Dear Tim/ Shen Wu students,

Much fuss is made about the "Iron Shirt" ability of the IMA, where the practitioner can take an enormous amount of physical punishment.

Is something similar trained in the Shen Wu curriculum, and if so how do you guys train for it?

Normally, we try NOT to get hit. We're more about hitting the other guy.
There is a fair amount of conditioning involved in our training (just in case), and during sparring practice students are exposed to impact where they learn to deal with force and eventually develop the skills necessary to neutralize or 'roll with' strikes. IMA are more concerned with not resisting force, preferring to avoid or redirect it.
For example, one training method we use is to strike a student while wearing boxing gloves. The student learns how to move his frame to absorb the minimum amount of force. The force of the strikes is gradually increased. Remaining relaxed and moving with the force of the blows helps to minimize trauma (think drunk in a car wreck).
As far as things like 'iron shirt' are concerned, I'm sure there is some valuable training there, but the people best able to absorb hard blows that I've personally ever seen were Western boxers.

Ya know Tim. I'm going through Iron Shirt right now. I haven't noticed any increased tolerance to getting hit; but it IS helping ME hit harder.

The ladies in the Malibu Senior Center are very fond of my Iron Skirt training.

Bob #2

I train with a few other dedicated guys, and we had to stop the iron shirt training because we were smart enough to know that we were not ready for such training. Especially for that fact that we have no teacher just dedication, will, and archives of manuals.

We will revisit that training a year from now. According to Yang Jwing-Ming a good test to know if your ready for Iron Shirt is to stand for 45 minutes twice a day for 6 months. If you cant even do that then you would just hurt your internal organs outer linings with the Iron Shirt training.

This may be the reason why Tim has not met any real Iron Shirt people able to take blows better than western boxers. Because western internalists for the most part dont have the patience to go through it properly. Also be very careful, many of the iron shirt training taught to soldiers in ancient or modern China were killing them years down the line. The concern was for soldiers to be strong for war time not later in their lives. So really get academic on your teacher and learn all the background you can on your training and ask around alot to contrast and compare. Check out how the taoists and buddhists did it, and do it exactly like they did. They weren't rushing to get strong for war time, they were searching for the maximum human potential and immortality or nirvana. Big difference in goals means big difference in training.

immortality?

You think Buddhists and Taoists are seeking immortality?

I think certain Taoists sects were seeking immortality. I think Buddhists were seeking Nirvana. I think both were seeking maximum human potential amoung other things. What do you think?

I think immortality is only something a fool would strive for. If it where possible, it would only be interesting for a few hundred years. Afterwhich, an immortal would do nothing other than seek death.

This is getting off from iron shirt training, but you can find Chinese sources that say 'imortality' was not about longevity, but about attitude.

My impression is that immortality was about becoming one with the tao, such that when the physical body died the spiritual body would continue on with the tao.

There are many sources that show how taoists look for immortality after death, since they believe an immortal soul must be created into us and it's not given to all.

continuing existence "after death" is not immortality. Immortality is the physical body; skin, organs, eyeballs and all living without the possibility of ever going through "death".

I believe the spirit continues to exist after the physical body dies. I do not believe immortality is possible

Early 'Daoists' were looking for the elixir of physical immortality (one of their potions killed Chin Shi Huang, the unifier and first emperor of China). There are three types of Daoism: philosophical, religious and folk. They have almost nothing in common. It is impossible to accurately discuss "Daoism" and "Daoists" without specifying which type you are referring to.

It is true there is a multiplicity of approaches to practice, but there does seem to be a set of core concepts (including most of the key terms of Chinese martial culture) that are common throughout not just all the forms of Daoist practice, but most of the later syntheses, hybridizations, orthodoxies and heterodoxies as well. There is a very awesome book called Fortune Tellers and Philosophers by Richard Smith (1991 Westview Press) that gives an amazingly coherent and accessible description of this.

I agree with you, Tim; still I must say that there's evidence that physical immortality was(is)considered by taoists the supreme goal but almost impossible for the majority, while meta-physical immortality (surviving of the soul)the second goal in the row (superior quality of this life being the third and last one).

Tim,

I read a story about Xu Hong Ji having his students demonstrate (sucessfully) their iron shirt ability to a Taiwanese soldier who made disparaging remarks about Xingyi. Do you know if Xu Hong Ji or Hung Yi Hsiang actually had this skill? Did you learn anything of that nature with him or with Luo De Xiu? Thanks.

I never practiced iron shirt as anything separate from Xingyiquan.

On Mike Pattersons's website (a student of Xu Hong Ji's), there is a short video demonstration of one of his students hitting him in the chest with a sledgehammer. Now admittedly I've never tried this, but it seems fairly impressive and the kind of thing one might need to train for. Does anyone have any insight on how one might develop the ability to take this hard of a direct shot? Thanks.

As in all aspects of internal training; you need competent instruction; faith in the method you learn; the willingness and/or need to learn it; a good training partner you can trust; and perseverance.

As to technique -- best learned from someone who can do it -- every competent method, traditional or otherwise, that I have experienced involves getting used to the idea of being hit while maintaining your balance and relative relaxation.

Oh, and you have to put up with some pain and bruising in the beginning.

The easiest way to learn effective iron-shirt in modern terms is to take up western boxing. Any good boxer learns to take pain and impact without getting internal injuries, It's also true that western boxing on a professional level is liable to lead to long-term brain damage in even the finest fighter so that should be a consideration as well ...

Last, but not least, knowing how to "take a punch" is relatively useless in self-defence terms if you can't carry the fight effectively to the opponent.

Being able to 'take a blow' is not a good idea if the other fellow has a knife or other weapon. Perhaps better to spend that time learning how to not take a blow.