first of all, i'm new here, so hiya all.

now to my question. You keep hearing stuff about iron body, iron palm, etc. u see ppl breaking boards, bricks, etc. And I'm pretty sure it's a part of shaolin kung fu curriculum, cuz i've seen it at demonstrations.

My knowledge about hard qi gong isn't very profound. What i've witnessed at the demos, is prelimilary to any hard qi gong breaking, they do some sort of (hard) qi gong exercise to get their qi up or something....

Anyhow, to my question now. Is qi gong really useful in real life? Does it help to strengthen your body, externally, so you can withstand blows to your body without being hurt, or minor hurt? Now if this is true, what about the qi up they do before getting beat/breaking soemthing? I dont think you can induce your opponent to give u a break before he jumps you.

This whole senario just baffels me a little. I mean, I dont see the point in learning iron body skills if they are not useful on the streets, or are they?

again, i don't know too much about any iron skills so i hope anyone could fill in the gaps for me.

thanks