Okay, hi everybody. We're going to talk today about beginner level, iron, palm and iron palm conditioning. First off, let's talk about what an iron palm strike is iron palm strike is with the open hand, basically deliver it coming in here, like an open hand shot. And when you strike with this, I'm striking, there's different ways to do it. But with this particular one, I'm striking with the entire palm coming here, just like that. That's one way to do it.

Another way to do it, is to strike here with this part. That's the emphasis. Sometimes that's called the show test. Sometimes I've seen that called the bear paw. Striking right here can also strike with the blade edge the blade edge tends to be a willow leaf comes in And it will flare at the last moment like that that's a willow leaf into a fist, I don't care if you punch are the bottom three, top two or the top two knuckles. Whatever your system or style is, that's unimportant.

You can strike with either focusing on the top two, or you can do the bottom three, it doesn't really matter. What matters is the principle behind it. Other way, other part of iron, palm striking is the back of the palm back of the hand, that's very important you can come across, catch somebody in the temple, even in the body. Okay, so what we do, these are the five basic iron palm strikes. So when we condition when you start out with conditioning, you want to start slow. So like beginner level is once a week.

You need to make did Zhao do not I repeat, do not do iron palm conditioning without job. Make did Chow or bidet Chow. We teach That here how to make it yourself. And if you don't make it, go buy it buy a lot of it. You always use plentiful did gel on your hands and your forearms. You know put that on that will help restore circulation helps your hands heal helps keep your hands from becoming beaten up and gnarly.

You want to keep them supple. The Dodger was helped heal your hands helps increase circulation helps take down the swelling that will come up from doing this severe trauma. Another thing about conditioning, if you are under the age of 18, you do not do the heavy duty conditioning. Heavy Duty conditioning is striking. we wind up striking rocks and steel pallets you would not do that. under the age of 18.

You can strike sand. So the first bag I'm going to strike here today as a sandbag what you do, you can either buy an iron palm bag, you can buy like regulation, army sandbags, it doesn't really matter. Or you can make your own bag however you want to do it. Typically will you'll fill it with sand If you have very sensitive hands if you're older, maybe a senior citizen or younger possibly in your hands are very sensitive, then don't start out with sand. You could start with something very soft like cotton. And just take cotton and really stuffing into your bag so it becomes very solid.

And you're going to do the same conditioning for a couple months on that cotton. That will help to develop your hands and start getting them conditioned. You can move on, like maybe a little sand and then just go soft with the seeds. You don't need to rush your training, rushing training is like I want to do it all in one day or something. Take time to build up. When you are conditioning and conditioning properly.

You are actually building the tendons, the ligaments, the bones, everything in there. So you spend time conditioning and you do this you know little bit each week a little bit each week a little bit each week. And you build your way off and then over like you know period of time One, two years, whatever You get solid striking ability. When I train people in machi war, I always tell them, it's gonna be a two year training procedure. But it's a little bit off topic. But the point is, you build up to it, the end of that time, bang, you get a good strike, that'll take things down, want to rush, things build up naturally.

So what I'm going to show here today, this is what you would do at the beginning level, you would do this once a week, do these strikes, which you'd do, I'm going to show you the basic five iron palm strikes, you're going to do back of the hand like this, just drop your hand down back in the hand, palm of the hand, blade edge, which is the willow leaf, you're going to do a punch and I don't care if you do the back three, or the front two, it doesn't really matter. And then you're going to do like a bear. Paul strikers show that you're going to hit and this is your focus, point, bang. So it's the five back of the hand, palm on the hand, blade of the hand, do a punch, and bang, hit hit here like this show pay. That's your five those five We'll develop your hand, you can add in different strikes later on different additional strikes of B include fingertips Nuka T, you know, one knuckle, one knuckle, rich hand, back fist, elbow strike, maybe even a forum strike, you can add those in later on.

Right now, at the beginning level, just do these five strikes, they give you a good base to start off with, you're going to do this once a week, how long do you condition for, what I would do is your initial conditioning is keep it keep the time low. So I would keep the time like maybe keep the strikes low to like maybe even just 20 strikes. You know, because you're actually doing heavy trauma in your hands and but you're doing it over a period of time. So low level, start off like maybe 20 strikes. You're going to put this gel on before and you're gonna put the gel on when you're done. And when you're starting out, you could stop every maybe 10 strikes and put some more gel on your hands.

