Two Remedies for Boo-Boos

     OK, so I lied a little about the jow recipe.

    “How dare you, Bean?” shrieks the Gentle Reader. “I just busted my knuckles on the makiwara, with the understanding that you’d post a remedy, you prevaricating Irish fuck!”

     Cool your jets, Daniel San. Miyagi fix you up real good. Before I post the jow recipe, I have to make sure it’s OK to do so. With the exceptions of formulae I dig up on my own, I never publish a recipe without the express consent of the guy who taught me to make it.

    The following is a common (but very effective) tieh ta wan/dit da yun recipe. I use it myself (I wouldn’t be posting the formula if I didn’t), and I can vouch for its efficacy. It’s for internal use, and hardcore martial arts buffs will note that the list of ingredients is very similar to jow, minus the toxic stuff (nux vomica, monkshood, etc.)

     1g ginseng root
     800mg Chinese angelica root
     800mg safflower
     800mg turmeric root
     600mg dragon’s blood
     600mg frankincense

     Grind all ingredients into powder, and mix with honey to form pills. Take twice per day (the recipe is good for one dose), until injury heals. Yes, it tastes like shit, and yes, it works – although not as well as the justly coveted bear gall formula. (That stuff, by the way, is incredible. Two doses, and I managed to heal a broken rib in *three weeks* -- half the time a fracture usually requires to mend; and I’m a smoker, even!)

     The next one isn’t bad either – although it tastes especially horrid. The ingredients, you’ll notice, are quite similar to those in xiong tan tieh ta wan, minus the inula, bear gall, and angelica. The following recipe makes 100g, to be divided into individual doses of 8-10g. When dissolved in vodka or other strong spirits, it can also be used exnternally, just like jow.

    28g panax pseudoginseng
     25g safflower
     15g turmeric root
     15g amomi fruit (a.k.a. "black cardamom")
     17g Chinese rhubarb root
     
     Grind all ingredients to powder, and combine with honey, to make pills. 

     Moving right along...

    I don’t usually plug strangers, but if you’re interested in the “real deal,” check out the website of a guy named James Lacy. Lacy runs a California-based outfit called Mew Hing, and he knows Chinese herbal medicine like nobody’s business. Although he’s not the type who’d betray his lineage by giving away any deep, dark secrets, he’s never published a bum formula, in my experience. His “Five Elder dit da jow” is a bit pricey (and time-consuming) to make (soak herbs in vodka, and play “hurry up and wait” for the next six months), but well worth the time and expense. Although I’ve never met the man in person, I can say (and I’m sure thousands of others would agree with me) that Lacy is the injury-prone martial artist’s best friend. On a more subjective note, I’ll mention that as a (frequently backsliding, by my own admission) Christian, I’m doubly impressed by his willingness to share so much of his knowledge with the public, free of charge. In my book, that bespeaks an uncommon degree of genuine benevolence/humanitarianism -- a rare commodity in this graceless, “Me first!” age of ours.

    I'd like to plug my friend, Bruce (for a roundeye, he knows more about Chinese medicine, acupuncture, etc. than anyone else I've ever met), but he's a private, retiring kind of guy. Maybe someday I'll convince him to let me throw some business his way...  

     Take care, y'all.