How does one learn to take pain like this?

You mean the shaolin? Yeah those kung fu guys are hard.

I think it has to do primarily with building bone and muscle density. That along with technique and pain tolerance allows people to do crazy stuff like that without being harmed

@ragingloli I think you got it I was sure there was a name for it, I googled it, shaolin and those guys have some harsh training.And a bit weird too…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRxhlJGYe1o&feature=related

I think it primarily has to do with mind control over your body. The same ways some people learn to walk on hot coals. My cousins kids took some sort of martial arts (can’t remember the name right now) and they would come home cover in bruises after some of the competitions. Yeah, it hurt but they got use to it and would be back in practice the next day like nothing happened. They learned to ignore the pain and concentrate on striking back.

Training, training and more training. Shaolin monks train from three years of age on, if i recall correctly. That kind of pain resistence though is generally taught in full contact martial arts, like Krav Maga, Sambo and Muai Thai.

Relevant aside: I have a friend who practices Krav Maga and at the end of each session they do something his teacher calls the “circle of death”. They form a circle around a designated victim and attack him/her form all sides without warning. Once the teacher put a folding chair between two guys and said “use this too”. I’ll let you imagine the colour of his arms and forearms the next day.

Whenever you see someone doing this it is usually after intense training. I remember watching Fight Quest and they went to train with martial arts masters who did this. The training was basically you hurting yourself and getting beat up and pushed to the limit for hours on end every day. The guy who was training with them said, “The thing is that they experience intense pain every day all day. When you subject yourself to that much pain you aren’t afraid of it any more and you learn to overcome it.” It also takes a lot of muscle training too.

It comes from years of training which builds an understanding of the laws of physics where you gain the confidence that your flesh and bones will win the battle over that board or brick. You never forget that searing pain the first time you do a knuckle push up on concrete and 10,000 push up later you could drive nails with those knuckles and not feel a thing.

Pain is the body trying to tell us that something is not right. With patience and perseverence it is possible to train the mind to ignore it.

Pain don’t hurt.

- Dalton