Chi Kung, or qiqong, depending on how you spell it, has been around for centuries. How long nobody knows for certain, but it’s been around long before even the martial arts were born. Iron palm was a part of this practice, although at the time it was not called iron palm. At some point in history, martial arts systems and styles began to blossom in China, and iron palm was a staple. Just like learning how to do a proper horse stance, students learned iron palm.
Iron palm was not limited to mere technique. Proper training in iron palm taught students how to tap into chi, strengthen their bodies, build their mental focus and concentration, and gain control over chi whereby they could send chi to any part of their body or out of their hands, fingertips, or feet. One can easily see why iron palm training was a core staple of all the martial art styles and systems.
The Shaolin monks and nuns developed martial arts to an incredibly high degree. They pushed the limits on all of their abilities. Their knowledge of chi kung, iron palm, meditation, chi, healing, herbs and philosophy were unmatched. And while the monks and nuns helped the locals living around them by giving them medical aid and treatments, they kept their martial knowledge primarily to themselves. Iron palm became a mysterious secret that many sought after because of its incredible potential.
In China, Fukien Temple stood out from all the other Shaolin temples. The monks and nuns who resided there were legendary. They were unmatched in martial prowess, even from other Shaolin temples. It is said their abilities were borderline superhuman. They were unmatched in martial ability. They had knowledge of iron palm, iron shirt, chi kung, meditation, herbs, healing and they understood chi, the life-force energy of the universe. It is said they had great abilities that were borderline superhuman.
To understand how iron palm comes to us today, we must understand the history of Fukien Temple and the role it played during one of the most tumultuous times in China’s history.
In the 1600’s, China was ruled by the Emperor. Unfortunately, the Ming Emperor’s hold on the throne was weak. China was slowly being invaded by the Manchurians, a tribe of nomadic peoples who came down from the north of China. In the south, Europeans were trading along the coastlines. All of this influence brought great change to China.
A child named Fung Doe Duk was born into a family of warrior generals. As such, he was privileged to be sent to the Fukien Temple at a young age to being his training.
It was at this temple that he met and befriended his classmates, Mew Hing, Jee Shin Shim Shee, Bak Mei and the nun Ng Mui. They were to become the five elders who escaped the destruction of the Fukien temple, the same five who are written about to this day in history books. It is from their systems that the Chinese martial arts have passed down to us today.
In the spring of 1674 things finally came to a climax. The Manchurian armies seized power in Peking. The Ming Emperor killed himself, leaving the Manchurians in full power and putting China under foreign rule.
The Manchurians had many anti-Chinese feelings. They made it mandatory for all Chinese to wear the “pigtail” hair braids. They also carried on with the practice of binding women’s feet. Villages were looted, their women raped, and most of the young girls were taken away.
The monks and nuns were not blind to the atrocities.
Fung Doe Duk, Ng Mui, Mew Hing, Jee Shin Shim Shee and Bak Mei swore a blood oath to overthrow the Manchurians and reestablish the Ming dynasty. They developed a plan that might well have succeeded except for one thing.
Bak Mei betrayed his friends and everyone in Fukien Temple. He was seduced by power and greed. You must understand, he was born from a poor lot and had never known privilege or title. He was promised a high position and title in the Manchurian court, and in exchange he gave up all he stood for. He informed the Manchurians of the plot against them.
The one thing we must realize and learn from Bak Mei’s betrayal is that no matter how great your own personal abilities, if you do not conquer your ego, you leave yourself vulnerable. The more you learn and grow, the more you must overcome your own personal ego and go beyond your own limits. If we do not overcome the mind-poisons of anger, lust, greed, ego, or clinging (attachment), then we are left vulnerable to being destroyed by them. This is a bitter pill to swallow but it is important to realize so that we can overcome true weakness.
When Bak Mei informed the Manchurian Emperor, he wasted no time in sending a massive army to Fukien Temple. They had one order: wipe out the Ming loyalist movement and leave no monk or nun alive. The Manchurians weren’t alone. They brought along European troops, led by General McCartney, who supplied the Manchus with cannons and firearms.
