To anyone wondering why at 5:44 the opponent's king (called General in Chinese chess) can't just take my pawn: the concept is called 飞将 (Flying General) or 面笑 (laughter face to face). In Chinese Chess (aka Xiangqi), the Generals can never face each without a piece interposed between them. The reason is based on Ancient Chinese warfare. Occasional battles would be decided based on a duel of the commanding officers. Whichever General won the duel would win the battle and the rest of the troops would go home or surrender. Sometimes these types of duels were due to ego, sometimes they were due to altruism for the troops, and sometimes they were due to opportunity (aka seeing the general exposed and going directly for the takedown). The word you often hear for this action is 单挑 or 大将出马. So based on some historical precedent, the people who helped develop Xiangqi have a "Flying General" rule to mimic the fact that if your general were exposed, he or she might just get directly taken by a cunning opposing general. So going back to the endgame I showed you guys. My pawn is protected by my general, so the opposing general can't capture my pawn or else my General will capture him. With no ability to capture my pawn, the general has to move. Then I could have ended it another way beside using my rook to checkmate. Knowing that my centroid pawn is protected by my General, I actually could have used my other pawn on that rank to checkmate by moving either to the left or to the backrank. The General cannot move out of the 3X3 Place, so that General is stuck in that palace corner. My right-most pawn, if moved to the left would be protected by the centroid pawn. If it moved to the backrank, it would be protected by the General's inability to leave the palace walls (unless for a flying general move). We'll explore all this more as I show you more about Xiangqi. Learning historical games can teach you so much about strategy and culture at the same time!
Human bone is a lot more resistant to fracture than concrete. The humerus, the upper arm bone, has a compressive strength of about 107MPa. Generally normal human bone can resist about 4000N of force before it is at risk of fracturing. This means that bones can withstand more force than standard concrete. It is very difficult to break them in healthy individuals. The brick he was breaking can’t resist even half as much force as the larger bones of the body. It’s not surprising that he was unable to cause serious damage even during a serious attempt to break the upper arm.
@@FightCommentary No problem I couldn’t remember the exact numbers but I was able to find research literature on these value and actual punch strength and apparently in boxing matches the strength of punches that land is a lot lower than some lab estimates had predicted so it’s not surprising that we don’t usually see major bones breaking during these types of sports competitions.
@@Hwikek Xu Xiaodong should challenge a Sanda fighter . By now ... every China Watcher knows Xu is an "asset" of the anti-Chinese alliance lead by the U$ .
Karate instructor here. You are right. No magic here, only a bit of physics, knowledge of the material and a correct execution (the last point requests enough training, obviously). Said that, good performance.
Stuntman here, you see the darker color at the center of the brick? thats because it was heated for a time, making it more weak. You just put it in the oven for a while and its resistance is considerably descreased. Trade secret dont tell anyone.
When i first started Kung Fu the teacher read a long document. In it was stated ."Brick breaking and showmanship is the lowest level of Kung Fu. The Iron palm is great to the face or solar plexus.
@@RichPT It's easier to grab the groin instead of aiming for the throat or heart. Ripping the groin with a tiger claw technique inflicts pain and agony.
The brick breaking training was never about the ability to break a brick, it was strengthening the hands against impact with hard surfaces... Not sure why everyone tries to draw a parallel to an arm or leg bone (something that isn't held in place, is somewhat bendy, and is wrapped in a bunch of squishy muscle and stretchy ligaments/tendons). With a little bit of prep work most athletic people could break the brick but end up with a banged up hand. Translate that to a fight and that's potentially losing the use of that hand after a single sloppy strike to the head
This guy is either a closet self-hater or compromised to hate on his nation's Kung Fu . Even Bruce Lee didn't abandon or discard Kung Fu ...when he developed JKD . Chinese Kung Fu Masters does sparring > Sanda
He's not against kung fu nor any traditional martial arts. He's against fraudsters lîke "no touch masters". Bruce Lee never supported fraudsters, He developped a geniune style which is still practiced nowadays.@@peekaboopeekaboo1165
@@liquidfootyquotesthat Wumao above is standard when Xu gets too popular. When I first started covering Xu, the comment section would always have people like him but they left for a while because I didn’t cover Xu. But now they’re back 😂
You don't need to pre-break them. Just hold the top one 1 mm higher than the second one and it will break really easily. That's why he is holding the brick.
Thank you for the upload Brother! Dude: in China these tricks are well known as are the type of bricks used. A "fake" master uses an ornamental brick: whereas an actual master; aka Sifu, uses a heavy load-bearing brick. The latter minimum compressive strength for clay bricks is 9N/mm2 for buildings up to 2 stories: 13N/mm2 for buildings taller then 2 stories. Peace & Love!!!
Another aspect for centering the brick is that it plays on the bricks tensile (pull apart) strength which is generally a fraction of its compressive (squish together) strength it's why you can pull apart a cinder block it's not designed to be pulled apart it's designed to be squished from a material standpoint
You can actually find the approximate tensile/compressive strength numbers online for the specific product you buy the ones I bought ( house bricks from lowes) on average have 50 pounds of tensile strength and hundreds of lbs of compressive
There is an old martial arts trick where you 'bake' a brick for several hours in a hot oven to make it brittle and easy to fracture. To make it a good test, we would want Xu Xiaodong or one of his students to try to break the brick and fail, or at least feel how difficult it is to break using the Iron Palm master's method. That would tell us if a 'baked' brick was being used, or an ornamental brick, or an average brick, or a heavy construction brick, and so on. There's a technique to it just like there's a technique to board-breaking, where you strike THROUGH the target without hesitation and that keeps your hand from being hurt when you use proper form. Then there's hand strengthening. Being able to use the technique in sparring is then the next issue. :) Oh, there's another trick where you stack up a pile of bricks and sneak a thin 'shim' of metal in the middle, after say the 5th brick. Slap the top, and the 6th brick will break! Why? Because the force that's spread on the flat surface of the other bricks will concentrate all on the tiny thin area of the shim, and make the crack. And then you yammer about your 'ki powers' and 'death touch' and 'dim mak'. :)
A beer belly isn't an indication of anything other than they've stopped doing physical fitness. There are lots of examples of both amateur and professional boxers who have beer bellies once they've stopped physical training and are past a particular age. The brick breaking is more to do with physics than Iron Palm technique. I seen guys on building sites do the same thing.
The end of the video was more interesting than the original content. I also play a lot of strategy games; I view jiu jitsu the same way I view chess and go, and the games help me build a better mindset as a grappler.
I'm not saying he was deliberately using a fake brick. But let's be honest. You can tell by looking at the inside of the brick after it broke that it's not the same as like what you might go get at Home Depot in the states. One of those would be much harder to break.
@@bodyzoasispersonaltraining9186 I'm sure some guys can. I've seen some pretty impressive breaking demos before. But I stand by what I said. A well made brick would be much harder to break. These ones the guy used here were definitely not very strong bricks.
My older brother broke bricks and windshields on a regular basis so I've seen it first hand that it can be done. I've never been able to do it though and I've even broken my hand trying to do it. You either got it or you don't.
In iron palm training you develop the muscle, ligaments, and bone to a certain degree. It takes time and the main focus is on maintaining health and safety. A boxer makes gains in development of the fist and wrist, a thai fighter his shins just by working on heavy bags. The weight gain sometimes comes from ego, and age. Not everyone who trains does it to be an active fighter. Plus iron body training is filled with showmanship and fraudulent practices for profit and notoriety.
Difference between a fighter and a martial artist. Fighters train to fight. Martial artist train to perfect a set of moves. They can be both for example, judo is a good example of this, they are Fighters and martial artist. But like aikido for example they do not fight at all.
The real purpose of iron palm is to condition the open hand for repeated full force striking. You can't punch your way to victory without gloves. But, if hands are well conditioned, you can slap, chop, grab, and kick to a win. Even against multiple combatants.
Notice the inside of his brick is black... It could be that his brick wasn't baked yet, and it's still a little wet inside; making it easier to break. Another way to go easier on your hand is to break a mason brick with the holes in it, but if you wanted more of a challenge, go for the baked mason bricks without holes and if they are slightly curved and fatter in the middle, it makes it more of a challenge that way also. c: That, and baking the brick fully after letting it dry out fully in the sun first. (if you don't, it makes the brick more brittle and therefore easier to break, if it doesn't crack in the kiln.)
I heard a story second-hand about a trio of American martial artists who were friendly with a Tai Chi Chuan master from China and used to play cards with him. One night, he asked one of them to fetch a brick from behind the house, inspect it to make sure it was totally solid, and place it in the center of the table. Once that was done, the brick was determined to be real and very solid, they continued playing cards with no further mention of the brick. But at some point, the master reached over the table and lightly tapped the brick with his fingertips, then continued playing with no comment. The guys playing cards with him didn't say anything until the master got up to go to the bathroom. Then they glanced at the brick and saw that it had a massive crack through it.
@@saintsinningsword You sound like the standard issue hater dismissing anything that sounds whoo-whoo to your delicate ears. No, little fella, I heard the story from a credible source or I wouldn't have repeated it here just for the classic anecdote that it is.
