Piercing Hands

[nlmantis]

I was wondering if piercing hands/fingers training is part of your training and what your experiences are with it (results). Also what materials you have used (sand/steel BBs etc) and intensity / duration of training (months, years). I am very interested to see feedback.

Love, Peace, Harmony.
Bob.

 

[Black Tiger Fist]

I was wondering if piercing hands/fingers training is part of your training and what your experiences are with it (results). Also what materials you have used (sand/steel BBs etc) and intensity / duration of training (months, years). I am very interested to see feedback.

Love, Peace, Harmony.
Bob.

Well, while we do have hand conditioning drills that use sand,stone,and lead pellets ,i myself have not gotten fully involved into the training yet.

But we do focus on what you call "piercing hands/fingers" there are areas of the body that are soft areas and don't really require finger or hand conditioning ,but i won't mention them on a public forum ,too many youngsters read these forums ,and are too willing to try such techniques on others without thinking.

jeff

 

[nlmantis]

Jeff,

I am very interested in the conditioning methods themselves, if you have some more specifics I would like to know. When you say lead pellets, I hope you're well informed of the dangers in training with lead? When you strike lead, minor lead particles will spread in the air which can be inhaled accidentally. Steel/Iron pellets do not have this danger..

"In adults, lead can increase blood pressure and cause fertility problems, nerve disorders, muscle and joint pain, irritability, and memory or concentration problems. When a pregnant woman has an elevated blood lead level, that lead can easily be transferred to the fetus, as lead crosses the placenta. In fact, pregnancy itself causes lead to be released from the bone, where lead is stored—often for decades—after it first enters the blood stream. (The same releasing process can occur with the onset of either menopause or osteoporosis.) Once the lead is released from the mother's bones, it re-enters the blood stream and can end up in the fetus. In other words, if a woman was exposed to enough lead as a child for some of the lead to have been stored in her bones, the mere fact of pregnancy can trigger the release of that lead and can cause the fetus to be exposed. In such cases, the baby is born with an elevated blood lead level.
Routes of exposure for adults include both ingestion and inhalation. While it takes more ingested or inhaled lead to cause adverse health effects in adults than it does in children, damage to an adult's kidney can occur at exposures of about 40 µg/dL. Nerve damage and anemia can occur at levels of about 60 µg/dL. Long-term exposure to lead is linked to high blood pressure and strokes. Chronic high-dose exposures can lead to end-stage kidney disease. Levels of 150 µg/dL and above are associated with acute lead encephalopathy, whose warning signs include joint pain, irritability, headaches, constipation and abdominal pain. At such levels, it is not unusual for the adult to experience convulsions or paralysis, to lapse into a coma, or to die." -- http://www.nsc.org/issues/lead/adultlead.htm

--
Love, Peace, Harmony.
Bob.

 

[Black Tiger Fist]

Jeff,

I am very interested in the conditioning methods themselves, if you have some more specifics I would like to know. When you say lead pellets, I hope you're well informed of the dangers in training with lead? When you strike lead, minor lead particles will spread in the air which can be inhaled accidentally. Steel/Iron pellets do not have this danger..

"In adults, lead can increase blood pressure and cause fertility problems, nerve disorders, muscle and joint pain, irritability, and memory or concentration problems. When a pregnant woman has an elevated blood lead level, that lead can easily be transferred to the fetus, as lead crosses the placenta. In fact, pregnancy itself causes lead to be released from the bone, where lead is stored—often for decades—after it first enters the blood stream. (The same releasing process can occur with the onset of either menopause or osteoporosis.) Once the lead is released from the mother's bones, it re-enters the blood stream and can end up in the fetus. In other words, if a woman was exposed to enough lead as a child for some of the lead to have been stored in her bones, the mere fact of pregnancy can trigger the release of that lead and can cause the fetus to be exposed. In such cases, the baby is born with an elevated blood lead level.
Routes of exposure for adults include both ingestion and inhalation. While it takes more ingested or inhaled lead to cause adverse health effects in adults than it does in children, damage to an adult's kidney can occur at exposures of about 40 µg/dL. Nerve damage and anemia can occur at levels of about 60 µg/dL. Long-term exposure to lead is linked to high blood pressure and strokes. Chronic high-dose exposures can lead to end-stage kidney disease. Levels of 150 µg/dL and above are associated with acute lead encephalopathy, whose warning signs include joint pain, irritability, headaches, constipation and abdominal pain. At such levels, it is not unusual for the adult to experience convulsions or paralysis, to lapse into a coma, or to die." -- http://www.nsc.org/issues/lead/adultlead.htm

--
Love, Peace, Harmony.
Bob.

Bob,

I feel ya on the lead ,i should've put iron pellets or steel bb's since that's actually more accurate to what we use these days.

jeff

 

[nlmantis]

Seeing as there was only one reply to this thread, does that mean no-one on this forum has practised piercing hands? That seems strange to me, since I have seen it mentioned as part of the curriculum for Kung Fu schools. For our school it is a complementary training which comes right after iron palm, which I am doing right now. I was asking around since I have seen this training in many Kung Fu movies and am wondering where it stands today. Sofar the conclusion is: certainly not the most popular training around..

 

[clfsean]

Well... as a software developer my hands are my paycheck. If I loose manual dexterity because of a type of training that I in all likely hood won't ever need... is it worth it??

Should I be able to pierce a watermelon (for instance) & not be able to type & earn a living?? Or should I develop good foundation techniques with my palms & fists that don't do that level of severe damage to my hands & continue earning with no problem?

If this were 150 years ago & I needed my hands for survival instead of a polished trade, sure... heavy duty iron palm training along with the fingers then. Now ... it's not needed as much I think.

I'm have to do iron palm at some point in my training, but right now it's not on the plate & not needed. Even then, it's only palm/grip, not piercing type fingers.

 

[nlmantis]

Interesting that you associate piercing hands with severe damage, I would appreciate to know why? Have you come across anything/anyone evidencing damage resulting from this training?

(Would voice recognition software resolve the issue with the job?)

 

[7starmantis]

Any type of body conditioning is certainly going to have people on both sides of the issue. Iron body is not the most popular but is used by a fare amount of people. We do quite a bit of iron body and we do use "peircing fingers" as you called it, but its most deffinitely not the most important part of our training, nor do we require everyone in the school to train this way.

7sm

 

[clfsean]

Interesting that you associate piercing hands with severe damage, I would appreciate to know why? Have you come across anything/anyone evidencing damage resulting from this training?

(Would voice recognition software resolve the issue with the job?)

I've not "touched" the hands I think of when relating damage & piercing strikes, but I have seen them. He's not able to use his hands fully because of the arthritis that's set in due to the training similar to what Jeff described. Granted he is much older than I & has many more years of training in than I. But yes I have seen the effects it brings about.

Voice Recognition... nah... I have a southern twang to my voice that often wreaks havoc with VR software. Thanks anyway

 

[bignick]

:-offtopic
coding with voice software would be impossible...very few things in code are actual real words

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


One thing that I've learned and sort of have been working alot on in my own practice is using piercing hands in bridging. I try to use them in striking sometimes, but I have very long fingers, so they feel too frail for me to really jab into something without worrying about screwing my fingers up. Bridging, though, is proving to be a useful outlet for piercing hands. For whatever reason, maybe the slight tension created in the arm when pushing the fingers together, maybe it's just more aerodynamic, but I find piercing hands to help add a little speed when trying to quickly bridge and set up for something else. When used with rise, drill , overturn , fall methods in bagua, then piercing hand seems quick, efficient and useful for getting the bridge , overturning and grabbing or doing something else. It also seems to add more structure to the arm as a whole when moving quickly. For me, at least.

The little training that I do for percussive striking with the fingertips is usually against a towel hanging from the cieling or against loosely packed cardboard boxes at work. Packed too tight and I jam my fingers, packed loose and they have a little give. I like the cutting palm type action created by the side of the hand when holding the fingers together for piercing, though I've yet to really work cutting palm stuff for sparring. I guess what I'm getting at is trying to explore different aspects of the piercing hand type formation and what other functions that it can serve besides just striking the throat, eyes or whatever.

It's late, so I hope that made sense.

