Here’s another clip from our new dvd Internal Iron Palm in 100 Days.

This 2 Disc DVD includes:

• Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm 100 Days Method
• Training After 100 Days
• Tai Chi Iron Palm Street Applications
• Speed Training
• and more…

When looking for our Iron Palm Jow I tried numerous Iron Palm formula’s to find the one that we are recommending on or Internal Iron Palm DVD.

There are jows that are designed to protect and coat the hand and completely seal off the lao gong and finger points.

This kind of jow is not good for internal work because sensitivity is negated in the practitioner.

There are also jows that are designed to make the chi go to the hand and then express which helps create great ability to transmit energy but does not protect the hand or internally build the hand because almost all of the energy gets expressed. You had better have a lot of great Chi building exercises and be practicing them every day to use this kind of jow or the eventual depletion of chi will most certainly make you sick. My study on a lot of masters who have used this kind of jow is that although they are quite powerful they tend to die very young.

Now for the jow we have chosen to use. It helps the lao gong and finger points to open so that you can feel and express to and through an object / person while at the same time allowing the practitioner to keep a nice residual amount of Chi in the hand.  It does not overly draw energy from the body meaning that the as long as the Internal Iron Palm is being practiced correctly the practitioners health is not at risk. Also, this jow does a very nice job of covering and protecting the hand making it easy to correctly break with no side affects or harm to the practitioner.

Regards.
Sifu

The first day of our last Combat Tai Chi workshop was focused entirely on Iron Palm, and everyone there had a lot of fun working with this subject.

I’ll post some video clips on Tai Chi Iron Palm as soon as I get a chance to go through some of the footage from the workshop, and you can expect a DVD on the subject later this month.

There are many different methods of Iron Palm and even a number of different Internal Iron Palm methods, but last Friday we focused exclusively on Iron Palm training methods found in Tai Chi and how Tai Chi approaches this subject.

Sigung Clear Demonstrates a Tai Chi Iron Palm Application

One of the coolest things about Iron Palm training in Tai Chi is that Tai Chi sets are some of the best Iron Palm forms out there. So there’s no need to find and learn a separate Iron Palm form. Once you understand the principles for developing this skill you simply use the Tai Chi set that you already know.

Since we started talking and writing about Tai Chi Iron Palm and Iron Body training we’ve had several folks call or write to us asking how it works. They want to understand how we are able to get results without striking our hands on materials the way external methods are trained.

Sigung Clear Demonstrates Another Internal Iron Palm Application

Sigung Clear launches his training partner across the room for safety, but normally all the force of this application would be directed inside an attacker to damage the internal organs instead of moving them.

The simple short answer is that we use our mind intent to stimulate a change in our hands and body instead of using physical trauma they way external methods do.

Click here for Sigung Clear’s answer to this question & to find out how long it takes for this type of training to produce results.

Due to recent inquiries I am compelled to write a post on Internal Iron Palm & Iron Body Misconceptions.

As we continue to write on real internal skills and gain more acceptance as an authority on Tai Chi, both the Internal healing aspects and the combat aspects, I am finding that we are drawing questions and criticisms from other American instructors that are very revealing about the unfortunate state of real Tai Chi in America.

This year will mark my 25th year as a teacher of Tai Chi and Internal arts. It will mark my 31st year as a practitioner of Tai Chi. I have been and always will be an avid student of the martial arts and particularly of the internal martial arts. I have had the fortune of studying from some very skilled high level teachers who have openly taught me.

Also, I have had to do extensive research and continue to do more research and put myself in front of senior teachers on a regular basis to keep my sword sharp and to broaden my horizons.

I am an avid believer in testing my skills to see what is real and what is good and what needs to be improved. I welcome the opportunity to interact with others. A few years ago I avidly began to look for other high level Internal Tai Chi teachers here in the states and what happened again and again was that I would contact someone who I thought had higher level skill just to find more often than not that I was the person who was the teacher when it came to internal skills. Let me state here that I have studied from and continue to study from excellent teachers as well and that I obviously have far to go but fortunately I am on the road to get there.