Bricks do not fight back.. For our Martial test..breaking concrete tiles was mandatory…mainly to building confidence….. Thank you for pointing out your thoughts..
It's not that bricks don't fight back, it's a test of skill and pain resistance. Just because Bruce Lee said a statement doesn't mean it's 100% the way to go. Many ways to the top maye
a functional and objective method to testing punching power would be to use something like the PowerKube. You don't need to worry about the quality of brick, or weird special tricks on how to place them. And you don't need to sacrifice a human body. And you could use it to test different types of strikes...
Half of these breaking demonstrations have rigged props. I also don't remember if it was Jerry's channel or some other, but apparently there are different grades of construction bricks, and people choose the weakest ones unsuitable for construction for these demonstrations.
To paraphrase THE MAN “bricks don’t fight back” and if he does not have the skill as a striker this is not worth much. But it does have some worth. The issue is not a magic bone breaking but toughening the body as a weapon. The fact that he can break the brick only shows his hand and body can transfer force in a controlled circumstance and his hands are tough enough to be used in open hand attacks using the palm. Good for him. But that only works if you are good at parrying strikes and hitting at the parts of the body where that force transfer would be most efficient - ribs, side on elbows/knees and side of the skull. (Again not for breaking but energy transfer when striking) And he does not show that to me (his body may hint he can’t but I will not judge. )
I have broken a brick that are thicker twice from that. 4 or 5 inch thick? a fired red clay mixed with sand. You just need to hurt your palm enough and a single red brick ( pretty sure it was cheap one ) is also not really built to withstand a force coming like that.
@@era7928 I would have to be there to know what the brick was and I can’t tell. Assuming it is a solid brick what it can allow for best case. And yeah, that is the reason that people that work with their hands hit harder than others (sans training).
You definitely don't need to be big and strong to break a brick, it's all about using your inner strength fully, and completely, and at just the right moment, as well as using a muscle memory to memorize exactly how much force it takes to break the brick... I would gently hammer the brick with my hand for an hour or so, getting harder and harder each time you hit until you find just the right amount of force, so that you never over-exert or injure yourself in the process. I would break bricks all day if I had a steady supply, but they do cost money or effort to create, and the kiln I mentioned in a previous post. =3 Also, this isn't really Iron fist, but an exercise to get there, but Iron first is when you can break an iron bar; while wood and bricks are much simpler, yet all different.
To break bricks without physical statures like being heavy set or muscular, you can practice internal strength to counteract, if you don't feel like being a heavy or muscular fellow.
Here's the thing guys... 😏 Knuckles and straight punching take a lot of conditioning. You can train bareknuckle for years and do zero palm conditioning and STILL hit hard objects with your palm more easily. I can punch walls now, but nowhere near full force. But with palm or hammer fist - easy.
Of course you can hit with your palm more easily. Physics 101. A greater surface area disperses energy. Think of it in terms of hitting a nail punch with a hammer. It will poke a hole through wood. Now hit the flat surface of a book that weighs the same as the nail punch against the wood using the same force. Nothing. That is why the first thing taught in judo when being thrown is to smack with arms outward and palms down on the mat. It lessens the impact by dispersing energy instead of pinpointing it.
@@karlozortega246Always that one token idiot saying "Bruce Lee was just an actor" whenever Bruce Lee, the most influential Martial Artist in modern history who Chuck Norris trained with as an equal, is mentioned.
Yeah and punching bags also but every boxer trains on them Hitting bricks or boxing bags and so on is only a part of training conditioning or train your hitting power or technic… All this is to prepare you for a real fight on step before the real fight is then sparring So this bricks don’t hit thing is so lame to be honest
Bruce Lee has a lot of stories. I would imagine he could wreck guys his size and even a lot of guys a fair amount heavier but not much experienced with combat. He apparently had enough trouble with the kung fu guy that he rethought his whole fighting technique, so he was no world wrecker, and didn't live long enough to master everything.
Iron Palm/Fist/Blade/Back Hand/Bridge/Elbow... is legit. This guy in the video can break those kind of bricks. And it seemed like only one at a time. Which is something, a level. But to demonstrate it is to reach the level of it. The level of "Iron" has to be reached. Iron Palm, Iron Fist,... training is required for attainment. This guy shouldn't claim, represent or present himself as someone that has attained something he hasn't. There seems to be many, oceans of people like this and Xu Xiadong seems to easily always find them and vice-versa. And prove how pretentious or fake these guys are. While at the same time taking advantage of the opportunity to discredit something. When in actuality it's just misrepresentation.
I love your videos! My understanding is that human bones are flexible to some degree, and the force of the Iron Palm strike could travel throughout Brother Long's body. In the initial brick-breaking demo, I wonder if the underlying brick's edge acted as a fulcrum. You can see in the shadow he cast that Iron Palm Master had his right hand quite high. The momentum his hand travels, plus the mass of his arm, plus the fulcrum point receiving all that applied force could have, perhaps, contributed to the brick's breakage. What do you think? Bro, you're awesome! I enjoy your keeping up with Xu Xiaodong's journey!
There’s another Xu one I saved but can’t find anymore. He goes to some tai chi master’s dojo who challenged him, and of course the tai chi master isn’t there.
It's unfortunate that it's hard to know whether someone is really using power and technique besides just trickery. Even if the brick is lifted a tiny bit before hitting it, it would cause it to break pretty easy when struck
People can be seen on youtube breaking rocks with that same technique, and perhaps that is the technique after all. Doesn't matter if there's some secret power involved or not as long as the rocks becoming broken is accomplished
and even with iron first and breaking iron bars, we still need to account for the tensile strength of the bar. It might be much more complicated to break spring metal rather than some regular iron. Imagine trying to karate chop a bamboo pole in half, and the splinters... much easier to break a wooden slab.
Many iron hand/palm practitioners do spar. They just hold back because of the damage that is done. Soft tissue damage is observed too. There is a difference between those who just learn the techniques and forms and those who practice the fighting.
For the Chinese chess puzzle, if anyone is wondering, the Governor should never be exposed to the General--these are the kings--and vice versa. So, if your General/Governor has a clear line of sight to your opponent's Governor/General, you can fly across the board to capture him--which is why the pawn wasn't captured. Otherwise, the General and Governor can never leave the square which represents his palace or fortress. Nice end-game puzzle. I do like this version of chess for its cannons and catapults and certainly the river and the houses for the Governor/General. Great game.
Iron Chop is not Iron Palm. He was supposed to shatter the brick with his palm, not chopping it. Another sign is to look at his palm. I remember part of Iron Palm training is to wash his palm in sand and then iron crusts constantly which eventually toughens the skin and bones to the point they feel like iron hard. During the process, the hand, the forearm, and the arm would get a lot of exercise and should be somewhat muscular. I'm not see any level of muscularity on that arm. Maybe they are hiding underneath that layer of fat.
That arm slap allows the arm to "go with the hit" without resisting thus the damage of the impact is lowered. For a better understanding imagine 2 cars colliding. The brick hit is a front to front collision. The arm hit is a back collision while moving (or without breaks on). A hit to the body, let's say ribs, would have broken the guy's ribs due to the resistance the body gives back into the hit. If the hit to the body would be snapped back the shock goes into internal organs. I know this because I was the dummy years back. No ribs broken though, was just given a sample. Yes, I did flew in the air a few meters before realizing what is happening to me.
I learned that trick when I was 14 and was participating in a demonstration with a local dojo. You lift the brick slightly before you hit it and it strikes the brick underneath so it's like slamming the top brick on the edge of the bottom creating a point of impact. I've been in martial arts for 40 years now and have yet to see any real breaking that wasn't a trick
Nothing impressive here. The man that broke is is endomorphic like a Samoan a bit, and even the extra fat he has makes his ability to palm strike or chop objects even a bit stronger as well, as there is more padding in his hand to protect his bones. He can hold down the brick just with his body weight, and then break it on the other side also just via the mass of his arm and body coming down onto it. Again, nothing special is done here, any endomorphic type man could replicate this right there and then, if instructed by this man. By endomorphic I am talking about people like Mark Hunt, Ray Sefo, David Tua, Kazuyuki Fujita, Tsuyoshi Kosaka and even this Chinese guy Xu Xiaodong is quite the large man that also could do it.
Best we can say of iron palm dude is that he has some degree of strength and form to break bricks. I dunno if Xu Xiaodong would've been able to do it himself if he tried, because that's the closest thing for comparison I can give. On the other hand, if dude was more in fighting shape, maybe doing some strike to strike comparisons between the Iron Palm guy and Xu would've been good.
They should have let the mma student try the brick trick, and yeah, it's obviously a trick giving the amount of leverage given by the position of the brick underneath. You just need to find the right spot for the fulcrum to do its magic, apply swift heavy force on the exposed side and firm pressure on the other end to keep the top brick in place, flush with the bottom one during the strike.
