Bone Marrow Washing (Shih Shui Kung)

Taoist texts have spoken of bone marrow washing for millennia. The earliest mention is a second-century record — the story of Dongfang Shuo (long before Bodhidharma). The true method was always passed down via oral transmission; forged texts circulated under borrowed names. The first to write about and teach the practice to the public was Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung, in the second half of the twentieth century.

Shih Shui is mostly exercises for the sexual glands: breathing, massage, swinging suspended weights, striking the body with rods — and internal work: the mind guides the chi, the chi guides the blood. The exercises are simple and completely safe, if taught correctly.

Some will find this ridiculous. But the ridiculous thing is not the practice — it is the habit of treating the sexual organs as something improper. Sex is the most natural thing in the world; it is why all of us are alive. Above all, the sexual glands — male and female alike — are the body's chemical factories: they produce hormones, the body's own medicines. Hence the practice's fame: the return from old age to youth — 返老還童, as the Taoists say.

Iron Shirt, Bone Marrow Washing, Iron Crotch, Iron Body, Genital Weight Lifting, it has been called many names, but the real name is Shih Shui Kung which means Bone Marrow Washing.

Almost everyone who teaches it today has learned it from my grand teacher, Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung or one of his students, or one of his students student, or from his Chinese book. The sad thing is most of them are teaching it wrong.

Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung, who brought this system to the public, gave only two people permission to teach this magnificent training in the United States: Master Karl Kao of Tampa, Florida, and my teacher, Grandmaster James McNeil of Orange County, California.

What Shih Shui Gives

In the beginning stages of practice, people generally notice the following.

Men see stronger erections — and this works well into old age. The effect is most noticeable in men past forty and beyond, though these days the problems start earlier than they did in previous generations: testosterone levels have been falling from generation to generation, confirmed by large studies. Of men’s problems this one is the easiest to fix, and men notice the change quickly. Endurance follows — sex lasts longer; the exercises also help with premature ejaculation. They help the prostate too, which troubles many men past midlife. A small but important part of the system is lifting and swinging a weight attached to the base of the sexual organs: it starts around 2–5 lbs and gradually progresses to 150 lbs or more.

For women the effects are analogous: the vaginal muscles become stronger and tighter, arousal and orgasm come easier, and the sensations in lovemaking are brighter and more pronounced. Women attach the weight to a jade egg inserted into the vagina: it starts at about a quarter of a pound and progresses to 10–15 lbs or more.

This training can prevent vagina prolapse the condition in which pelvic organs such as uterus, small bowel, bladder, urethra and sometimes the vagina wall itself begins to protrude through the vagina. Often, with traditional medicine, major surgical procedures such as hysterectomy are required to alleviate these serious conditions. Yet through the practice of Shih Shui many women may find that these radical treatments can be eliminated.

For both men and women, bones grow denser, energy and optimism return, sleep gets deeper, desire stronger, thinking clearer.

A robust immune system, strong bones and supple ligaments are among the results of regular practice Shih Shui will build up the Testosterone level, prevent premature ejaculation, build up the immune system, purify the bone marrow, increase bone density, and strengthen the prostate gland to prevent problems with that organ which have become such a major concern for men's health in the past few years.

Why “Bone Marrow Washing”?

Those who practice Shih Shui — myself and the people I know — describe the same things: steady mood and energy through the day, a clear head, deep sleep, strong desire. For many, years of low-grade depression lift; confidence, decisiveness and the taste for life come back — interest in things that had long gone flat. Middle-aged and older men see their morning erections return. Women notice their own signs: a steadier mood, desire and brightness returning to intimacy, a gentler change of life.

The list is familiar to anyone who has tried taking hormones. And people with low testosterone list the same things in reverse: fatigue, brain fog, irritability, faded desire, lost confidence and decisiveness, joy gone dim. The match is one to one, because all of it is governed by the sex hormones. The difference is that in our practice the body produces them itself.

Bone marrow is the body's blood factory. With age it literally silts up with fat: the red, blood-making marrow is replaced by yellow, fatty marrow, and production falls. The sex hormones reverse this: testosterone drives the production of fresh blood, and estrogen — both sexes have it; in men it is made from part of their testosterone — clears the fat out of the marrow and keeps the bone itself strong. Hormones renewing the bone marrow is standard physiology.

Curiously, the Huang-di Nei Jing — the Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor, the founding book of Chinese medicine — recorded, thousands of years ago: 骨髓堅固，氣血皆從 — "when the bone marrow is firm, qi and blood follow." Blood follows the marrow — Western science only established this in the nineteenth century. How did they know?

Why not hormone therapy, then?

An obvious question follows: if the practice gives the same things as taking hormones — why not just take them?

Therapy with a ready-made hormone silences your own production: the brain sees there is enough hormone and cancels its orders. The glands shrink and go quiet. Sperm production stops — on therapy a man is, as a rule, infertile. Getting off is very hard in such cases: your own output returns slowly and not always, which is why the therapy is usually for life. And on an external dose the bone marrow can race with no brakes: the blood can thicken until it has to be drained.

Medicine knows this — and more and more often prescribes not the hormone itself but stimulants of your own production: hCG injections, pills that trick the brain's thermostat. But even with this approach the body gets used to a constant signal from outside: the receptors go deaf, sensitivity falls, and the top floor — the pituitary — goes quiet in the meantime. The dependence does not disappear; it moves one floor up.

This is a general law: the body lives by rhythm, by pulses, and it learns not to hear any flat, continuous signal. The most striking confirmation comes from medicine itself: the hormone that launches puberty, given continuously, does not drive the system — it switches it off completely; this is how chemical castration is done. One and the same signal: in rhythm — life; in a solid stream — shutdown.

The only stimulus the body answers with growth rather than habituation is load followed by rest. Work and pause, effort and stillness — yin and yang. This is how people train muscle and bone — and our approach runs parallel to it.

What is Shih Shui?

Shih Shui (pronounced she-sway), also known as 'Bone Marrow Washing' is a component of the ancient Taoist Little Nine Heaven system which originated in China almost 2000 years ago.

Shih- Shui is an advanced form of chi-kung/nei-kung that focuses on strengthening the internal body and increasing sexual energy with a goal to optimize and preserve the health of the body, mind and spirit.

It consists primarily of a series of special breathing and strengthening exercises along with specific energy circulation techniques.

Shih Shui can be practiced alongside and will enhance any other discipline. Any adult man or woman can learn and gain the benefits of Shih Shui.

Where does Shih Shui come from?

The origins of Shih Shui (pronounced she-sway) can be traced back to the time of Huang-Ti the Yellow Emperor of China (2698 BC).

Little Nine Heaven Wu Tao Kung Fu, originally passed down to only one Taoist priest per generation, has recently been introduced to the outside world.

Honorable Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung, is the 33rd generation teacher of this little known martial arts system, which is the oldest Taoist system known today.

It consists of three skills: ju kung (nine chamber fist), chiankuan jen (swordmanship); and Shih Shui (bone marrow washing).

In skill, it is based on the Tao's practice of the balancing between yin and yang to relax the tendons and bones, and to perform marrow washing.

It is actually an exclusive literature and a rich inheritance passed down through the centuries by word of mouth.

The lineage of the Little Nine Heaven system, which includes Shih Shui, was handed down from generation to generation until it reached the Taoist priest Lushan Daoren.

In the early 1800's Lushan Daoren established a new Little Nine Heaven temple on Yi Wu Lu Mountain in northeastern China.

He was believed to have been over 150 years of age.

Young Chiao would often visit a Taoist temple located on the family property in Northeastern China.

With his grandfather's permission, Chiao entered the monastery at the age of 17 to study the Hsiao Chiu-Tien (Little Nine Heaven) system.

In the early 1900's Lushan Daoren taught the system to Chiao Chang-Hung.

Years later with the Communist take-over of the Mainland China he immigrated to Taiwan and started teaching Hsing-I, Pa-Kua and Little Nine Heaven Wu Tao.

The Honorable Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung became a living legend in the martial art world of today for his many incredible skills.

James McNeil is Great Grandmaster Chiao's only American student.

In 1984 he received the highest honor any man could receive, that was the Little Nine Heaven sword, which signified James McNeil is an official Little Nine Heaven Wu Tao indoor student of Great Grandmaster Chiao Chang-Hung.

Some will still laugh. But as Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching: if they did not laugh, it would not be the Tao.