How tough are Buddhist Monks? (Pics)

[underpants]

Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju betweent the legs during a demonstration performed by Buddhist monks at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, March 22, 2004. In their first visit to the United States, a group of Shaolin martial artists from SongShan, China demonstrated acrobatic flips and shows of strength among other things. With the monks urging him on, Wesson made several kicks to the monk who showed no emotion. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

[GOPisEvil]

1. I fainted just looking at that

Ow!

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. woah

that....um......wow.

[emad]

3. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Om...........................

[Turbineguy]

4. They must have

the soft and danglies well protected.

[underpants]

5. I think it is more about focus

LOTS of focus

[daveskilt]

6. eunuch monks?

[Captain Absolut]

7. Supposedly

Shaolin Monks, at the highest levels of concentration, can retract there balls into there pelvic area. It may sound weird, but that's the myth.

[underpants]

8. So that's were the Dems and the media learned it

:bounce::evilgrin::grr:

[Captain Absolut]

10. ZING!

:smoke:

[midnight armadillo]

13. Not quite

That is not the way this technique works.

There are people who train to take hits like this to any part of their body (the 'combat ki' folks in the US come to mind), including things like punches to the throat. I never studied any of this, but practitioners claim it's a matter of focusing and concentrating ki to a point in the body. Somehow this eliminates soft tissue damage. How? Dunno. It seems to work for them.

There are other ways to improve the body's ability to absorb strikes. For example, you can start by dropping coconuts or something on your relaxed abdomen, and gradually increasing the weight to toughen up the connective tissues and viscera. Get good at it and you can take really hard hits or drop bowling balls on your stomach without injury. I've known people who train this stuff - nothing mysterious about it, but it does take a certain amount of craziness to master :-)

[Captain Absolut]

16. Touche

;)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

20. Dropping coconuts on my abdomen...

I will give serious consideration to your suggestion.

[Pert_UK]

9. That's hardly showing China what human rights are all about.....

Seriously, how is that supposed to build the relationship with Beijing?

P.

[underpants]

11. Show meeeeeee......kick the groin

[Az]

12. Ya gotta distract them before ya kick them

Ask them "Why are you seeking nirvana?" That one throws them for a loop every time.

[BiggJawn]

14. "You wanna see a MAN, Boy? *I'LL* show you a MAN!"

"KICK me in the JIMMY! DO IT! Do it HARD!"

[rucky]

15. Your tax dollar at work n/t

[ZenLefty]

17. That's right. That's right. We bad. Uh-uh.

:D

[Pert_UK]

18. FX Cartman: Goddamit Lao Li, I'll kick you in the nuts!

:-)

[Dogmudgeon]

19. How about Tummo?

Tummo -- also spelled Gtu-Mo -- is a Buddhist practice in Tibet, though it originated before Buddhism came to Tibet. The monk is able to heat his or her body to the point where the cold of a blinding snowstorm has no effect. A Tummo practitioner is said to be able to make the snowflakes turn to steam as they hit him/her.

I think that this is an exaggeration, but I would not be too surprised to learn that through body control, Tibetan monks can withstand the cold very well, and could even produce an autogenic fever.

--bkl
(Edit: Spelling, always spelling!)