What is the expected result? Xu Xiaodung was pointing at the arm as if we were supposed to see something that wasn't (?) there. I am not sure what he was looking for. What is the claim the practitioner makes that the iron palm is supposed to differentiate on? Without that, it is difficult to even know what the test is supposed to be.
you dont need to be lean or olympic level fit to defend yourself. im not saying thats why all these kung fu guys are fat. but im saying that being fat doesnt necessarily indicate a lack of skill or experience (or even fitness). if combat sports didnt have weight classes, you wouldnt see many six packs anymore. youd see a lot of mark hunts, daniel cormiers, ben rothwells, roy nelsons, derrick lewis's, and so on. body fat aids energy, aids in mechanical muscular advantage (fat distribution changes muscle force angles), aids in lifting by creating a shelf (ala Strongman physique), and counter pressure into something if youre bearhugging it, and to the extent your muscles can carry and move it effectively, it adds mass to strikes and grapples, making them a bit more effective. add to all of that, nearly all self defense incidents are over well before a boxing round. the fast majority are done with in a minute or less. Thats not even enough time for the body to be in aerobic functioning. so a lot of cardio really isnt needed. strength, mass, and anaerobic capacity would serve better.
I've broken multiple of those long grey concrete blocks simultaneously with a hammerfist. It's not super crazy it just looks impressive. And I'll be the first to admit it just looks intimidating, has little reflection on fighting ability. It does hurt though, often my pinky would be swollen for a few days afterward. It is bone against brick afterall.
I bet that guy could break a collar bone. I met a guy who did Iron Palm and it was one of many things he did in his system. He had huge callouses on his palms and as impressive as they were, I wasn't clear on the Iron Palm application in a fight.
Jerry, it's all physics. Breaking bricks (including selective brick breaking), boards, bending resilient softer metal is physics, banana trees, and animal bones. All these materials have different tolerances. GOOD Kung Fu masters KNOW this and teach their pupil to hit the object by: whipping, pushing, slapping, sinking etc. All these are taught sequentially with different materials to learn how to properly land strikes on hard or soft surfaces and maximize lethal power. BAD Kung Fu masters will simply focus on impressing others visually by breaking 5 boards but cannot break a brick, or break 5 bricks, but cannot break a board. These are the people with really calloused hands from hard, but inefficient hard qigong training. The GOOD masters simply teach you how to manipulate basic rules in physics. ANY beginner can break these material WITHOUT hard qigong. You just need to find a few guys on UA-cam that has broken different materials with a tutorial explaining and simply practice. Once you do it a few times successfully, it's not mysterious. It should take fews months of rigorous training (not years) to learn how to break different materials. In the video, the guy needs to do more of a weight drop by sudden sinking your body as you slap with a softly clenched leopard palm by whipping a limp wrist... 拍 thru the guy like hitting somebody with a leather sap... Physics example... Machetes have blades that of hardness of RHC 59 are used to chop wood or animal bones. Machetes of hardness of RHC 52 are used to cut tall grass. Machetes of hardness of RHC 55 are used to cut bushes. Machetes of hardness of 57 RHC are used as general purpose. Now apply that same principle with "iron" palm training.
One of myy instructors used to call these "martial arts party tricks". I've broken a lot of boards and a couple of bricks (concrete, not like these). The trick is speed and not hesitating. If you hesitate, you will get hurt. Like Columbus's egg, it's easy enough when you know the trick.
It is an apocryphal story from the 16th century about Columbus. According to the story, someone said to Columbus that finding a new trade route was inevitable and no great accomplishment. He then challenged his critics to make an egg stand on its tip. After his challengers give up, Columbus does it himself by tapping the egg on the table to flatten its tip. He then said.. it's easy when you know the trick, but not before. @@FightCommentary
1:30 what I learned in kung fu class was that it’s called a chi belly. Look at Roy Nelson and other “pot bellied” fighters. Even those Nat geo documentaries say “chi is stored in the Dan tien” under the naval. Not to say every beer bellied person knows kung fu though lol
This is basic iron palm testing. There is technique, physics, and bone density that come into play. One brick hanging off is basic. Two bricks mid-level. 3 bricks is high-level stacked. Mastery levels are to break the 3rd brick out of 3 stacked and not the top 2 (no spacers), Brick broken on a flat surface, Brick suspended in the air and being broken. If you can do the higher levels then you can hit a suspended arm or leg and break it easily. You would need to generate enough force to break more than a single brick being held by your palm and be able to focus the force into a single point.
Actually from what I was taught an iron palm can break a brick on the bottom of a stack without breaking the others or chose to do one anywhere in the stack and there is no arm movement they just placed the hand on top and make the break.
Jesus, that's because if you just put weight on weak decorative bricks in a stack, they break from the bottom up, where they are supported. That's like bragging about breaking porcelain with only one hand.
the iron palm guy isnt displaying good or appropriate technique with the slaps. he isnt able to figure out how to do to the guys arm, what he was doing to the brick. i think part is not wanting to hurt the guy. but I think part is also not having experience doing it to points on peoples bodies. he also isnt using the appropriate technique on the guys arm anyway. the driving palm sort of "energy" (muscle tension, force angle, arc of arm movement etc) doesnt work for slapping. he is trying to use a windup like a slap, but impact with driving palm energy. that wont produce any noteworthy effect. he has to slap proper all the way through to have the effect that palm heavy styles like pigua have. otherwise, he should choose a different target and set up to do a demo of the effect of a driving palm proper.
Hey, you have a cool channel, I watch you a lot. I have retired from a lifetime of practicing the martial arts, but I can't stop being interested in the stuff and how it keeps changing. Anyway, I will tell you a recipe. Take a regular brik and soak it in water for some hours, and then freeze it overnight in the freezer. And then thaw it and and let it dry. That's it, your break is ready. It weighs the same, it feels the same, and your grandma can break it now.
6:06-6:08 Jerry Yeung exactly used Chinese chess as a metaphor for his understanding of Wing Chun principle. If you want to know it, I can copy the paragraph for his book to you
@@FightCommentary 「收集數據對打贏一場交很重要......一位武術師父，要做的事就是教導學員如何打好一場交、如何保護自己-有效率地打交。打交是一場博奕，如下象棋般，你一步我一步，每一步也影響著對方。所以不存在「我想用這招，便用那一招」......要進攻對方，就要選上那個對自己對有利的方法，就得問「為何這樣做?」以及「為何不這樣做?」......就像下中國象棋般，當知對方會因你下了那步而有所應對，你就知象棋的難道在哪。因為每一步，下得正確，就可牽制對方時又能為自己提高勝算。但若下得不正確，卻會為對方帶來勝算-一子錯，滿盤皆落索。從象棋原理中，得要明白，運用功夫時，以千變萬化的招式進攻，想令對手難以估計你，實然上是不可能的。而根據象棋原理，拳打中線，就是攻擊上的最佳選擇」 then there are 6 pages length on explaining what is 中線& why need to 拳打中線but Due to the length, I don't include it here.
I dont know about Chinese chess but I use Western style chess as a metaphor to understand Kung Fu principles and strategies not just Wing Chun. Center control, Splitting attacks, Diversion, Pinning attacks, Pressure etc.
I'm going to tell you a story about how i accidentally learned iron fist and knocked someone out in school without even trying. I just threw a jab and he was out on his feet swaying around like he was hoola hooping or like mortal kombat when they say finish him. Basically I'n high school we would do something called knuckle fighting between the guys. We would punch each other's first knuckle to knuckle until someone quit from the pain . I played football and we walked this very long concrete hallway out to the field and back to the locker rooms each day. When we got to the lockers people would tap the lockers and make a kind of musical sound that the entire team would make on the way in. Before you get to the lockers you have a concrete wall about 20+ feet long. I would punch that wall and it hurt like crazy at first. But after several months In i noticed something. I didn't feel anything at all anymore. No pain or nothing unless i threw a really hard punch at that wall but jabs that used to hurt like heck did not hurt me anymore until i threw about 20 blows and then the pain would slowly creep in but i had to work way harder to feel pain because my knuckles had grown super strong. My bone had broke and rebuilt itself from micro cracks from hitting that wall so much that my knuckles looked like they grew 20 percent and my pain tolerance quadrupled. These micro cracks are much the same like when you rip your muscles working out and these micro tears just get rebuilt stronger and stronger each time till you add more muscle and get stronger each time. The bones work in much the same way with impact training. One day i got into a fight and i just jabbed this dude twice and he was out on his feet. I thought he was joking because i thought i didn't hit him that hard but Actually i did but i couldn't feel it because i had hardened my knuckles so much. 20 years later i saw shaolin monks punching hard stuff all the way to steel blocks to make their fist into iron fists. Without knowing i was doing my own iron fist and i got all the way up to concrete which is the 2nd hardest behind steel this stuff works. But like muscles if you don't use it you lose it i stopped punching walls and after many years my knuckles are back to normal and they hurt if i hit any walls. Maybe buy a wall mounted sand bag to have a good balanced surface to punch and keep your knuckles nice and hard if you are into martial arts. Also i remember that one of the monks sometimes works for the police as a bounty hunter and he said that he easily knocks people out using jabs with like 10 percent of his power and i was like bro that's exactly what happened to me when i had that dude spinning cause of some jabs. If you practice this stuff don't do evil with it though. Or else you will reap what you sow.
