That's it! I got to the end finally. Yesterday was my day 102 of Iron Shirt Neigong training. The program lasts for 100 days but because I missed one day I had to make up for it and add one penalty day. Out of the 10 participants, only two survived the whole way to the end, this show how hard it this training is, not just physically but also mentally.
Reminder of what Iron Shirt Neigong is
In a nuttshell, Iron Shirt Neigong is an old martial arts training program that was used to strengthen your body structure allowing the martial artist to take strong blows against them. Modern Science has identified the effectiveness of the training. Iron Shirt Neigong or Qigong is a series of exercises that are composed of static stances, repetitive body movements, breathing techniques and meditation (focusing on internal sensations).
The theory is that practicing those exercises, you will strengthen your connective tissues (myofascia) that sits under the skin and extend between other organs protective them.
Wu Xing Dao's Iron Shirt Neigong
There are several Iron Shirt training programs. For example, the Shaolin Temple has its own and Mantak Chia also teaches is own set of exercises.
Wu Xing Dao Kung Fu, the martial arts school I'm currently a student of, has 3 sets of Iron Shirt Neigong exercises. Each set has around 8 exercises . You would start the first 30 days doing only the first set of 30 minutes, then on the next 30 days you would do the first and the second sets totally around one hour and finally, in the last 40 days, you would do both three sets totally one and a half hour of daily training.
The difficulty is not only coming from the difficult and sometimes confusing moves or stances; or from the pain/burning sensation due to need to hold static stances for 3 minutes or repeating moves 72 times. The greatest challenge is to commit to repeating all this every single day for 100 days!
The benefits I got from the training
I usually don't sleep a lot like between 5 to 6 hours a day sometimes as low as 3 to 4 hours, I always have a racing mind that keeps me awake. So I regularly feel tired during the day. However, after just two weeks of training, I already started to feel some changes in my body and felt more energised and despite short sleeps, I didn't feel as tired as usual. The sleepiness was still present but not the tiredness of the body. This is probably coming from doing daily exercises and better oxygenation from the breathing exercise and blood flow from the movements and stances.
After about 50 days, I started to see six packs forming (well it's more like 4 packs for now lol), my arms were shaping up too and my face got thinner. My lower back and shoulder issues got better although not completely gone.
From about 60 - 70 days onwards, the training got better and my mind got more disciplined and I felt more patient and wasn't looking towards the end of the 1h30 daily training. During the static stances, I started to listen more to myself, internally, feeling things that are happening inside. I could hear my muscle and fascia tissue moving when
I do some of the movements, they sound like rice pops under the skin. I was aware of blood circulating in my arms and hands. The weirdest feeling is that of a belt of "electricity" that travels like a ring up my body right under my skin, through my neck and head and then down my arms, occasionally also shooting down my legs and feet.
The long commitment taught me more patience and ignore the discomfort. Three minutes can really feel like hours, I used to look at the timer so often, almost counting every milliseconds, thinking how long one second is. But near the end of the program, I started to quite enjoy the feeling of that blood and energy flow when you come back to a relaxed position in between exercises. I learned to asses my body posture and feel if my back is straight, if my bum and thigh muscles are under tension and turn them off.
The two survivors
Out of the 10 (ish) students who entered the Iron Shirt Neigong program, only myself and Kiavanni have gone through to the 100th day. I missed one day and had to make up for it with an extra penalty day making it 102 days in total. On my last day, I met Kiavanni in a local park to train together and we then went out to a local Thai restaurant to celebrate our 100th day. Kiavanni has missed 4 days so he has 4 extra penalty days and will finish his program 6 days after me.
Did Iron Shirt Neigong did anything good to our martial arts skills? It has definitely increase our body strength, gave us some flexibility while also making us stiffer in other areas and we will need to do some stretching exercises now. As of its goal of making us take a blow, well we don't know yet, will have to be tested in a sparring soon but out in the park, we both tested it out by punching one another in the chest and solar plexus and we seemed to be able to cope with some quite strong hit. Obviously, during a fight you are not going to just let the opponent hit you but if you missed a block or failed dodging a hit, then at least you know you can take in quite some power, this gives you more self confidence. I now have to train more on my head and body movements while sparring as I'm really bad at it.
What's next?
Well now, I'm going to take a couple of weeks of well deserved break, working on stretching my arms and legs. After that, I'm planning to continue exercising daily and include one of the three Iron Shirt sets into it.
My previous posts about Iron Shirt Neigong/Qigong:
- Iron Shirt Neigong, the Fascia Fitness from the Martial Arts world
- Qigong retreat weekend in Kulnura
- Wu Xing Dao's Iron Shirt Neigong level 3
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