‘Fist Under Elbow’ Leads To All Sorts Of Painful Hits & Cutting Or ‘Poisoning’ Plus Joints Ripped Apart & Broken Bones

Steel Wrapped in Cotton

By Sigung Richard Clear

The Old Master & The Young Thug

An old Tai Chi Master is practicing in the park one day. The old Tai Chi masters movements are tranquilly fluid and soft, harmony in motion.

The young thug walks up to the old master and states that with one hit he could break the old master’s bones. He then says, “so what good is this slow moving crap anyway?.” The old master simply smiles and offers his arm to the young man and says hit my arm as hard as you want.

The young man slams his arm into the master’s and immediately jerks back holding his arm and howling in pain. The old master reaches out his hand and lightly taps the young man’s arm in a couple of places and eases the temporary paralysis that set into the arm immediately after the strike.

Quite surprised, the young man says, “How can this be? Your arm was held out softly but it felt like it had a crowbar in it and how did you fix my arm so fast?” The old master gently smiles and says, “Steel wrapped in cotton. This is just one of the many secrets of real Tai Chi.’

The Proper Tai Chi Quality For ‘Steel Wrapped In Cotton’

In the Tai Chi classic writings there are statements about the proper body quality of a Tai Chi practitioner’s being like steel wrapped in cotton. I have had the good fortune to study with several Tai Chi masters who are well versed in the ‘Steel Wrapped in Cotton’ method which is sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden Bell Method.’

Unfortunately, there are not very many Americans who have been exposed to this high level and secret training method of Tai Chi.

To help those who desire to know the training methods as described in the Tai Chi Classics I have produced a video, “Internal Iron Body in 100 Days“ to help practitioners who are interested to begin training in this highly internal method of Iron Body that leads to the steel wrapped in cotton method.

The Healthy ‘Tai Chi Internal Iron Body’ Training Method

Some kinds of iron body are quite external and training often involves striking the body and using impact as well as deadening the nerves to build the body up to take stronger and stronger strikes. Generally speaking striking methods for building iron body are not very healthy for you.

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between steel wrapped in cotton and external iron shirt techniques. Steel Wrapped in Cotton is very different from external iron shirt and the practice methods are completely different.

One important distinction between the two methods is that external iron shirt methods can be hazardous to learn and unsafe to train while steel wrapped in cotton is generally safe to learn, train and practice. Steel wrapped in Cotton is healthy for you and continues to be healthy for you even into very advanced old age.

Super Efficient Training…

Another great benefit to training steel wrapped in cotton is that after the basic training all you have to do to maintain it is continue practicing your Tai Chi with the correct internal alignments, breathing and energetics that are required for other high level Tai Chi practices.

This makes it so that you are training steel wrapped in cotton every time you practice your Tai Chi so that you do not have to set aside separate training time for your iron body practice.

This is a real benefit in our modern world of limited time and allows you to get more bang for your buck from your training time.

Internal Energy Training

Steel wrapped in cotton training helps to build the internal body mechanics and energy that Tai Chi is so famous for and after steel wrapped in cotton is sufficiently trained you can use this energy to help perform other high level Tai Chi health and fighting skills such as Fa Jing (touching an opponent and sending them flying or touching them and causing the force to go inside of them dropping them where they stand), Peng, rooting, immovable body, etc.

A Key Component Of Tai Chi.

Steel Wrapped in Cotton develops the ability to receive, negate & dissipate strikes received.

The striker feels like they are hitting a soft pillow with solid steel underneath. This internal quality is a key component of real Tai Chi and it is unmistakable once you have felt it.

Soft Yet Very Powerful

In the early 1980′s I trained external iron shirt along with my external Kung Fu training and the first time I felt steel wrapped in cotton it did not make sense to me because I did not understand how my instructor could be so soft and so powerful at the same time.

With his steel wrapped in cotton he could penetrate my iron shirt and with my training at that time I could not get past even the first layer of his steel wrapped in cotton.

This was part of my introduction into the real higher level internal arts that now form the heart and soul of all of my personal training for the last 25 years.

Hit With A ‘Crowbar’

The steel wrapped in cotton hit is one basic beginning type of the Tai Chi Death Touch.

It is referred to as a Touch because of how much damage can be done with so little effort on the part of the practitioner. The practitioner feels very relaxed, calm and soft and to the Tai Chi man it only feels like he is performing a simple strike or touch. The focus of my next article will be on the Tai Chi Death Touch.

In Tai Chi the body mechanics, alignments and ability to use the mind to form and direct your body energy are all part of the study of Tai Chi and eventually many of the advanced practices are designed to work in harmony with each other.Steel Wrapped in Cotton Is Simply A Matter Of Training With The Proper Method

Striking with Steel Wrapped in Cotton is simply a matter of training your hands and arms or whatever body part you wish to strike with (elbows, shoulder, hips, kicks etc) to exhibit the steel wrapped in cotton quality.

To that end I have developed a specific package for training Tai Chi’s ‘Internal Iron Body’ And ‘Internal Power Transfer’ so one can develop their forearms into those ‘Crowbars’ with the proper training of steel wrapped in cotton for that purpose. This special package is gives you the Tai Chi secrets to develop ‘Internal Iron Body’ which leads to ‘Steel Wrapped In Cotton’ which leads to Tai Chi’s ‘Golden Bell. You can check out this package by clicking here.

I thank my many teachers and my creator for the training I have received in these internal Tai Chi methods as I have gained a great amount of personal health benefits from them and the internal Tai Chi steel wrapped in cotton training. I am very honored to be exposing these heretofore secret training methods to the Tai Chi community in the West as I personally believe that in this day and time folks are ready for the real internal teachings that form the basis of high level Tai Chi.

Click Here To Take A Look At Our FREE Practical Guide to Internal Power that will start you on the path for developing ‘Steel Wrapped In Cotton’ as well

Warm regards and the best in your training, Richard Clear