I apreciate your honesty about never breaking a brick before. That is a very difficult break to perform. My sifu would do that type of thing, but while squatted down with his breaking hand only about a foot above the brick (so no added leverage or body weight involved. However, like you said.... "Bricks don`t hit back"
@@FightCommentary No. He held the brick over a small bench with his other hand. I did see another video of an old master doing this same thing with a stone
The only real way to test A vs B is to have a medium similar to ballistics gelatin in that it's universal in reaction. Not all boards, bricks or stones even are the same . I don't know what that medium would be though . Or maybe just a device that measures foot pounds or energy ? When I was training Hapkido during a belt test the head instructor did a break. This guy had seriously calloused fists. He had 4 boards that had certification marks on them of some sort and were bound together with no spacers He then had a student hold them by a string so they were suspended in air and he broke them in one shot with a backfist . That was pretty great. He Il Cho used to break a standard 6 ft 2x4 being held up by 2 light bulbs and the bulbs didn't break . He also routinely split a fresh out of the box Everlast heavy bag with kicks. Now of course it's possible that all of these were rigged somehow but I think it at least showed an effort at having a standardized medium .
I'd say to get a leg of pork to test it on. The bone density and the meat and tissue etc... round the bone is going to be reasonably similar to a human arm (I think, maybe forearm??). Going to look up the Chinese Chess now. I live in Guangzhou and have often wondered how this version is played. My 13 year daughter often destroys me at Western Chess so I'd love to give this a whirl. Cheers!
When I was in high school, my friends and I chopped bricks from a house next door doing some reconstruction. We got in trouble because we broke so many bricks.
I and my younger in laws once had a lot of bricks for our house's renovation. They were in their teens, and they managed to break the bricks with their palms without practice. It's gotta be at least 5 bricks to be worth watching
I thought a test that'd make the most sense would be for Xu Xiaodong to take one of the dude's bricks and try to break it himself. That is, if Xu can do it without any specific training then it basically proves there's no benefit to breaking bricks over regular striking training.
The way he placed the brick over the other one isn't a good way to show the technique, basically you are just using the brick under to pierce the other one, not actually breaking it by the force you applied on it. I think it should be more correct to have the brick to break over two tiny supports on each edge so the force you apply down will be the one causing the fracture on the brick, not the punction of another brick.
Every iron palm school is different so it’s hard to give answer. The school I went to didn’t break things and emphasized every injury your body gets stays with you even to your old age. Karate and other schools develop an extremely strong Callus which they can use to break ice, concrete and all the other crazy things in those videos but look at how disfigured their hands are though
several things make me think this whole thing by xu xiaodong was pointless. (1) the iron palm master just conditioned his iron palm, he doesn't seem to know technique for chopping downwards to generate power. (2) xu xiaodong tests like he doesn't know how to fight cause those aren't even fighting positions. xu xiaodong should get into a fighting position where other opponents have struck downward on him in the past (either with elbow or punch) and then tell the iron palm master to strike downward with his palm as a test of the iron palm. what are these ridiculous positions xu xiaodong is testing as if he doesn't know how to fight? (3) when xu xiaodong tells the iron palm master to strike seriously, he shouldn't tell him to do it on an arm suspended in air because that's pointless. but again i don't think the iron palm master knows how to strike anyway so kinda pointless regardless. (4) also, try something a bit realistic like going for a standing armbar control, but instead of control, smash the guy's elbow/upper arm. or try to get on the ground and see if his iron palm can smash the guy's head or ribs in. or in a standing clinch, can the iron palm smash the skull/shoulder/back. whichever one they think is safe to do, or whichever they are crazy enough to do. but again, it looks like the iron palm master didn't practice striking and doesn't know the technique to strike down with power anyway, so basically he just has tough bones. but still, at least test properly to see if those tough bones actually hurt in actual fighting scenarios. what is the ponit of the hanging arm, or the arm flat on a flexible/bouncy platform?
If you look closely that brick already have a little crack to where it broke, n if it's legit iron palm I don't think you need any leverage to deal serious damage in a human body...
Ive always wondered about the beer belly as well, motobu choki the karate guy from early 1900s was known to start street fights to practice and they called him the most practical karate master, and he had a gut
@@FightCommentaryI don't think there were cameras in Okinawa's red district at the time. Also, there is a newspaper recording of him defeating a boxer and the paper used a picture of Funakoshi, whom he hated. That prompted him to go defeat Funakoshi in his own dojo, which is a very funny story because Funakoshi was totally unrelated to the paper and Choki couldn't read Japanese that well (he had a heavy Okinawan accent) Watch Jesse's video about him I think the guy was hilarious.
@@RAPEDBYBLACKSKarate are a style that Violent Thugs use back then in Okinawa are very Brutal and these Thugs always fighted and beat people for real back then, But a man called Funakoshi changed everything, Funakoshi invented a code of honor for Karate and with the help of Kano the creator of Judo who are impressed with Fukonoshi code of honor and his Karate skills he helped Karate become popular in Tokyo as it was seen as a civilized art.
I once heard someone talk about how these displays were used as " parlour tricks" or " vagabond skills" for travelling king fu practitioners to make a bit of money or get something to eat.
The question about why the belly is so big, some will say it's because they have too much "CHI" built up. I've heard many times that the big guys have built up a lot of chi and gained big belly's.
Since it's an established fact that China uses sub standard material in their manufacturing of construction material (what was with the white objects embedded in the brick), use a brick made in America where they made to be more sturdy.
Talking about bellies Xu isnt exactly wearing a small size shirt himself lol i have a bit of a belly too but i can spar and roll for an entire class but my opinion on brick breaking is its a trick but you do have to follow through in most cases but alot of those bricks aint too hard to break you just have to know how to hit them and it doesn't necessarily translate to fighting
It's true there is a lot of real master's that don't want to fight. Once they know how dangerous they are: they know they both are lucky if their spleen and eyes still work afterwards.
I'm looking at the brick, and it's not in the middle. I would say it's closer to 40% of the way. But also, Xu probably can't do this w/o coming away unscathed. Having said that, bricks don't fight back. To me, these types of feats are more like circus feats. Kind of cool to look at, but certainly applicable only in very limited cicumstances.
To anyone wondering why at 5:44 the opponent's king (called General in Chinese chess) can't just take my pawn: the concept is called 飞将 (Flying General) or 面笑 (laughter face to face). In Chinese Chess (aka Xiangqi), the Generals can never face each without a piece interposed between them. The reason is based on Ancient Chinese warfare. Occasional battles would be decided based on a duel of the commanding officers. Whichever General won the duel would win the battle and the rest of the troops would go home or surrender. Sometimes these types of duels were due to ego, sometimes they were due to altruism for the troops, and sometimes they were due to opportunity (aka seeing the general exposed and going directly for the takedown). The word you often hear for this action is 单挑 or 大将出马. So based on some historical precedent, the people who helped develop Xiangqi have a "Flying General" rule to mimic the fact that if your general were exposed, he or she might just get directly taken by a cunning opposing general. So going back to the endgame I showed you guys. My pawn is protected by my general, so the opposing general can't capture my pawn or else my General will capture him. With no ability to capture my pawn, the general has to move. Then I could have ended it another way beside using my rook to checkmate. Knowing that my centroid pawn is protected by my General, I actually could have used my other pawn on that rank to checkmate by moving either to the left or to the backrank. The General cannot move out of the 3X3 Place, so that General is stuck in that palace corner. My right-most pawn, if moved to the left would be protected by the centroid pawn. If it moved to the backrank, it would be protected by the General's inability to leave the palace walls (unless for a flying general move). We'll explore all this more as I show you more about Xiangqi. Learning historical games can teach you so much about strategy and culture at the same time!
Thanks for this explanation, I thought about it immediately when I saw.
U right they did not test it well. His hand has to be on a resistance to know the impact of the force
Human bone is a lot more resistant to fracture than concrete. The humerus, the upper arm bone, has a compressive strength of about 107MPa. Generally normal human bone can resist about 4000N of force before it is at risk of fracturing. This means that bones can withstand more force than standard concrete. It is very difficult to break them in healthy individuals. The brick he was breaking can’t resist even half as much force as the larger bones of the body. It’s not surprising that he was unable to cause serious damage even during a serious attempt to break the upper arm.
That is so great to know. Thank you so much for this information!
@@FightCommentary No problem I couldn’t remember the exact numbers but I was able to find research literature on these value and actual punch strength and apparently in boxing matches the strength of punches that land is a lot lower than some lab estimates had predicted so it’s not surprising that we don’t usually see major bones breaking during these types of sports competitions.
@@Hwikek
Xu Xiaodong should challenge a Sanda fighter .
By now ... every China Watcher knows Xu is an "asset" of the anti-Chinese alliance lead by the U$ .
Let's not forget that the leverage and focus is different when you have all the time in the world to focus and bring down your full weight.
The bones could withstand the force.. but the muscles on the area would definitely be in pain..
Civil Engineering, brick is extremely strong against compression but relatively weak against tension. That was tension applied to brick.
Karate instructor here. You are right. No magic here, only a bit of physics, knowledge of the material and a correct execution (the last point requests enough training, obviously). Said that, good performance.
