09-26-2008, 06:01 PM
...we worked out a piece on iron palm for the print mag. iron palm is a fav amongst kung fu peeps. basically, you smack a bag filled with beans, then rocks, then iron shot, to toughen up your hands. then you rub a lot of funky smelling liniment in your hands. i tried it for a spell and found it way to monotonous to keep my attention. there's a ton of articles on this, and a ton of books and videos. cf and i even made some videos on it when we worked for wle. i have this theory that iron palm is for stupid people. it's so simple really. the problem is that it works - if you smack your hands against a bag of iron shot every day, you'll be able to deliver a serious blow - and it's not good to call people that can smash bricks with their bare iron palms stupid. cf and i, we milked it. everyone milks it. i still milk it. i'm happy when someone sends me a new iron palm article, even thought it's the same old thing. there's really not that much to iron palm - smack bags, rub liniment. unless, of course, you're grandmaster tu. now i've done a fair amount of research on the topic, background research for the vids, my own dabbling, and all those articles we've published. tu brought so much new material to the table, once again, i was in freakin' awe. sure, he tows trucks with his boys, but damn. he's got such deep knowledge on kung fu, it's truly mind blowing to work with him. sadly, he only speaks mandarin and my boss is a little a.d.d. when it comes to translating. she's not the most organized thinker. tu is all over the place too - his theory bounces from hardcore applications to heavy daoism, all while he's demonstrating all sorts of bad ass moves. the dude is over 50 and still moves like a cougar, fast, fluid and powerful. we slapped (pun intended) a piece together in about an hour and a half, but i could have written a book if i just let him roll. tu is just brilliant - inspirational and illuminating.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse