Baoding balls

Baoding Balls.

Baoding Balls (Chinese: 保定健身球; pinyin: Bǎodìng Jiànshēn Qiú, Lit. 'Baoding Physical Exercise Balls'), also called Chinese exercise balls, Chinese meditation balls, Chinese medicine balls, and healthy balls, are a traditional product of Baoding, China, thought to have been created during the Ming dynasty. Two or more of them are rotated repetitively to orbit in the hand, an action done to improve manual dexterity and strength and said to assist in injury recovery.

History

Baoding balls are believed to have originated in the town Baoding, located in the Heibei province in China, during the Ming Dynasty. They were once called Chinese Iron Balls because the original material of manufacture was iron. There are still artisans in that town who produce the meditation balls to this day.

Materials and composition

In Baoding, they are called Iron Balls, because they were originally made out of iron. As they became more popular and metalworking skills improved, construction methods varied. Most Baoding balls made and used today are constructed as a pair of hollow spheres - one inside the other with a chime between which rings as the inner ball strikes it. Many modern examples are decorated with cloisonné and brass wire; however, these are not as suitable for actual use because they can easily chip when dropped or when they come into contact with each other. For injury recovery, hollow balls are generally more suitable due to their lighter weight. For exercise purposes, balls made of solid iron, steel or tungsten carbide provide added weight, requiring more effort be expended in their rotation.

Uses

Exercise

The basic exercise for learning how to use the balls consists of rotating a pair in the palm of the hand, ensuring even and constant contact is made between the balls. Once this has been learned, the rotation speed can be gradually increased until the balls separate in the hand. Eventually, one can learn to rotate them completely without the balls making contact with each other. Exercises have been developed involving two, three, four, or even more balls.

The average person should be able to start with a 50-millimeter (2.0 in) circumference ball, moving up to the 60-millimeter (2.4 in) size as they get used to the exercise. Larger Baoding Balls, ranging anywhere from 70–100 millimeters (2.8–3.9 in), can be used, although it eventually becomes impossible to rotate them separated. The area of the hand exercised can be varied at advanced levels of practice, altering the portion of the hand they rotate over, or changing the orbit of the balls in the hand so that more force is exerted on a particular finger, or over particular joints of the fingers. Many famous strongmen, such as John Brookfield, use large shots as Baoding balls, rotating them in their riding hands to develop forearm muscles and improve the grip.

Other uses

In addition to the health benefits of exercise, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine believe Baoding balls interact with acupuncture points on the hand. According to the Chinese theory of jingluo, the nerves of the ten fingertips are linked to the heart and jingluo handles and stimulates finger nerves, connections between the five internal organs and the six hollow organs rise, traversing the fingers touching the iron ball, the sphere stimulating the palm's matching pressure points, simultaneously the sphere's massage and sound gently vibrates various jingluo pressure points, regulates and excites the cerebrum and central nervous system, invigorates the brain increasing wit, refreshes and eliminates worry, eliminates fatigue, can prevent and reduce high blood pressure, finger/wrist arthritis, liver spots and hand tremors, and various other effects of diseases of old age.