Stuntman here, you see the darker color at the center of the brick? thats because it was heated for a time, making it more weak. You just put it in the oven for a while and its resistance is considerably descreased. Trade secret dont tell anyone.
I like the niche and casual feel of this channel. It feels like I'm talking to my friend while making a BBQ
You never know when you'll be ambushed by a gang of bricks...
Happened to me yesterday.
If you're trying to rob a house where Kevin McCallister lives.
Correction, a gang of stationary and well-positioned bricks...
@@kaguthimagine home alone 6, iron palm masters invade!
Or boxing bags
He didn't use an iron palm technic, he just used his mass...
When i first started Kung Fu the teacher read a long document. In it was stated ."Brick breaking and showmanship is the lowest level of Kung Fu. The Iron palm is great to the face or solar plexus.
It always is
Cope
@@RichPT🤣
@@RichPT It's easier to grab the groin instead of aiming for the throat or heart. Ripping the groin with a tiger claw technique inflicts pain and agony.
@@RichPTim pRetty sure liu kang or kung lao didnt do that...😑😑
Iron stomach master
Likely! Some of these guys can eat the spiciest craziest stuff 😂
@@FightCommentaryasians are so crazy w their spicy food just like indians, lol😅😅
The brick breaking training was never about the ability to break a brick, it was strengthening the hands against impact with hard surfaces... Not sure why everyone tries to draw a parallel to an arm or leg bone (something that isn't held in place, is somewhat bendy, and is wrapped in a bunch of squishy muscle and stretchy ligaments/tendons). With a little bit of prep work most athletic people could break the brick but end up with a banged up hand. Translate that to a fight and that's potentially losing the use of that hand after a single sloppy strike to the head
Jerr: bricks aren't alll the same. That brick didn't look fully fired. The middle was a different color than the outside. Try concrete.
Ya, or try punching steel. Amirite
How lame are you bro. They're fake we get it
Yep. It's kind of a known con. Same as when he demonstrates it on someone. A small amount of pressure is uncomfortable on the forearms.
Kudos to you sir, you're a great casual cultural ambassador
Glad you like this niche I’ve been having fun with!
This guy is either a closet self-hater or compromised to hate on his nation's Kung Fu .
Even Bruce Lee didn't abandon or discard Kung Fu ...when he developed JKD .
Chinese Kung Fu Masters does sparring > Sanda
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 but he delights when the traditional styles succeed eg Chi La La
He's not against kung fu nor any traditional martial arts. He's against fraudsters lîke "no touch masters".
Bruce Lee never supported fraudsters, He developped a geniune style which is still practiced nowadays.@@peekaboopeekaboo1165
@@liquidfootyquotesthat Wumao above is standard when Xu gets too popular. When I first started covering Xu, the comment section would always have people like him but they left for a while because I didn’t cover Xu. But now they’re back 😂
You don't need to pre-break them. Just hold the top one 1 mm higher than the second one and it will break really easily. That's why he is holding the brick.
Thank you for the upload Brother! Dude: in China these tricks are well known as are the type of bricks used. A "fake" master uses an ornamental brick: whereas an actual master; aka Sifu, uses a heavy load-bearing brick. The latter minimum compressive strength for clay bricks is 9N/mm2 for buildings up to 2 stories: 13N/mm2 for buildings taller then 2 stories.
Peace & Love!!!
Those details are super interesting too!
And tofu for buildings in China😅
Another aspect for centering the brick is that it plays on the bricks tensile (pull apart) strength which is generally a fraction of its compressive (squish together) strength it's why you can pull apart a cinder block it's not designed to be pulled apart it's designed to be squished from a material standpoint
You can actually find the approximate tensile/compressive strength numbers online for the specific product you buy the ones I bought ( house bricks from lowes) on average have 50 pounds of tensile strength and hundreds of lbs of compressive
There is an old martial arts trick where you 'bake' a brick for several hours in a hot oven to make it brittle and easy to fracture.
To make it a good test, we would want Xu Xiaodong or one of his students to try to break the brick and fail, or at least feel how difficult it is to break using the Iron Palm master's method.
That would tell us if a 'baked' brick was being used, or an ornamental brick, or an average brick, or a heavy construction brick, and so on.
There's a technique to it just like there's a technique to board-breaking, where you strike THROUGH the target without hesitation and that keeps your hand from being hurt when you use proper form. Then there's hand strengthening.
Being able to use the technique in sparring is then the next issue. :)
Oh, there's another trick where you stack up a pile of bricks and sneak a thin 'shim' of metal in the middle, after say the 5th brick. Slap the top, and the 6th brick will break! Why? Because the force that's spread on the flat surface of the other bricks will concentrate all on the tiny thin area of the shim, and make the crack. And then you yammer about your 'ki powers' and 'death touch' and 'dim mak'. :)
not sure about bricks in your country but bricks where I live are not that difficult to break.
don't even need special training.
A beer belly isn't an indication of anything other than they've stopped doing physical fitness. There are lots of examples of both amateur and professional boxers who have beer bellies once they've stopped physical training and are past a particular age.
The brick breaking is more to do with physics than Iron Palm technique. I seen guys on building sites do the same thing.
Your first point is well taken. But the channel guy has to use that look as a point for ridicule.
The end of the video was more interesting than the original content. I also play a lot of strategy games; I view jiu jitsu the same way I view chess and go, and the games help me build a better mindset as a grappler.
is your opening move "sit down and hope the other guy sits down with you"?
I'm not saying he was deliberately using a fake brick. But let's be honest. You can tell by looking at the inside of the brick after it broke that it's not the same as like what you might go get at Home Depot in the states. One of those would be much harder to break.
No. They break those too. Iron Palm is good skill
@@bodyzoasispersonaltraining9186 I'm sure some guys can. I've seen some pretty impressive breaking demos before. But I stand by what I said. A well made brick would be much harder to break. These ones the guy used here were definitely not very strong bricks.
Pause at 0:25 and look at the big crack.
My older brother broke bricks and windshields on a regular basis so I've seen it first hand that it can be done. I've never been able to do it though and I've even broken my hand trying to do it. You either got it or you don't.
They’re Chinese bricks
In iron palm training you develop the muscle, ligaments, and bone to a certain degree. It takes time and the main focus is on maintaining health and safety.
A boxer makes gains in development of the fist and wrist, a thai fighter his shins just by working on heavy bags. The weight gain sometimes comes from ego, and age. Not everyone who trains does it to be an active fighter. Plus iron body training is filled with showmanship and fraudulent practices for profit and notoriety.
@@RichPT Too much time spent alone in the bathroom?
Not only Taichi o Quigong masters, blackbelts in Aikido, karate and kenpo have big belly. Because the amount of ki?
Could be 😂
Probably, if Ki is a brand of beer.
More likely Kfc. 😂.
Difference between a fighter and a martial artist.
Fighters train to fight.
Martial artist train to perfect a set of moves.
They can be both for example, judo is a good example of this, they are Fighters and martial artist.
But like aikido for example they do not fight at all.
@@BWater-yq3jx Kirin is a brand of beer... 😂
i did see a crack
Yep. I rewatched and saw a slight one too on one of the bricks.
The real purpose of iron palm is to condition the open hand for repeated full force striking.
You can't punch your way to victory without gloves. But, if hands are well conditioned, you can slap, chop, grab, and kick to a win. Even against multiple combatants.
It'd be like being hit with a brick once the palm is conditioned.
@@jfletcher1029 LOL more like a hunk of meat.
Notice the inside of his brick is black... It could be that his brick wasn't baked yet, and it's still a little wet inside; making it easier to break.
Another way to go easier on your hand is to break a mason brick with the holes in it, but if you wanted more of a challenge, go for the baked mason bricks without holes and if they are slightly curved and fatter in the middle, it makes it more of a challenge that way also. c: That, and baking the brick fully after letting it dry out fully in the sun first. (if you don't, it makes the brick more brittle and therefore easier to break, if it doesn't crack in the kiln.)
Man, you made a lot of good points in this. I enjoyed this great job.👍
I heard a story second-hand about a trio of American martial artists who were friendly with a Tai Chi Chuan master from China and used to play cards with him. One night, he asked one of them to fetch a brick from behind the house, inspect it to make sure it was totally solid, and place it in the center of the table. Once that was done, the brick was determined to be real and very solid, they continued playing cards with no further mention of the brick. But at some point, the master reached over the table and lightly tapped the brick with his fingertips, then continued playing with no comment. The guys playing cards with him didn't say anything until the master got up to go to the bathroom. Then they glanced at the brick and saw that it had a massive crack through it.
Sounds like stuff you hear in a deli.
So a bullshido story nice
@@saintsinningsword You sound like the standard issue hater dismissing anything that sounds whoo-whoo to your delicate ears. No, little fella, I heard the story from a credible source or I wouldn't have repeated it here just for the classic anecdote that it is.
@@foolishyish So a bullshido comment from another troll not so nice
That just a trick for entertainment purpose lol😂😂😂
Bricks do not fight back..
For our Martial test..breaking concrete tiles was mandatory…mainly to building confidence…..