Due to the cultural history of senior teachers hiding information from their students research and practice is the only way that I have found to get to the bottom of the truths that point the way for advanced high level Tai Chi studies.

I have learned to be wary of teachers I don’t know and to watch what they do as much or more than just listen to what they say. Last year, on 3 separate occasions, I asked 3 different senior Tai Chi masters the same push hands question (that I already fully knew the answer to). I had already felt and perceived enough to know the answer that these 3 teachers have in their actual practice of the art. All three teachers lied to me and tried to point me in a direction that was obviously false. Since each time this happened was in a seminar / workshop format I did not make the teachers lose face but I also did not allow anyone else present in the room to push or move me and I used the real answer to the question to stop them. In each case the master was put in a dilemma to explain and on each occasion they simply stated that I was obviously an advanced practitioner and then moved on to another subject.

I find that unfortunately many so called internal arts teachers here in the USA are only familiar with external training methods. As a result they write articles claiming that Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm and Internal Iron Body methods do not exist or worse yet without any knowledge they dismiss the training methods as being inappropriate and unhealthy for internal practitioners and everyone else.

This misinformation is exacerbated by real high level Tai Chi instructors who want to keep the real Tai Chi secrets so badly that they will lie to their students about the internal skills while teaching them form after form. These American students who now know a lot of forms but not much else then represent themselves as the authority (as if they were the only one) here in North America and quote their teachers lies as the real info regarding internal skills.

I highly recommend that seekers look for themselves and read articles and watch videos and then ask questions of the teachers themselves to see who actually has it. Then, make arrangements to study some of the materials to see what you can learn.

Our material is internal. That really is the first question that should be asked. “Is your material internal?”. Ours is. Another question to ask is, “How do I know if it is internal?”. Internal simply means inside and the training is done inside the body. Generally speaking internal is very healthy for you long term.

Beating on your body etc is not internal because it is external beating. I am amazed at how many teachers represent this as internal iron body. The only reason for hitting an internal iron body practitioner is to test their ability or to demonstrate their ability and NOT TO BUILD their ability. Hitting to build iron body is external training.

Our Internal Iron Body and Iron Palm building is really Internal and healthy for you long term. Most External Iron Palm and Iron Body is not healthy for you long term. If a teacher sees a demo of us performing Internal Iron Body or Iron Palm on youtube and says that it is unhealthy for you or that Internal Iron Palm or Iron Body do not exist then what they are really saying is that they do not know real internal training or they are lying and trying to hide the truth.

Please read our post on Internal Iron Palm, Internal Iron Body, Nei Gung and other internal posts and you will find more answers regarding real internal training.

Thank you.
Regards.
Sifu

The first thing to know is that there are several different kinds of Tai Chi Internal Iron Body. All of the Tai Chi Internal Iron Body methods are relatively secret methods that are trained quite differently than external Iron Body methods.

For the most part, the most basic external Iron Body methods involve taking hits and building up the body to take more and more force due to conditioning the body through impact. For this reason most external Iron Body methods are not desirable or good for long term practice and health as they tends to debilitate the body in old age.

Tai Chi Internal Iron Body on the other hand is trained through the correct practice and manipulation of energy. There are a number of essential skills that are required in order to develop various Tai Chi Internal Iron Body methods. The ability to feel and manipulate energy is an essential requirement for this kind of training. This involves a deep understanding of Sung relaxing, Peng internal connection and rooting jings. Also, being able to feel, understand and work with energy flow through various acupoints including but not limited to the Lao Gong in the palms, the Yong Quan (Bubbling Well) in the feet, the Hui Yin between the anus and genitals and the Bai Hui on top of the head is essential to develop the real internal Tai Chi Iron Body.