Again, this is great. Important liberal use of dead Chow, it's mandatory, you have to use that you want that on your hands, he'll help heal your hands and keep them in good shape, use good quality. So beginning level, very first time, maybe even just 20 strikes, second week, you can go up to maybe 30 strikes, third week, maybe 40 strikes, and kind of work your way up. When you get into it. You know, you might be able to do this, like 500 strikes, that's a pretty good number to get to 250 strikes each and that's just doing 50 times each of the different strikes. You know, that's a good number to get to, but take your time to get there, you know, meaning take like maybe four months to get there build, build your way off a little bit at a time.

You don't want to just crash course this. If your hands are well conditioned and you're experienced at martial arts, you can go a little bit quicker, but you still want to give a gradual build up a little bit quicker. means maybe you'll start off with maybe 40 strikes. And then the next week you go to like maybe 50 or 60 strikes, third week, maybe even like, you know, 70 strikes or something like that. Or maybe you hold yourself, you know, at 70 strikes for, you know, few weeks and then start adding up. But the point is, gradually build up where you want to be is training in iron palm once a week, at least 500 strikes and then build up from there to like, maybe, you know, six or 700 strikes, maybe even 1000 strikes.

Us lots of did with that. And make sure that you put did gel on even while you're striking so like maybe 10 strikes, put the gel on, put it you know, 10 more strikes, put it gel on that sort of thing. It's very important to do that to keep your hands in good shape, and back up here and show you what I do. I have gotten Let's take a look at my bag here, I have got just an ordinary sand bag. And this is filled with sand later on the more advanced levels, we're going to fill it with different materials. Like I said beginning stage use sand, it's a good place to start.

If your hands are, you know, more frail, needs a little bit more time conditioning, I would advise stuffing with cotton or sawdust, start off soft, even lots of soft material. Remember, you're still getting the focus, you're still giving your hands something to condition against. This is very important. If you are like a doctor, or somebody who uses precision, you know with their hands, they have to be precise with their hands. You can't have shaking hands, you can't have your hand beaten up at all or anything. Then you wouldn't actually do the heavy conditioning.

You would still you can still do the training, but your conditioning is going to be really super soft. So instead of even doing a bag I would get like a fluffy pillow and just do general strikes into a pillow. you're developing thing more mental focus on that it doesn't have to do with you doing a hard conditioning on your hands, your brakes would not be like boards, bricks and coconuts, your brakes would be soft brakes, that would mean putting out a candle breaking paper, that sort of thing. I'll teach that later on in this course. But for now, let's just start off with a beginner level here. Okay, let's back up here, take a look at my bag and I'm going to do some of the strikes.

What you want a good solid platform, I've got bricks here, and you want on a surface that meaning I'm outside on the ground, but if you're inside, just make sure you're on a good surface that's going to be stable and whatnot. You know, you just don't toss this on your kitchen table. You find a nice sturdy table that's gonna be like a workbench that you can pound on or you do like I do and get bricks, that that's fine too. Again, my bags filled with sand. And it's on there in a nice solid manner. One of the options to take a look at this.

It's just a sandbag against bricks, you could put the sandbag and put a phone book underneath the fence, the sandbag, and keep that phone book between your bricks that would help cushion the blow. Sometimes it's a little hard on the hands just hitting into the sand. My hands are more a little bit more developed and more used to the conditioning. So I just use the brick, but you're starting out, go ahead and put a nice thick phone book or a couple phone books underneath there that will help condition that and if you don't have a phone book, get a towel, maybe a couple towels under there. You know it'll help you know it's helping so absorbs the shock it martial arts is not about bang damaging yourself. You never want to traumatize the body.

You can develop the body, you develop it gradually to be able to do things but you don't just jump in and terrorize the body. It's the wrong way to train. It's like a it's like a wreck, train wreck going off the tracks. You can you know you can do it one time two times. But at some time your body's going to break down. Don't want to do that.

It's better to gradually develop yourself. Because when you gradually develop yourself, remember you want to be able to train into the long run, you want to be 70 8090 being able to do the same things you could do when you're younger, your body changes. But, you know, you're going to if you're developing, you still have, you're not going to lose as much. And all the green you've always we all hear legends about these old masters in China and that sort of thing. And, and these masters are still extremely powerful into their old age. Okay, I'm going to back up and show you my strike, sir.

We're going to do the five good horse stance. Blade Okay, that's 10 strikes, I'm gonna put a little bit of Chow on. And then go back and do 10 more strikes. Now I'm going to speed this up a little bit. I'm going to show you what you're working towards to be able to just do like, you know, multiple strikes and whatnot. So I'm going to do few more strikes at a little bit faster paced than when I just did there.

When you're when you start out doing this, it's sort of like you hold your hand up over the bag. And it's like, you let your hands fall into the bag. But when you fall into it, you want to put your whole being into it. So it's not just, you know, you're just not letting it kind of like in the bag. What you're going to do is you're gonna, it's like a falling but it's like that kind of a falling it's with intention behind it has intention behind it. So when I fall, it's like I hear, bang, bang, bang.

