AboutChris A. Johnston Expertise I can answer historical or technical questions involving most Okinawan/Japanese styles of Karate and Kobujitsu. Also I have made a study of the acupoints and other pressure points and have researched the medical explanations of why they work the way they do. Ask me questions about the neurological implications of pressure point strikes. If I don`t know an answer I will gladly research it.
Experience I have 34 years experience in traditional Shito-Ryu Karate. I am currently Rokudan in Shito-Ryu and Sandan in Kobujitsu. I practice the Seito method of doing the Shito-Ryu kata. Also I study as often as possible with Seiyu Oyata, although this has not been as often as I would like. My research of pressure points caused me to study the peripheral nervous system, spinal laminae, corticothalamic network, reticular activating system and various links to other brain areas. I currently have 2 articles out on the subject.
Organizations belong to Traditional Karate Association (TKA), Ryu-Te Renmei, Martial Arts Research Fellowship (MARF).
Question When I ask any expert he tells me about the dangers and so on .. let us talk about karate ... every karate master or even teenagers break brick man (I saw alot videos), you hear what I say ! teenagers (12 to 14 tears old) and they didn't get injured .. so why all experts say it's dangerous and....... (I'm talking about the karate breaking not the Iron palm) .. and i'm sorry if i'm annoying you :)
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Ok I understand.. but can you please tell me what they do in Iron Palm ? I mean they (punch something or doing something) .. what they do exactly .. please tell me :)
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Hello, I will be so glad if you tell me what should I do to ((prepare)) my HANDS, FEET, HEAD for BREAKING BRICKS.. Just tell me what to do to make my hands, feet, and head ready to start breaking bricks..
Answer -
Hello Jasmi,
I am familiar with the concept of conditioning for breaking, but do not train for it myself. The Chinese do what is probably the best conditioning, but there is a price. One type is called Iron Palm, and there are a few other similar methods, and it involves progressively more abrasive and painful conditioning exercises. Repeated minor impacts gradually increase bone density in the hands and wrists.
The Iron Palm training will indeed make the hands dangerous, but the cost is that if you should ever stop the training you will eventually have bone and joint problems in the hands. I do not recommend it for most people. If you look it up you should be able to find a lot of available material on it. Best you should learn from people who specialize in this, and not second hand
from me.
I hope this leads you to what you are looking for.
-Chris A. Johnston
Answer -
Hello Jasmi,
The best I can tell you is what a friend of mine used to do, and how he described the iron palm training as his Sifu had taught it. To begin the student places something giving, like a stack of cardboard a few inches thick, on a hard surface at a height comfortable for striking. The student slaps the surface, with a relaxed palm, 100 times with each hand, not extremely vigorously but relaxed. Later less cardboard is used, then a bag with something firm in it is used, like heavy sawdust. Later the bag has a hard grain in it, later sand, and much later iron powder then iron shot of various sizes.
The training is also dangerous due to the reaction of the iron shot with some of the chemicals in the Jow that is used; toxins form and gradually leach into the skin. The practitioner is supposed to be able to keep the toxins in check using special linement or Jow, but even so a non-judicious contact could cause one to poison ones self. Supposedly this poison weapon can be used in combat to later disable an attacker or possibly kill them; I have no proof of any of this as it was simply verbally relayed to me by a friend who was a Chinese stylist.
Also the idea of poison hands has another meaning, the specific attack of particular areas of the body to inflict a specific sort of debilitating damage. The Bladder meridian has many poison hand points along it, if strikes are of a specific nature and angle. Ligament or muscle tissue is mis-located on the wrong side of a bony projection of a spinal segment, resulting in improper attenuation of that segment which causes pressure on nerves coming from between adjascent segments; in some cases organ failure can eventually result from the nerve pressure and damage. Many of the internal organs can be attacked in this way but I will not specifically cite which, or exactly how.
Anyway I hope this information is useful for you, but again I always advise against conditioning training like this. There is a heavy price to pay for it. It is possible to break concrete with a minimum of conditioning. Some folks use a stick wrapped in hemp rope to toughen the skin on the striking surface. There are plenty of good books on conditioning for the martial arts that would have a variety of suggestions for you, and probably even many web sites with free information if you were to search.
-Chris A. Johnston
Answer Hi Jasmi,
Well, breaking can be dangerous if it is real; I have seen people bake concrete blocks in an oven until the chemicals holding them together weaken, then break several of them easily. I have seen spaced bricks, so that the momentum of the first breaks the others. Also I once witnessed two un-spaced blocks cause my first instructor to break a bone in his hand, because the break was real and there were no spaces between the blocks. You decide of this makes it dangerous.
It is the CONDITIONING that I mentioned that is dangerous for you. You had asked about that, specifically, and yes, conditioning can be dangerous of you do it the old way. This was once for people who thought it was very important to be able to kill and maim with just their hands. So the warning was about the conditioning more than the actual breaking, I hope this clears it all up.
Answering these things is really not a bother. However I will be unavailable for a couple of days this weekend so it might take that long to answer during that time.