Regards,
Josh

 

[Black Tiger Fist]

Hi,


One thing that I've learned and sort of have been working alot on in my own practice is using piercing hands in bridging. I try to use them in striking sometimes, but I have very long fingers, so they feel too frail for me to really jab into something without worrying about screwing my fingers up. Bridging, though, is proving to be a useful outlet for piercing hands. For whatever reason, maybe the slight tension created in the arm when pushing the fingers together, maybe it's just more aerodynamic, but I find piercing hands to help add a little speed when trying to quickly bridge and set up for something else. When used with rise, drill , overturn , fall methods in bagua, then piercing hand seems quick, efficient and useful for getting the bridge , overturning and grabbing or doing something else. It also seems to add more structure to the arm as a whole when moving quickly. For me, at least.

The little training that I do for percussive striking with the fingertips is usually against a towel hanging from the cieling or against loosely packed cardboard boxes at work. Packed too tight and I jam my fingers, packed loose and they have a little give. I like the cutting palm type action created by the side of the hand when holding the fingers together for piercing, though I've yet to really work cutting palm stuff for sparring. I guess what I'm getting at is trying to explore different aspects of the piercing hand type formation and what other functions that it can serve besides just striking the throat, eyes or whatever.

It's late, so I hope that made sense.

Regards,
Josh

Hmmm

I'm not sure i would want to bridge with my fingers like that ,but it could work i guess. I wouldn't do it simply because my sifu likes to jamb your hands with strikes of his own ,like blocking a punch with a punch fist to fist ,so me leaving my fingers in a finger thrust type position would be very painful.

I tend to do alot of things like he does ,so i could see the fingers being attacked if left that way ,but i could be misreading what your're trying to say also??

jeff

 

[JoshVogel]

Hi,


Good point! I've never met anyone who jams the hands like that or is fast enough to pull it off, but it definitely sounds like a cool strategy. My brother does something sort of similar as does my teacher. Sometimes, if my brother is messing around and I'm not fast enough, he will use the "tigers mouth" basically the web between the thumb and forefinger to jam into the bicep when I punch from low to high. Sometimes my teacher and some of my class mates will punch a larger guys arms out of the way when they are trying to get in (usually against guys with much longer reach). Sort of a similar Idea, but not the same thing.

I'm not a very good fighter or martial artist, so please take my words with a grain of salt, but in my experience when bridging with open hands it helps me alot for both speed purposes as well as avoiding snagging the fingers on something to use a piercing type of hand shape. But you definitely gave me some cool food for thought with that "jamming" idea.

It's pretty interesting how it feels like different hand shapes have different speeds from point A to point B and in different directions. Like piercing down to up seems faster with my body than up to down. Punching while twisting the fist feels faster than trying to punch with the palm facing up the whole time.

BK Frantzis has a pretty interesting section in his Power of Internal Martial arts book about this subject.

Regards,
Josh

 

[nlmantis]

Yes I agree upwards striking usually is faster unless when striking low. I find the following good applications I am just playing with in sparring since just introduced to the concepts:

* shadow-striking in the armpit after/during palm-striking/blocking a punch upward, using secret sword

* piercing hand striking into side of waist after going 45 on a strike/block/kick, for example after reverse roundhouse kick

* piercing into neck-area after blocking a punch on the inside, snake-style (risky)

* also just striking with finger-tips after a punch was blocked too close to the head, this one especially works like a charm for confusing/setting up for the real strike.
I think in general one should not lead with an open hand since it is too vulnerable. However when I try to strike my Sifu with a closed-fist punch he still gets me for example in heart-points around the wrist (tongli, yinxi). Better off patiently trying to create an opportunity against a better fighter, not committing in anything.

 

[Silo-Fu Kung-Fu]

We do percing fingers,
its taken a few years but i can now peirce a peice of drywall with 3 fingers and my thumb on both hands. the pinky is a bit harder to work due to size but im getting there.

as for training material im using a peice of drywall

 

[Dronak]

I heard that our teacher taught some training for this sort of thing in special classes that I didn't attend. Our group classes moved fast enough as it was, so I didn't want to move any faster than necessary. Since I didn't take those extra classes, I don't know much about this training, but I remember hearing that there was a sequence of materials. Something like you'd start with beans, then go to rice, then sand. I think the basic idea was to work up from larger objects to smaller ones.

 

[pekho]

My school seems to be phasing out this training because of the dangers involved. My teacher gives it as an example of over training. He stabbed sand until his fingers turned black. His teacher laughed at him and told him he could not train for a week.

Josh