Iron Breath

治身：天門，謂鼻孔開，謂喘息闔，謂呼吸也¹

Cultivating the body: the Heavenly Door, called opening the nostrils, called closing gasping and resting², which is called exhaling and inhaling³.

天門亢，擤鼻，旡

The Heavenly Door is haughty, blowing one’s nose, to choke⁴.

Iron training and its main breathing technique, empty breathing, are exercises less and less witnessed in internal practices. They target the capacity to tense all and any part of the body while relaxing and stretching. They use an old type of respiration, sometimes linked to Taoist practices, which consist of taking a long exhalation to empty as much as possible, not only the lungs but the stomach and the whole trunk for the least, and keep at all costs this state while inhaling. 

Bamboo

武藝不學不通，雜技不練不精

Martial art skills cannot be understood if not studied, acrobatics are not outstanding if not practised.

勢如破竹

A posture totally like a bamboo¹.

Though a new realm, bamboo naturally follows what was achieved in the locks, starting to learn how to tense the whole body through fascias and muscle relaxation. Therefore, where one had to soften one’s body in straight and round, bamboo is all about hardening it, nonetheless by means of relaxation. Still, bamboo training is also finding means to enhance the spine flexibility as well as to reach deeper fascia webs. Finally, such training deals with ways to improve one’s grip and the flow of vapours.

Finding Bamboo, Iron and Cotton

筋是功能之本，骸是功能之基，氣是功能之源

Fascias are the origin of capability, the skeleton its foundation, vapours its source.

筋骨之強弱，肌肉之堅脆，皮膚之厚薄，腠理之疏密，各不同

The sturdiness of the bones and the fascias, the firmness of the flesh, the thickness of the skin, the density of the lineaments, are each not alike¹.

Before starting with the Bamboo training, one has to realise where this new realm of training comes from. Being an oral tradition, there are still a lot of training in Chinese martial arts which haven’t been put into writing or systematised. Furthermore, with the decline of such old practices, a lot has been lost, including independent practices, such as animal walks, which disappeared and spread out, becoming a particular training in different styles. Bamboo, Iron and Cotton, BIC, wasn’t an independent practice, just some training for already transformed bodies.

Bamboo, Iron And Cotton, A New Realm

一层功，一层理

One level of skill, one level of intrinsic order¹.

古者謂是采真之遊

This is what the ancients called plucking the genuine wanderings².

Old practices were about constantly evolving, which meant changes, which meant to sometimes reach something totally new with very different rules or principles to be followed.