53-year-old Zhang Longxiang has been obsessed with kung-fu ever since he was a young boy, but it was in 1998, after meeting a master of Iron Sand Palm, that he realized that was the technique he wanted to dedicate his life to. After more than 20 years of hard work, he became a master of the ancient art himself and had the thick hands to prove it.
Iron Sand Palm is a famous Shaolin conditioning method that combines hard qigong with physical striking of various abrasive mediums to dramatically increase bone density, tendon strength, pain tolerance, and striking power. A side-effect of sustained Iron Sand Palm training over several years is the visible thickening of the hands.
After Zhang Longxiang met Yang Xinchuan, a kung fu master known for the Iron Palm technique, he was impressed by the size of his hands and dreamed of having the same visual impact on other people. He spent seven years learning the art, and another eight as a formal apprentice of Yang. He practiced diligently every day, even when it got tedious.
“Practicing is boring and painful. I had to hit the sandbag 6,000 times a day,” Zhang said. “There is no secret. The more you practice, the better you will be. I can’t count how many times my hands have been injured hitting a sandbag full of steel balls, but I never put my hands into a wok of hot sand because it is a fiction fabricated by some kung fu movies.”
During his training, Zhang continuously patted, struck, and chopped at sandbags containing small steel balls with his palms, while simultaneously applying a traditional medicinal wine given to him by his master to his palms. He claims this wine played a double role; on one hand, it protected his palms from serious injury, and on the other hand, it promoted the thickening of his palms.
Practicing at least two or three hours per day for several decades caused Zhang Longxiang’s palms to thicken, and thick calluses to develop on the backs of his hands, palms, and finger joints. Today, his right palm is 8 cm thick. Most people can’t match that even if they pressed both their hands together.
Zhang Longxiang’s thick palms aren’t just for show! He often participates in martial arts exhibitions where he breaks stacks of bricks with his bare hands or pummels iron nails into wooden boards. He won events in annual national martial arts competitions for five consecutive years between 2006 and 2010, and is considered one of the greatest masters of Iron Sand Palm.
