Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/21/inside-the-ancient-dying-art-of-iron-crotch-kung-fu.html
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How this has not yet been turned into a Dances With Wolves/Avatar -esque white savior cultural appropriation movie starring Jack Black is beyond me.
I’d watch that - but only if it starred Jack Black.
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How this has not yet been turned into a Dances With Wolves/Avatar -esque white savior cultural appropriation movie starring Jack Black is beyond me.
Or at least a TV show.
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Or a Chinese epic starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan in which patriotic heroes guard the secret of Iron Crotch Kung Fu from the evil foreigners intent on stealing it.
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There were once around 200 people regularly practising in the village, said Tang, but now there are just over 20. The number that can practise the iron crotch technique has dropped from around 80 to just five.
I have some theories on why they failed to pass this on to the next generation.
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I don’t think we need to train to desensitize ourselves to groin punches. After all we’ve lived through 45’s presidency and all of 2020. If anything i welcome to the feeling to remind myself i am alive.
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The internet came along and suddenly youngsters are questioning the ancient tradition of taking nut shots. Kids these days. 
Fortunately, as @gracchus pointed out, Mike Judge’s prophecy showed us that it will be alive and well in five hundred years.
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“Crotch Magaw?”
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Phrasing
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I can’t believe I am the first to say “of course his name is Wang.”
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Maybe if the village handed out participation trophies…
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Balls of Steel, these people.
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I took a few semester of Karate, and we did have a few days with a video lesson. I remember one was about karate masters in Japan, and there was a scene where a guy is hitting an old train with his hands to tough them. And my instructor was like, “They don’t show this guy 20 or 30 years later with horrible arthritis. We don’t do stuff like that.”
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Hard to imagine why they aren’t getting new people to sign up for groin kick class. That sounds like a marketing challenge.
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To what extent is this actually limited to that one village? Or rather, what distinguishes this village from other similar techniques/styles?
Note: I ask this as someone who has personally kicked a Shaolin monk in the groin, at his invitation, to demonstrate his iron groin technique.
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“Sha Huizi was a master of the powerful form of kungfu known as Steel Shirt. He could hack through the neck of an ox with the flat of his hand. He could thrust his hand directly into the animal’s belly.”
“Once he was at Qiu Pengsan’s house. A large block of wood was suspended in midair, and he ordered two strapping great fellows to hoist it up and let it fall. He took the full impact, but the block merely smacked loudly against his naked belly and bounced away across the room. Then he took out his penis, laid it on a stone and began hammering away at it with a wooden mallet, without causing himself the least injury. But he refused to try using a knife.”
- from Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, published 1740
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Some people might pay handsomely for the privilege. I’m not one of them.
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I have a friend who, as a teenager, did stuff like that to “toughen up” his hands. Years later he had to have surgery to fix all the problems. Such “tricks” may get attention, may get views on YouTube, but are not worth it. Better to do things like lower your body fat, be able to do handstand pushups, etc. Won’t get as many clicks on YouTube but will get more attention in real life and won’t cause harm.