Thank you for pointing out your thoughts..
It's not that bricks don't fight back, it's a test of skill and pain resistance.
Just because Bruce Lee said a statement doesn't mean it's 100% the way to go.
Many ways to the top maye
a functional and objective method to testing punching power would be to use something like the PowerKube. You don't need to worry about the quality of brick, or weird special tricks on how to place them. And you don't need to sacrifice a human body. And you could use it to test different types of strikes...
Because Tai chi isn't cardio but don't tell them that
😂
Look at the brick half at 1:10, it is filled with dirt. Real bricks are red throughout.
Maybe not in China. 🙃
yer thats right doesnt it, THAT looks weird....😳😳
Half of these breaking demonstrations have rigged props. I also don't remember if it was Jerry's channel or some other, but apparently there are different grades of construction bricks, and people choose the weakest ones unsuitable for construction for these demonstrations.
5:45 In case you may wonder why the black king didn't get the red pawn: it is due to a rule special in Chinese chess, two kings can't see each other.
To paraphrase THE MAN “bricks don’t fight back” and if he does not have the skill as a striker this is not worth much. But it does have some worth.
The issue is not a magic bone breaking but toughening the body as a weapon. The fact that he can break the brick only shows his hand and body can transfer force in a controlled circumstance and his hands are tough enough to be used in open hand attacks using the palm.
Good for him.
But that only works if you are good at parrying strikes and hitting at the parts of the body where that force transfer would be most efficient - ribs, side on elbows/knees and side of the skull. (Again not for breaking but energy transfer when striking) And he does not show that to me (his body may hint he can’t but I will not judge. )
I have broken a brick that are thicker twice from that. 4 or 5 inch thick? a fired red clay mixed with sand.
You just need to hurt your palm enough and a single red brick ( pretty sure it was cheap one ) is also not really built to withstand a force coming like that.
@@era7928 I would have to be there to know what the brick was and I can’t tell. Assuming it is a solid brick what it can allow for best case. And yeah, that is the reason that people that work with their hands hit harder than others (sans training).
You definitely don't need to be big and strong to break a brick, it's all about using your inner strength fully, and completely, and at just the right moment, as well as using a muscle memory to memorize exactly how much force it takes to break the brick... I would gently hammer the brick with my hand for an hour or so, getting harder and harder each time you hit until you find just the right amount of force, so that you never over-exert or injure yourself in the process. I would break bricks all day if I had a steady supply, but they do cost money or effort to create, and the kiln I mentioned in a previous post. =3
Also, this isn't really Iron fist, but an exercise to get there, but Iron first is when you can break an iron bar; while wood and bricks are much simpler, yet all different.
To break bricks without physical statures like being heavy set or muscular, you can practice internal strength to counteract, if you don't feel like being a heavy or muscular fellow.
Here's the thing guys... 😏
Knuckles and straight punching take a lot of conditioning.
You can train bareknuckle for years and do zero palm conditioning
and STILL hit hard objects with your palm more easily.
I can punch walls now, but nowhere near full force.
But with palm or hammer fist - easy.
so you are the wall puncher I keep hearing about.. please leave my walls be😢
Of course you can hit with your palm more easily. Physics 101. A greater surface area disperses energy. Think of it in terms of hitting a nail punch with a hammer. It will poke a hole through wood. Now hit the flat surface of a book that weighs the same as the nail punch against the wood using the same force. Nothing.
That is why the first thing taught in judo when being thrown is to smack with arms outward and palms down on the mat. It lessens the impact by dispersing energy instead of pinpointing it.
but could you break the wall?! if not, you should work also on your punches, they are too weak 🙂
To paraphrase Bruce Lee -- "Bricks don't hit back."
😂 I was going to say the same thing
Neither did his "opponents" lets remember he was just an actor.
@@karlozortega246Always that one token idiot saying "Bruce Lee was just an actor" whenever Bruce Lee, the most influential Martial Artist in modern history who Chuck Norris trained with as an equal, is mentioned.
You wouldn't hit back if he hit you either.
Yeah and punching bags also but every boxer trains on them
Hitting bricks or boxing bags and so on is only a part of training conditioning or train your hitting power or technic…
All this is to prepare you for a real fight on step before the real fight is then sparring
So this bricks don’t hit thing is so lame to be honest
I'm surprised no one has brought it up till now the story of when Bruce Lee dislocated someone's shoulder with a slap.
Never heard of that, what happened? when? 🧐
@@Bartron_Flat_Earth in a movie i guess lol.
Lmaoooo are you just mentioning it as btw? Or do you actually believe he broke someones shoulder?
Bruce Lee has a lot of stories. I would imagine he could wreck guys his size and even a lot of guys a fair amount heavier but not much experienced with combat. He apparently had enough trouble with the kung fu guy that he rethought his whole fighting technique, so he was no world wrecker, and didn't live long enough to master everything.
Iron Palm/Fist/Blade/Back Hand/Bridge/Elbow... is legit. This guy in the video can break those kind of bricks. And it seemed like only one at a time. Which is something, a level. But to demonstrate it is to reach the level of it. The level of "Iron" has to be reached. Iron Palm, Iron Fist,... training is required for attainment. This guy shouldn't claim, represent or present himself as someone that has attained something he hasn't. There seems to be many, oceans of people like this and Xu Xiadong seems to easily always find them and vice-versa. And prove how pretentious or fake these guys are. While at the same time taking advantage of the opportunity to discredit something. When in actuality it's just misrepresentation.
I love your videos! My understanding is that human bones are flexible to some degree, and the force of the Iron Palm strike could travel throughout Brother Long's body. In the initial brick-breaking demo, I wonder if the underlying brick's edge acted as a fulcrum. You can see in the shadow he cast that Iron Palm Master had his right hand quite high. The momentum his hand travels, plus the mass of his arm, plus the fulcrum point receiving all that applied force could have, perhaps, contributed to the brick's breakage. What do you think? Bro, you're awesome! I enjoy your keeping up with Xu Xiaodong's journey!
There’s another Xu one I saved but can’t find anymore. He goes to some tai chi master’s dojo who challenged him, and of course the tai chi master isn’t there.
Yes. All your suppositions are correct.
It's unfortunate that it's hard to know whether someone is really using power and technique besides just trickery.
Even if the brick is lifted a tiny bit before hitting it, it would cause it to break pretty easy when struck
People can be seen on youtube breaking rocks with that same technique, and perhaps that is the technique after all. Doesn't matter if there's some secret power involved or not as long as the rocks becoming broken is accomplished
and even with iron first and breaking iron bars, we still need to account for the tensile strength of the bar.
It might be much more complicated to break spring metal rather than some regular iron.
Imagine trying to karate chop a bamboo pole in half, and the splinters... much easier to break a wooden slab.
Many iron hand/palm practitioners do spar. They just hold back because of the damage that is done. Soft tissue damage is observed too. There is a difference between those who just learn the techniques and forms and those who practice the fighting.
Cool xiangqi moves
For the Chinese chess puzzle, if anyone is wondering, the Governor should never be exposed to the General--these are the kings--and vice versa. So, if your General/Governor has a clear line of sight to your opponent's Governor/General, you can fly across the board to capture him--which is why the pawn wasn't captured. Otherwise, the General and Governor can never leave the square which represents his palace or fortress. Nice end-game puzzle. I do like this version of chess for its cannons and catapults and certainly the river and the houses for the Governor/General. Great game.
Iron Chop is not Iron Palm. He was supposed to shatter the brick with his palm, not chopping it.
Another sign is to look at his palm. I remember part of Iron Palm training is to wash his palm in sand and then iron crusts constantly which eventually toughens the skin and bones to the point they feel like iron hard.
During the process, the hand, the forearm, and the arm would get a lot of exercise and should be somewhat muscular. I'm not see any level of muscularity on that arm. Maybe they are hiding underneath that layer of fat.
That arm slap allows the arm to "go with the hit" without resisting thus the damage of the impact is lowered.
For a better understanding imagine 2 cars colliding.
The brick hit is a front to front collision. The arm hit is a back collision while moving (or without breaks on).
A hit to the body, let's say ribs, would have broken the guy's ribs due to the resistance the body gives back into the hit. If the hit to the body would be snapped back the shock goes into internal organs.
I know this because I was the dummy years back. No ribs broken though, was just given a sample. Yes, I did flew in the air a few meters before realizing what is happening to me.
I learned that trick when I was 14 and was participating in a demonstration with a local dojo. You lift the brick slightly before you hit it and it strikes the brick underneath so it's like slamming the top brick on the edge of the bottom creating a point of impact. I've been in martial arts for 40 years now and have yet to see any real breaking that wasn't a trick
Nothing impressive here. The man that broke is is endomorphic like a Samoan a bit, and even the extra fat he has makes his ability to palm strike or chop objects even a bit stronger as well, as there is more padding in his hand to protect his bones. He can hold down the brick just with his body weight, and then break it on the other side also just via the mass of his arm and body coming down onto it. Again, nothing special is done here, any endomorphic type man could replicate this right there and then, if instructed by this man.
