List of The 72 Shaolin Martial Arts - Crouching Tiger Skill

The Crouching Tiger Skill (臥虎功, Wò hǔ gōng) helps to increase the power of the practitioner's hands, feet, fingers and toes. The exercise is similar to standard push-ups with the exception that you must raise your body 30 cm above the ground, shift yourself backward and then downward to 10 cm then move forward and upward again to 30 cm and continue. Initially, the exercise is performed on the palms of the hands and subsequently on the fists before progressing to perform on fingers and toes for balance. In the final stage, the practitioner does push-ups using only three fingers of each hand and one toe. At this stage, heavy weights are also added to the practitioner's back. Mastery of the skill is attained once the practitioner can perform the push-up with a weight of about 50 kg on his back for a period of time.