Over time and correct practice in Tai Chi Internal Iron Body the body develops a skill that is known as Golden Bell Covered. Golden Bell Covered gives the practitioner the ability to withstand and more importantly disperse hits received. Also, a practitioner that has this skill develops the true steel wrapped in cotton quality that is such a famous part of the Tai Chi Classic writings. With this quality you can barely tap an attacker with your forearm and it feels to them like you are hitting them with a crow bar that is covered with a thin layer of cotton about the thickness of a sock. The hits are fierce and penetrating. Advanced practitioners can also take hits to their body and send the energy back into the attacker / striker through the point of impact breaking the attackers wrist / elbow or dislocating the shoulder of the attacker.

Bone Marrow Washing and Nei Kung is an essential skill that is required for good Tai Chi Internal Iron Body work. Due to the secrecy that is so often found in the internal arts including Tai Chi and chi kung I have found that there is a lot of confusion about what Bone Marrow Washing is and how to train it. The practice is relatively simple to understand and it is taught in our beginning basic curriculum. Without this training being done correctly it is impossible to do high level Tai Chi Internal Iron Body.

Also, the ability to work with heaven and earth energy separately and together is essential for high level Tai Chi Internal Iron Body. When this practice is understood correctly it is much easier for the practitioner to manipulate the energy and the Tai Chi Internal Iron Body and Iron Palm are much easier to obtain.

Many people who practice and teach Tai Chi do not know about these methods or the training required to obtain them due to the secrecy surrounding the methods. I also find that many people who have trained in Tai Chi for years do not understand the real Tai Chi basics enough to be able to learn these methods without relearning much of what they thought they knew about Tai Chi. I will be adding a post about the how and why of this situation in the near future.

At least two different versions of Tai Chi internal Iron Body and the skills required to learn them will be taught and video recorded in the Clear’s Tai Chi Combat Tai Chi workshops series. The first Combat Tai Chi workshop will be held on Jan 22 – 24, 2010. The videos should be available by mid February.

The first thing to know is that there are several different kinds of Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm. All of the real Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm methods are relatively secret methods that are trained quite differently than external Iron Palm methods.

Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm methods are quite different from external iron palm methods. Most external iron palm involves impact / hitting training in order to build the iron palm. The external striking methods of training are not healthy in the long term. Also, most external iron palm training is designed to simply be a heavy hand hit.

Most internal iron palm methods train how to transmit and control the direction and amount of energy transfer giving the practitioner a lot more control over how much damage is imparted. Due to the combination of long term health and the ability to control the strikes I prefer the Internal methods.

Here is a partial list of some of the different types of Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm:

• Cotton Palm,
• Poison Hand,
• Vibrating Palm,
• Crushing Palm,
• Yin and Yang Universal Energy Palm,
• Springy Palm,
• Spiral Energy Palm ( in front of a crowd of people I touched one of our students with this one and watched in amazement and a little horror as he spun away from me more than 10 feet away and continued to spin as he hit and rolled across part of a wall. He was okay but it was a lesson in how potent proper energy manipulation can be.),
• Steel wrapped in Cotton (which actually extends through the entire forearm),
• Fa Jing energy Palm.

When properly trained the body can also exhibit some of these types of energy and an expert can express these energies from almost any part of their body at will.

There are a number of essential skills that are required in order to develop various Tai Chi Internal Iron Palm methods. The ability to feel and manipulate energy is an essential requirement for this kind of training. This involves a deep understanding of Sung relaxing, Peng internal connection and rooting jings. Also, being able to feel, understand and work with energy flow through various acupoints including but not limited to the Lao Gong in the palms, the Yong Quan (Bubbling Well) in the feet, the Hui Yin between the anus and genitals and the Bai Hui on top of the head is essential to develop the real internal Tai Chi Iron Palm.

Many people who practice and teach Tai Chi do not know about these palms or the training required to obtain them due to the secrecy surrounding the methods. I also find that many people who have trained in Tai Chi for years do not understand the real Tai Chi basics enough to be able to learn these palms without relearning much of what they thought they knew about Tai Chi. I will be adding a post about the how and why of this situation in the near future.