The soldiers blasted the temple with heavy cannon, to little effect. It took eight long months before they were able to put a hole through it. The Manchurians stormed through the opening, but the monks and nuns were ready for them. The minute the soldiers stepped inside, they were immediately killed or decapitated.
It went on like this for weeks, until finally some 250,000 soldiers were dead, leaving only some 20,000 soldiers left alive. The losses to the monks and nuns were minimal and they still had some 3,000 left alive.
The Manchurians were on the edge of total failure. General McCartney refused to give up. Walking amongst the tens of thousands dead, a dark idea came to him. He had his remaining troops gather the dry grass and place it against the temple walls. Once they were piled high, he set it ablaze. In one fell stroke, the walls that protected the monks and nuns now spelled their doom. The great fire turned the entire temple into a giant lethal oven.
It was on that tragic day that every monk and nun, with the exception of five, lost their lives. The temple became an inferno. Only Fung Doe Duk, Mew Hing, Jee Shin Shim Shee, Ng Mui and Bak Mei made it out, escaping via an underground sewage tunnel.
When the fire finally died out, McCartney and his men looted the remains of the temple for gold and anything valuable. It wasn’t until the Manchus found the sewer tunnel that they realized that some had escaped.
The five were hunted by the Manchurians. Bak Mei found himself betrayed by those from whom he hoped to gain his hearts desire. He, too, became an outlaw and fled with the others. Unable to turn to any temple for protection, the five took on beggar’s clothing and walked amongst the peasants. Faced with total loss and ruin, they did the unthinkable: They began to teach their highly secret martial art styles and systems to the anyone who would learn. They taught in secret, always in hiding from the Manchurians.
Each of the five actually created their own styles or systems of martial arts and refined how it was taught. Fung Doe Duk created Bak Fu Pai (White Tiger System), Bak Mei created Bak Mei Pai (White Eyebrow System), Ng Mui created Plum Flower System, Mew Hing created the Eighteen Daoist Palms system, and Jee Shin Shim Shee reinvented the original Shaolin art, Northern Shaolin.
In creating their own styles, they became the first Grandmasters in history. The word “Grandmaster”, or “Jung Shee”, actually translates as “the one and only master of a system”. Before that time, no one had ever heard of the word “grandmaster.”
Fung Doe Duk had not forgotten the burning of his Fukien temple nor had he forgotten the reason why his brother monks and sister nuns were all slaughtered. In time, Bak Mei’s treachery was revealed to him and the others. The time had now come. It was a unanimous decision to kill the traitor Bak Mei. The ordeal of their revenge took place outside of Kwong Wei’s temple walls.
Jee Shin Shim Shee, being one of the youngest and strongest, launched an attack that was meant to kill Bak Mei. In a fierce exchange of blows, Bak Mei killed him. Mew Hing attacked next, but found himself no match for Bak Mei’s formidable prowess. After a deadly exchange, Mew Hing was struck down, never to rise again.
This left only Ng Mui and Fung Doe Duk to avenge the temple. Ng Mui prepared to attack, but Fung Doe Duk stopped her. After watching Bak Mei in action, he realized that Bak Mei only had one weakness. He attacked immediately, and got inside of Bak Mei’s defenses and hit him with a series of lethal blows.
That was the end of Bak Mei.
Fung Doe Duk and Ng Mui continued to wander and eventually ended up taking refuge with the Imperial Physician. In exchange, Fung Doe Duk and Ng Mui taught him everything. For generations, the Imperial Physician’s family kept this knowledge secret and passed it on from family member to family member until finally in modern times this particular lineage was taught openly.
Iron palm is not so much a technique or style or system as it is a staple of martial arts in general. Learn iron palm means strengthening one’s body and mind to new limits. It entails learning how to tap into chi and cultivate it in order for it to become useful and plentiful. It means learning how to direct chi through the body and out the hands. There may be many versions of iron palm, but the principles that operate iron palm all remain the same. It is therefore these principles we should strive to learn and practice so that we ourselves have no limits on our own abilities.