Strengthening fingers?

Hi, I was wondering what are the best ways to strengthen your fingers for praying mantis and bird forms? I love how colorful those forms are but they aren't going to be that useful if my fingers aren't strong enough. Anything helps thanks in advance.

Do fingertip pushups, on the fingertips, not fingerprints. Don't let any of the joints give in (bend back) because that breaks the structure of it.

Doing these on the ground will probably be too hard to start off with; so do wall push-ups like that instead.

I have heard some people claim that doing them on the fingertips can cause blindness (due to pressure points). I've never seen any evidence of that (my eyesight is fine; but moreover, my Sifu's eyesight, and his Sifu's eyesight are fine, after practicing for 20-some and 50-some years, respectively). If you are worried about it however; do fingerprint, you won't get as much benefit, but it's better than nothing.

Repeated grasping motions can also be a good exercise to increase finger strength. (And grabbing strength, which is used in a lot of kung fu techniques)

Stretch your arms out in front of you with open hands and close and open your hands repeatedly, making sure to get the hand fully open and closed each time.

Usually when I work on finger strength I do both finger tip push ups and the exercise I described above.

Hope this helped

Something else to keep in mind when you are training the fingertips etc. is to keep the structure of the fingers in such a way that they will not be bent backwards and break.
In other words, there should be a slight bend to the fingers so that if the impact force is too much for the finger to bear then it will fold inward rather than folding backwards and hyper extending or breaking the finger.

beans. dried beans.

fill up large bowl or bucket with beans and then drive your fingers into it repeatedly. this was how is was done in the old days. then you might graduate to sand.

then you can try working the same strikes on a pair of thai pads.

balance out the conditioning by using the jing luo balls and maybe some jow.

Ahhh yes. Jow is a wonderful thing to have if you are going to do any intensive kind of conditioning like this.

I'm not an expert but it makes sense to that using grippers (in moderation) and those chrome balls you circle in your hands (don't know the name) would probably help.

-Umbra

After you've done all the above, here is something from the Phoenix Eye system:-

--- hang around like a bat using, in the beginning, 4 fingers and gradually going down to one finger;

--- get a roundish stone slightly larger than a baseball; throw it into the air and guickly snatch it with just your fingers. This will complement all the grasping, twisting and gripping found in the Mantis System.

The gaol of the above training is to be able to grip a wrist, give it a twist and a pull and tear the skin on the wrist of an opponent.

Use it sparingly.

well if we're talking about gripping strength, i gotta go with the kettlebells!

From what I gathered when I did a minute amount of mantis was that it incorporated the use of striking with the fingers as well as gripping and hooking with them. I also know that you use the hook created in the wrist by making the mantis hand shape. The idea is to use the arm and hand structure in the same way the mantis does to catch its prey.
I think there are a couple of folks that have train praying mantis on the forum, perhaps they could provide some input as to what they do for training and strengthening methods.

Wow thanks everyone, that was great. So what exactly are jows and jing lou balls? Thanks again.

Classic Die da formulas (Dit Dat Jow) are generally based on the ancient formulas Qi Li San, or Die Da wan. They tend to be very good at tissue repair and healing burns, stopping bleeding, reducing pain and swelling as well as long term wound care. Some can be applied to an open wound. They vary in “temperature”, some hot, some cold, and some neutral. Cool formulas are better in acute trauma where there is redness and swelling. Hot formulas are better when there is no redness or swelling. Many of the secret iron fist skin toughening formulas are variations of Die Da formulas. Note that some are meant for immediate treatment after an injury and others are specific for long-term recovery use, or for skin toughening (Training).

--Tieh Ta Yao Gin (Chu Kiang Brand) (Great on severe bruises)
--Tieh Ta Yao Gin (United Pharm.)
--Die Da Wan Hua (Jingxiutang Pharm.) (Good on burns)
--Wan Hua Oil (United Pharm) (Good for hard swellings, burns, necrotic wounds)
--Tien Qi Tieh Ta Yao Jiu (Five Photos Brand) (Can be used on open wounds)
--Wu yang Plaster for bruise (Better than ice on acute injuries)
--Yang Cheng Medicated Herbal Plaster (Similar to Wu Yang brand)
--Felursa Plaster For Bruise (Zhanjiang)
--Dragon’s Blood Liniment (Blue Poppy) (For swelling and pain when there is no
redness or heat.)
--Shaolin Dee Dat Jow (Blue Poppy) (For acute injury with redness and swelling)
--Hua To’s Eight Immortals Dit Da Jow (Oriental herb Co.) (For post trauma
healing)
--Iron Hand Liniment (East Earth) (Designed for training as well as injury)
--Iron Fist Liniment (Oriental Herb Co.) (Designed for training as well as injury)
--Hua To’s Eight Immortal’s Iron Palm (Oriental Herb Co.)
--Jade Goddess (Oriental Herb Co.) (Training formula, tissue repair, cooling)
--Imperial Pheonix (Oriental Herb Co.) (Training formula, hot)
--Tie Bi (Oriental Herb Co.) (Training formula, cooling)
--Die-Da Analgesic Essence (China National)
--Fastt Patch (Wei Labs) (Long term use plaster for healing injuries)
--Eighteen Budda Tit Da plaster
--Feng Liu Sing Tincture (Warm)


check out the article on the home page

chinese herbs - pt 2

jing luo balls;

click me!

if you have an industrial manufacturing place around you, see if you can find some large ball bearings. they'll be much heavier and are better suited for our purposes. just make sure you thoroughly remove any machine oil.

Ashe,
Very nice info. Thank you.

The method we use in our system is to get a jar.Fill it will sand or water and grip the lip of the jar with the finger tips and either hold the jar in place or you can move it around in different stances.Increase the weight as your strenght inproves.