A few of these palms and the skills required to learn them will be taught and video recorded in the Clear’s Tai Chi Combat Tai Chi workshops series. The first Combat Tai Chi workshop will be held on Jan 22 – 24, 2010. The videos should be available by mid February.

Here’s a question that was asked about this video over on youtube:

goodawood:
How long does it take for you to build up your body in order to be able to absorb and disperse the energy?

When you disperse the energy into the body does it break the blood vessels in the tissue and leave a deep bruise?

Sifu Clear:
Thank you for these excellent questions. I will answer in the order that they were asked.

Q. How long does it take for you to build up your body in order to be able to absorb and disperse the energy?

A. The answer to this is very dependent on how much shock or impact force you are asking about.
Most people are able to learn how to disperse some shock / impact within a couple of lessons and quite often in the first lesson. As for more serious shock / impact then the answer will vary quite a bit from person to person and also depends on how much shock / impact force you are referring to.

Absorbing and then dispersing the impact takes a bit longer. For the amount of impact that Scott is receiving in the video clip the average person has to work on the material for 6 months to 2 years or so. After that your ability will depend on your skill level and how much you practice and work at it. Being soft and connected is very important for the more advanced levels of this and some folks gain understanding quickly and some folks take quite a bit longer before they really understand.

Q. When you disperse the energy into the body does it break the blood vessels in the tissue and leave a deep bruise?

A. If you are referring to the idea of receiving force and then dispersing it the simple answer is that you are not dispersing the force into your body. So, as long as you disperse the energy properly there is no bruising or broken blood vessels because you are allowing and helping the force to pass through and out of you so that it is diminished and dissipated with no residual effect in your body.

If you are asking if when I strike or send the incoming force back into the attacker if it can break the blood vessels in the tissue and leave a deep bruise then the answer is yes and it can do less of this or much more damage depending on your skill level and ability.

I hope this helps. If I misunderstood your questions and you are actually asking something different than what I have written here then please restate and I will be happy to try to answer again. Also, please ask if you have any other questions.

Best Regards.
Sifu Clear

We are finishing up a new DVD on the Clear’s Internal Push Hands method.

Here’s a video clip showing the internal Iron body & palm that you will develop from the methods shown on this DVD. This is not the primary focus of the dvd. It’s just one of the many skills and body qualities that this method builds.

The DVD will be available in late January / early February 2010. To get the latest info about release dates & pre-order specials sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.

photo by: spaceamoeba

One of the more famous sayings about Tai Chi that is included with this program as part of what we are going to be teaching all throughout it is “steel wrapped in cotton.”

“Steel wrapped in cotton” is a fairly common saying, to a certain degree, amongst people who are really studying Tai Chi in-depth and are interested in the combat Tai Chi. Interestingly enough if you go to find ’steel wrapped in cotton’ most people either don’t teach it or don’t know it, and that is part of what we are including in the Combat Tai Chi program.

What “steel wrapped in cotton” is referring to is basically if you took a crowbar and you took a piece of cloth a little bit thick, but certainly if your hitting your hand with it you’re feeling that there’s metal under there, and you wouldn’t want to get hit on the arm with it because even though the surface would be soft that crowbar is going to break your arm.

It’s that kind of a quality. So when someone feels the surface , it feels like there’s just a thin layer of cotton wrapped around it so it’s soft, but as soon as that layer gets penetrated now they’re hitting an iron bar.

And again its a high level Tai Chi Quality, it is in the program and we’re teaching it.

It’s part of what makes the Tai Chi just deadly. If you take a crowbar like that and smack somebody in the head at the speed and direction I just moved my hand at “BAM” how many people could take that hit from a crowbar.

Or if he’s hitting me, he takes the force of the hit and it’s nothing to me on the receiving side.

The quality is actually through the whole body. It is Tai Chi’s version of Iron Palm & Iron Body. It makes it so you can withstand a pretty serious shot, and you only have to hit them once. If you graze them maybe you have to hit them twice and that’s it because its got this crowbar quality to it that we’re talking about. Whether you hit them with with your elbow, your palm or even your fingers.

Photo by Peter Gene