Put your mind behind it. My mind I am talking about your focus and your concentration. And when you get there's a mental follow through to that goes through the bag goes 12 inches through 12 inches through. Okay, that's very important to do and a backup and do a little bit more here to give you a look and feels what we're trying to working on here. Okay, that was 100 strikes there 50 on each hand. Something else about this too.

Sometimes your strikes will vary just what you're doing sometimes you hit and hold your hand on there for a moment, and that lets the shot go back through the body. And by doing that, it allows the tendons, ligaments, muscles, connective tissue, joints, bones, and allows all of that to take the shock and it allows that to condition and harden and then sometimes I snap off of it. Even When I snap off of it like that, don't forget, you still have that mental follow through, you're not just, you're not just quick striking and pulling your energy back. It's like a quick strike, which put your energy into it. Okay, so you've been on a quick strike where I, my hand comes off of the bag, quickly, you know, there's still that I still send the energy through the bag. When you use iron palm strikes, for fighting.

Typically, you only penetrate like maybe an inch, maybe two inches at the very most, but more like an inch. It's more like you're hitting and you come off of your target. It's hitting, it's sort of like you hit, you deliver the energy, and you come off of it very quickly. Part of that is you don't want your ci that you've released in there to come back on. Like you get that bang, release it. You're sending that energy all the way through, well, your energy goes through it, okay?

Sometimes you'll hit and have More of a driving impact too. And that's fine too, just different ways to do the same strike, okay, so sometimes I will hit. And I'll just sort of intentionally put that energy going through there. So maybe it holds on target. And maybe that'll penetrate even a little bit more, maybe two or three inches, you know, maybe even four inches, you know, going through target, you know, that's fine, too. It's just different ways to do the same strike.

It's important to be aware of what you're doing. So you can kind of direct and control the key of it. You know, like I say, if I intentionally want to just hit something quick and deliver the energy into it, I might hit, hit, you know, leave my energy into it, and then pull my hand back quickly, to keep that energy coming back on me. Or I may hit and more do more of a drive thru so it might throw us go through it. And before I come back, either way, it's fine. Okay, I'll do a couple more strikes.

What you are working towards, is being able to do Once a week, being able to do 500 strikes. And then once you get comfortable doing 500 good strikes, you can work and start adding in a few additional strikes work your way up to like maybe six or 700 strikes. That's a pretty good number to be at, for iron palm conditioning, even just doing once a week. start out slow, like I say, and you can even start, you know, 10 strikes, maybe 20 strikes, give your hands time to condition into this, be consistent. Catch it once a week. second week, you can add a few more, third week, fourth week, so on and so forth.

Just gradually add your way up to it. Don't jump in and just traumatize yourself and then have your hands all banged up and then you can't train for two or three weeks? No, that's ridiculous. It's better to start out really slow, slow and low. Work your way up. Okay, I'm going to do a few more strikes just to show you different things here and give you a little look and feel for what's going on.

Okay, again, they're the first time I did that I did a hit and hold. And the second time, I came off of it quickly, just to show you the two different types of strikes. I also did 50 strikes. You know, normally when you do that just start off with a total of 10 strikes. 1210 strikes would be like, once or twice, once. That's 345678 910 and then repeat on the left side, same thing 1-234-567-8910 put did john, the real use of debt Chow is very, very important.

Okay, once again, you're going to start out slow, your hands are soft. I want you to start with filling your bag with sawdust or cotton. Put a lot of cotton in there. Make it nice Solid, and then spend a few months on that, how long you could spend three or four months doing that. You know, but the point is, is that you do it and allow your hands to condition slowly and gradually build your way up. Other people you can use, like other people, meaning you have experience in martial arts or your hands or normal hands, let's say not, you know, you're not older, your hands are not delicate.

Then you just use sand with sand in there. And then you're going to start out with sand. how hard you hit it, you know, you hit it, just what you can do. You know, work your way up it. It's not about just blasting it as hard as you can the first day. You know, it's almost like you tap, tap, tap and work your way up to bang, bang, bang.

That's the best way to look at it. You know, start with little taps, and then work your way up to bang, bang, bang and do that over a few months. Your goal is to be able to do this once a week, do 500 strikes and then After you get comfortable doing 500 strikes and comfortable means you're consistent doing that for like one or two months, you know you're doing 500 strikes, you can feel the conditioning your hands, then you can jump up to like maybe six or 700 strikes, maybe even 800 strikes and that should put you right in the ballpark for being able to do good iron palm strikes and whatnot. Okay, thank you.