle / finger tip area or impacting through any of the four main sides of the hand - knife, ridge, palm and backfist. The tissue around the hand bones are not dense enough to support the bones during these types of impacts.
This is very important to understand, if you take your hand and place it into a body of water it will pass through the water with ease. Now if you make your hand go faster you will feel a sharp impact as your hand enters the water. If you swing your hand very fast the water will feel like concrete. The reason for this is water will not compress. For your hand to pass through the water the water must move around your hand. The faster your hand moves the faster the water must move.
As I stated earlier, the tissue/matter in your body is made up of a high percentage of water. When you work on internal hand conditioning your body will make the tissue/matter inside of your hand denser. Higher density means a higher fluid level. If you slowly squeeze a hand that has been internally conditioned it will feel soft. When you take a conditioned hand and strike it against something the hand will become hard inside. The fluids inside the hand will not compress and will try to move. The faster the hand goes, on impact, it will become harder. The outer skin acts like a pool liner and keeps the tissue/matter in place.
What an internally conditioned hand will do,
* slows down or stops the object being impacted upon from hitting or damaging the hands internal bone structure,
* The denser the hand the more will it weigh,
* Encases the bones, like concrete, thus supporting them.
This is a short explaination, the full version takes a long time to type out, for me anyway.
External hand conditioning.
Makes the skin around protruding bones denser. This denser skin will act as a cushion between a bone and the impact point.
Note - Hand conditioning is a slow development process, done properly it will take years to complete. Short cutting the process will cause damage to your hands or to other parts of the body that you may want to condition
 
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LawDog

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I just finished a double shift, right now I am on the double vison thing. I will write it out later on.
 

Carol

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I hear ya loud and clear on that one! Looking forward to hearing more :) :)
 

Andrew Green

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Can you provide references to any sort of medical evidence on this? SOunds rather pseudo-scienceish to be honest.

Skin scars and calluses, microfractures in bones rebuild a little stronger. Those things I am aware of. Increased water density that is soft when squeezed and hard when hit, that I'm skeptical about.
 

Empty Hands

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Can you provide references to any sort of medical evidence on this? SOunds rather pseudo-scienceish to be honest.

I strongly agree. I am a biologist, and I know of no process as described for tissue. Bone and ligaments/tendons will get denser under conditioning, but not tissue.
 
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LawDog

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What I was referring to when I stated that the tissue will thicken, my meaning was that the inside of the hand will become thicker. My use of the word tissue in general might have been incorrect by proper medical terminology.
As far as the properties of water when exposed to various speeds, check it out.
I was instructed in the art of hand conditioning by chinese masters and grandmasters during the 70's & 80's. I have full trust in what they have told me, they and their instructors instructor have been doing this for a long time. Nothing pseudo-scienceish about them.
I will stand behind what they have told me and what I wrote.
Respectfully,
 

Andrew Green

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Nothing pseudo-scienceish about them.

I think you are rather mistaken, and I think you would have a hard time finding a scientist that agrees with you. But if you can cite some sort of medical document to back this up I will be much more open to the idea. But I have heard far too many completely fictional claims made by old martial arts guys to take something like this for granted.

It is explaining an effect without following the scientific process. There hands might get tougher from what they do, but this is not why.
 

Empty Hands

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I was instructed in the art of hand conditioning by chinese masters and grandmasters during the 70's & 80's. I have full trust in what they have told me, they and their instructors instructor have been doing this for a long time. Nothing pseudo-scienceish about them.

Certainly then, the masters have histological sections of conditioned and non-conditioned tissue to back up their claims? Specific gravity measurements, as well as a mass-spec analysis of the tissue to confirm changes in water content?
 

Carol

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My instructor got me started on some specific exercises for hand conditioning as well as posture/body mechanics today at my private lesson. We use a pair of sackloth bags filled with mung beans. Guro may described that there are properties of mung beans that help stimulate the nervous system. I can't speak for the science behind it but...it's several hours later and my hands are still stinging a bit. Not sure what any of that means but I'm looking forward to more of what LawDog has to say. :)
 
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LawDog

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As I stated before, I will stand by what I wrote. I have been in the martial arts for over forty years and have found that what the chinese masters have taught me to be correct. It was not long ago that the science community call the chinese acupuncture masters frauds. Acupuncture is now being accepted by the science community. Even Chinese herbal medicine was scoffed at, now I am told that this view point is changing.
I do what I do and have produced some top of the line black belts, most of whom have been with me from twenty to thirty four years. One of my long timers is a retired physics teacher. I do not believe that she would attend any of my theory instruction classes if I was not correct.
If you wish to discuss science the next time you are in the area I will introduce you to her and you may ask her anything you want about what teach. I will even introduce to a few of those chinese masters and you may converse with them freely.
I will not try to convince anyone of anything on a forum, this never works out. If you wish to converse with me in person, please do, then there can be no miscommunication between us.
Till then have fun in your chosen arts.
 

Andrew Green

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Now, I could be wrong on this, but I believe that although acupuncture is accepted, the traditional reasons that where said to make it work have not been accepted. Same thing here, we aren't going to argue that it doesn't work, just that the reasons given are not what is really going on.
 
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LawDog

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The old mystical stuff has not been however the physical reason's as to why have been, by most but not all. Most of the modern day masters do not believe in the mystical end of it either.
Take care and have a good day.
 

Danjo

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Now, I could be wrong on this, but I believe that although acupuncture is accepted, the traditional reasons that where said to make it work have not been accepted. Same thing here, we aren't going to argue that it doesn't work, just that the reasons given are not what is really going on.

Hey, maybe there really are meridians etc. Who knows? Maybe they're only allegories to explain something scientifically unknown at the time. Point is: if it works, use it.
 

tellner

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And maybe a lot of this really is hogwash. The spleen is not the master governing organ. You can take it out and live a perfectly normal life. It is impossible to distill qi from the air. The traditional remedy for snakebite, soaking a cucumber in your urine for three days and eating the resulting nasty pickle, will not work. There is no elixir of immortality that works by virtue of the toxin containing the anti-toxin. I could go on. At length.

We know infinitely more about the physical and biological sciences now than we did then. "I've spent forty years learning to hit people" and "I arrest criminals and give out parking tickets" are completely irrelevant and do not constitute a basis for an informed opinion let alone qualifications in histology, physiology or biochemistry. The argument from authority, i.e. "The Ancient Chinese Masters say so, and I believe them" holds even less water.

It also begs the question of why you would want to risk traumatic arthritis in an age where fine motor control and finger sensitivity are so important. The reason so many of the bare-knuckle boxing punches were backfists and hammerfists was to protect the hands. Elbows, knees, forearms and shins are much sturdier. You can train them to really impressive density without taking a chance at crippling yourself. I've seen before and after x-rays of a guy who did hardcore Cimande training. His ulna and radius were much more radio-lucent afterwards.
 

Andrew Green

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Wait a sec!

I just had a major revelation!

All those chubby soke's running around that we make fun of, they aren't fat and out of shape, they are retaining more water to increase there body density. Sure, they might jiggle a little when you poke them, but try to punch them in that gut and it's like hitting a brick wall, instant broken fist. Those sneaky buggers :lol:
 

tellner

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Let's put it this way, Ray. In the Talmud the Sages state that the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave the man a magnificent brain and a versatile male member but not enough blood to supply both at the same time :)
 

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