By endomorphic I am talking about people like Mark Hunt, Ray Sefo, David Tua, Kazuyuki Fujita, Tsuyoshi Kosaka and even this Chinese guy Xu Xiaodong is quite the large man that also could do it.
Bricks don't fight back. - Chong Li
Best we can say of iron palm dude is that he has some degree of strength and form to break bricks. I dunno if Xu Xiaodong would've been able to do it himself if he tried, because that's the closest thing for comparison I can give.
On the other hand, if dude was more in fighting shape, maybe doing some strike to strike comparisons between the Iron Palm guy and Xu would've been good.
The beer belly is where theu store their chi😂🗿
Iron bone shattering palm is different than brick breaking but requires brick breaking as a requisite.
0:24 we can see the brick is game over at the start
They should have let the mma student try the brick trick, and yeah, it's obviously a trick giving the amount of leverage given by the position of the brick underneath. You just need to find the right spot for the fulcrum to do its magic, apply swift heavy force on the exposed side and firm pressure on the other end to keep the top brick in place, flush with the bottom one during the strike.
What is the expected result? Xu Xiaodung was pointing at the arm as if we were supposed to see something that wasn't (?) there. I am not sure what he was looking for. What is the claim the practitioner makes that the iron palm is supposed to differentiate on?
Without that, it is difficult to even know what the test is supposed to be.
you dont need to be lean or olympic level fit to defend yourself.
im not saying thats why all these kung fu guys are fat.
but im saying that being fat doesnt necessarily indicate a lack of skill or experience (or even fitness).
if combat sports didnt have weight classes, you wouldnt see many six packs anymore. youd see a lot of mark hunts, daniel cormiers, ben rothwells, roy nelsons, derrick lewis's, and so on.
body fat aids energy, aids in mechanical muscular advantage (fat distribution changes muscle force angles), aids in lifting by creating a shelf (ala Strongman physique), and counter pressure into something if youre bearhugging it, and to the extent your muscles can carry and move it effectively, it adds mass to strikes and grapples, making them a bit more effective.
add to all of that, nearly all self defense incidents are over well before a boxing round. the fast majority are done with in a minute or less.
Thats not even enough time for the body to be in aerobic functioning. so a lot of cardio really isnt needed.
strength, mass, and anaerobic capacity would serve better.
Very nice. Plz check coconut breaking techniques
Tell me more!
Brick dont fight back 😅
I've broken multiple of those long grey concrete blocks simultaneously with a hammerfist. It's not super crazy it just looks impressive. And I'll be the first to admit it just looks intimidating, has little reflection on fighting ability.
It does hurt though, often my pinky would be swollen for a few days afterward. It is bone against brick afterall.
I bet that guy could break a collar bone.
I met a guy who did Iron Palm and it was one of many things he did in his system. He had huge callouses on his palms and as impressive as they were, I wasn't clear on the Iron Palm application in a fight.
Jerry, it's all physics. Breaking bricks (including selective brick breaking), boards, bending resilient softer metal is physics, banana trees, and animal bones. All these materials have different tolerances. GOOD Kung Fu masters KNOW this and teach their pupil to hit the object by: whipping, pushing, slapping, sinking etc. All these are taught sequentially with different materials to learn how to properly land strikes on hard or soft surfaces and maximize lethal power.
BAD Kung Fu masters will simply focus on impressing others visually by breaking 5 boards but cannot break a brick, or break 5 bricks, but cannot break a board. These are the people with really calloused hands from hard, but inefficient hard qigong training.
The GOOD masters simply teach you how to manipulate basic rules in physics. ANY beginner can break these material WITHOUT hard qigong. You just need to find a few guys on UA-cam that has broken different materials with a tutorial explaining and simply practice. Once you do it a few times successfully, it's not mysterious. It should take fews months of rigorous training (not years) to learn how to break different materials.
In the video, the guy needs to do more of a weight drop by sudden sinking your body as you slap with a softly clenched leopard palm by whipping a limp wrist... 拍 thru the guy like hitting somebody with a leather sap...
Physics example... Machetes have blades that of hardness of RHC 59 are used to chop wood or animal bones. Machetes of hardness of RHC 52 are used to cut tall grass. Machetes of hardness of RHC 55 are used to cut bushes. Machetes of hardness of 57 RHC are used as general purpose. Now apply that same principle with "iron" palm training.
I bet he'd be great at one of those slap fights all over UA-cam.
One of myy instructors used to call these "martial arts party tricks". I've broken a lot of boards and a couple of bricks (concrete, not like these). The trick is speed and not hesitating. If you hesitate, you will get hurt. Like Columbus's egg, it's easy enough when you know the trick.
What’s Columbus’ Eggs?
It is an apocryphal story from the 16th century about Columbus. According to the story, someone said to Columbus that finding a new trade route was inevitable and no great accomplishment. He then challenged his critics to make an egg stand on its tip. After his challengers give up, Columbus does it himself by tapping the egg on the table to flatten its tip. He then said.. it's easy when you know the trick, but not before. @@FightCommentary
1:30 what I learned in kung fu class was that it’s called a chi belly. Look at Roy Nelson and other “pot bellied” fighters. Even those Nat geo documentaries say “chi is stored in the Dan tien” under the naval. Not to say every beer bellied person knows kung fu though lol
This is basic iron palm testing. There is technique, physics, and bone density that come into play. One brick hanging off is basic. Two bricks mid-level. 3 bricks is high-level stacked. Mastery levels are to break the 3rd brick out of 3 stacked and not the top 2 (no spacers), Brick broken on a flat surface, Brick suspended in the air and being broken. If you can do the higher levels then you can hit a suspended arm or leg and break it easily. You would need to generate enough force to break more than a single brick being held by your palm and be able to focus the force into a single point.
Actually from what I was taught an iron palm can break a brick on the bottom of a stack without breaking the others or chose to do one anywhere in the stack and there is no arm movement they just placed the hand on top and make the break.
Are you sure that's not pure manga?😮
Jesus, that's because if you just put weight on weak decorative bricks in a stack, they break from the bottom up, where they are supported. That's like bragging about breaking porcelain with only one hand.
the iron palm guy isnt displaying good or appropriate technique with the slaps.
he isnt able to figure out how to do to the guys arm, what he was doing to the brick.
i think part is not wanting to hurt the guy. but I think part is also not having experience doing it to points on peoples bodies.
he also isnt using the appropriate technique on the guys arm anyway. the driving palm sort of "energy" (muscle tension, force angle, arc of arm movement etc) doesnt work for slapping.
he is trying to use a windup like a slap, but impact with driving palm energy. that wont produce any noteworthy effect.
he has to slap proper all the way through to have the effect that palm heavy styles like pigua have. otherwise, he should choose a different target and set up to do a demo of the effect of a driving palm proper.
Hey, you have a cool channel, I watch you a lot. I have retired from a lifetime of practicing the martial arts, but I can't stop being interested in the stuff and how it keeps changing. Anyway, I will tell you a recipe. Take a regular brik and soak it in water for some hours, and then freeze it overnight in the freezer. And then thaw it and and let it dry. That's it, your break is ready. It weighs the same, it feels the same, and your grandma can break it now.
That is super interesting!
6:06-6:08 Jerry Yeung exactly used Chinese chess as a metaphor for his understanding of Wing Chun principle. If you want to know it, I can copy the paragraph for his book to you
Please do!
@@FightCommentary 「收集數據對打贏一場交很重要......一位武術師父，要做的事就是教導學員如何打好一場交、如何保護自己-有效率地打交。打交是一場博奕，如下象棋般，你一步我一步，每一步也影響著對方。所以不存在「我想用這招，便用那一招」......要進攻對方，就要選上那個對自己對有利的方法，就得問「為何這樣做?」以及「為何不這樣做?」......就像下中國象棋般，當知對方會因你下了那步而有所應對，你就知象棋的難道在哪。因為每一步，下得正確，就可牽制對方時又能為自己提高勝算。但若下得不正確，卻會為對方帶來勝算-一子錯，滿盤皆落索。從象棋原理中，得要明白，運用功夫時，以千變萬化的招式進攻，想令對手難以估計你，實然上是不可能的。而根據象棋原理，拳打中線，就是攻擊上的最佳選擇」 then there are 6 pages length on explaining what is 中線& why need to 拳打中線but Due to the length, I don't include it here.
I dont know about Chinese chess but I use Western style chess as a metaphor to understand Kung Fu principles and strategies not just Wing Chun. Center control, Splitting attacks, Diversion, Pinning attacks, Pressure etc.
"Bricks don't hit back". Chong Li Chong Li Chong Li.
You need to work collaboratively with this guy and meet him. You're like his biggest supporter
I'm going to tell you a story about how i accidentally learned iron fist and knocked someone out in school without even trying. I just threw a jab and he was out on his feet swaying around like he was hoola hooping or like mortal kombat when they say finish him. Basically I'n high school we would do something called knuckle fighting between the guys. We would punch each other's first knuckle to knuckle until someone quit from the pain . I played football and we walked this very long concrete hallway out to the field and back to the locker rooms each day. When we got to the lockers people would tap the lockers and make a kind of musical sound that the entire team would make on the way in. Before you get to the lockers you have a concrete wall about 20+ feet long. I would punch that wall and it hurt like crazy at first. But after several months In i noticed something. I didn't feel anything at all anymore. No pain or nothing unless i threw a really hard punch at that wall but jabs that used to hurt like heck did not hurt me anymore until i threw about 20 blows and then the pain would slowly creep in but i had to work way harder to feel pain because my knuckles had grown super strong. My bone had broke and rebuilt itself from micro cracks from hitting that wall so much that my knuckles looked like they grew 20 percent and my pain tolerance quadrupled. These micro cracks are much the same like when you rip your muscles working out and these micro tears just get rebuilt stronger and stronger each time till you add more muscle and get stronger each time. The bones work in much the same way with impact training. One day i got into a fight and i just jabbed this dude twice and he was out on his feet. I thought he was joking because i thought i didn't hit him that hard but Actually i did but i couldn't feel it because i had hardened my knuckles so much. 20 years later i saw shaolin monks punching hard stuff all the way to steel blocks to make their fist into iron fists. Without knowing i was doing my own iron fist and i got all the way up to concrete which is the 2nd hardest behind steel this stuff works. But like muscles if you don't use it you lose it i stopped punching walls and after many years my knuckles are back to normal and they hurt if i hit any walls. Maybe buy a wall mounted sand bag to have a good balanced surface to punch and keep your knuckles nice and hard if you are into martial arts. Also i remember that one of the monks sometimes works for the police as a bounty hunter and he said that he easily knocks people out using jabs with like 10 percent of his power and i was like bro that's exactly what happened to me when i had that dude spinning cause of some jabs. If you practice this stuff don't do evil with it though. Or else you will reap what you sow.
I apreciate your honesty about never breaking a brick before. That is a very difficult break to perform. My sifu would do that type of thing, but while squatted down with his breaking hand only about a foot above the brick (so no added leverage or body weight involved. However, like you said.... "Bricks don`t hit back"
Wow! That is awesome he could do it without the other hand!
@@FightCommentary No. He held the brick over a small bench with his other hand. I did see another video of an old master doing this same thing with a stone
Wish you explained that in your first comment@@willaimrobinson9383 I got so excited for nothing.
The only real way to test A vs B is to have a medium similar to ballistics gelatin in that it's universal in reaction. Not all boards, bricks or stones even are the same . I don't know what that medium would be though . Or maybe just a device that measures foot pounds or energy ? When I was training Hapkido during a belt test the head instructor did a break. This guy had seriously calloused fists. He had 4 boards that had certification marks on them of some sort and were bound together with no spacers He then had a student hold them by a string so they were suspended in air and he broke them in one shot with a backfist . That was pretty great. He Il Cho used to break a standard 6 ft 2x4 being held up by 2 light bulbs and the bulbs didn't break . He also routinely split a fresh out of the box Everlast heavy bag with kicks. Now of course it's possible that all of these were rigged somehow but I think it at least showed an effort at having a standardized medium .
I'd say to get a leg of pork to test it on. The bone density and the meat and tissue etc... round the bone is going to be reasonably similar to a human arm (I think, maybe forearm??). Going to look up the Chinese Chess now. I live in Guangzhou and have often wondered how this version is played. My 13 year daughter often destroys me at Western Chess so I'd love to give this a whirl. Cheers!
Make sure to use the link in the description ;) Let me know if you have any questions!
@@FightCommentary Can't sign in through wechat for some reason. No worries, will have a go again alter. Gotta go out for a bit now. Cheers!
The more I look at Xu Xiadong, the cuter his face is.
I think breaking brick or cutting glass with the palm of your hand are just for show and entertainment.
When I was in high school, my friends and I chopped bricks from a house next door doing some reconstruction. We got in trouble because we broke so many bricks.
I and my younger in laws once had a lot of bricks for our house's renovation. They were in their teens, and they managed to break the bricks with their palms without practice. It's gotta be at least 5 bricks to be worth watching
"Bottom one."
😉
I thought a test that'd make the most sense would be for Xu Xiaodong to take one of the dude's bricks and try to break it himself.
That is, if Xu can do it without any specific training then it basically proves there's no benefit to breaking bricks over regular striking training.
The way he placed the brick over the other one isn't a good way to show the technique, basically you are just using the brick under to pierce the other one, not actually breaking it by the force you applied on it. I think it should be more correct to have the brick to break over two tiny supports on each edge so the force you apply down will be the one causing the fracture on the brick, not the punction of another brick.
Every iron palm school is different so it’s hard to give answer. The school I went to didn’t break things and emphasized every injury your body gets stays with you even to your old age. Karate and other schools develop an extremely strong Callus which they can use to break ice, concrete and all the other crazy things in those videos but look at how disfigured their hands are though
The Chinese have already understood the benefit of chess in martial arts. It's in the movie: Mystery of Chessboxing.
Imagine the iron palm hit to the head, back, stomach, groin. Not hit the hand
its not the femur, its the humerus
several things make me think this whole thing by xu xiaodong was pointless.
(1) the iron palm master just conditioned his iron palm, he doesn't seem to know technique for chopping downwards to generate power.
(2) xu xiaodong tests like he doesn't know how to fight cause those aren't even fighting positions. xu xiaodong should get into a fighting position where other opponents have struck downward on him in the past (either with elbow or punch) and then tell the iron palm master to strike downward with his palm as a test of the iron palm. what are these ridiculous positions xu xiaodong is testing as if he doesn't know how to fight?
(3) when xu xiaodong tells the iron palm master to strike seriously, he shouldn't tell him to do it on an arm suspended in air because that's pointless. but again i don't think the iron palm master knows how to strike anyway so kinda pointless regardless.
(4) also, try something a bit realistic like going for a standing armbar control, but instead of control, smash the guy's elbow/upper arm. or try to get on the ground and see if his iron palm can smash the guy's head or ribs in. or in a standing clinch, can the iron palm smash the skull/shoulder/back. whichever one they think is safe to do, or whichever they are crazy enough to do.
but again, it looks like the iron palm master didn't practice striking and doesn't know the technique to strike down with power anyway, so basically he just has tough bones. but still, at least test properly to see if those tough bones actually hurt in actual fighting scenarios. what is the ponit of the hanging arm, or the arm flat on a flexible/bouncy platform?
If you look closely that brick already have a little crack to where it broke, n if it's legit iron palm I don't think you need any leverage to deal serious damage in a human body...
The brick is held in place and it has a fracture edge. Try breaking a brick suspended from a thread.
completely flat and no space between the hand and the ring mat. Make if they add space like maybe 3cm? I believe it can break the arm in one punch.
Ive always wondered about the beer belly as well, motobu choki the karate guy from early 1900s was known to start street fights to practice and they called him the most practical karate master, and he had a gut
That’s so interesting! Do his matches have any records on video or film?
@@FightCommentaryI don't think there were cameras in Okinawa's red district at the time.
Also, there is a newspaper recording of him defeating a boxer and the paper used a picture of Funakoshi, whom he hated. That prompted him to go defeat Funakoshi in his own dojo, which is a very funny story because Funakoshi was totally unrelated to the paper and Choki couldn't read Japanese that well (he had a heavy Okinawan accent)
Watch Jesse's video about him I think the guy was hilarious.
@@RAPEDBYBLACKSKarate are a style that Violent Thugs use back then in Okinawa are very Brutal and these Thugs always fighted and beat people for real back then, But a man called Funakoshi changed everything, Funakoshi invented a code of honor for Karate and with the help of Kano the creator of Judo who are impressed with Fukonoshi code of honor and his Karate skills he helped Karate become popular in Tokyo as it was seen as a civilized art.
I once heard someone talk about how these displays were used as " parlour tricks" or " vagabond skills" for travelling king fu practitioners to make a bit of money or get something to eat.
The question about why the belly is so big, some will say it's because they have too much "CHI" built up. I've heard many times that the big guys have built up a lot of chi and gained big belly's.
Since it's an established fact that China uses sub standard material in their manufacturing of construction material (what was with the white objects embedded in the brick), use a brick made in America where they made to be more sturdy.
They tested well, better beyond normal use in combat, meaning the guy couldn't pull off a more perfect iron palm strike than that in a real fight.
Talking about bellies Xu isnt exactly wearing a small size shirt himself lol i have a bit of a belly too but i can spar and roll for an entire class but my opinion on brick breaking is its a trick but you do have to follow through in most cases but alot of those bricks aint too hard to break you just have to know how to hit them and it doesn't necessarily translate to fighting
It's true there is a lot of real master's that don't want to fight.
Once they know how dangerous they are: they know they both are lucky if their spleen and eyes still work afterwards.
And at the last second slightly pick the brick up however the bricks are porous so
"Very good, but brick not hit back"
Isn’t that just the best friend from the new Spider-Man?
I'm looking at the brick, and it's not in the middle. I would say it's closer to 40% of the way. But also, Xu probably can't do this w/o coming away unscathed. Having said that, bricks don't fight back. To me, these types of feats are more like circus feats. Kind of cool to look at, but certainly applicable only in very limited cicumstances.