EP13 Q&A WITH THE ORIGINAL PLUM DRAGON FOUNDER JOSH WALKER - FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Nick: Hello and welcome to our Facebook Live. I'm Nick with Plum Dragon Herbs. Today we're joined with Plum Dragon's founder, Josh Walker, for a customer question and answer. So, Josh, thank you for being here.

Josh: Thanks, appreciate it.

Nick: So Josh, before we begin, would you like to give a quick background about yourself and Plum Dragon?

Josh: Yeah, so real briefly, so Plum Dragon became a thing in the early 2000s. I had a bunch of friends who we were training, we were getting injured, and we needed some kind of solution. And I'd spent a number of years in college working with a school that was real into the TCM stuff, and so I just kind of started making these liniments. And the people liked them and they started buying them, and I just kind of, you know, threw up this website and kind of started running this thing out of the closet. And before I knew it, I was like making more than I could handle, and eventually, I just quit my engineering career and went to go run this. So that's how it all started.

Nick: That's awesome. That's a true entrepreneur story, that's really cool. So let's start by diving into the first question. So it's, "Which formula would you recommend for a 75-year-old woman with some osteoporosis and osteopenia? I'm otherwise healthy, eat well, exercise daily, and I practice Tai Chi five days a week, Yang Style short form. I have your Dit Da Jow formula and use it on my knees. So which formula would you recommend there?"

Josh: So there's gonna be a couple of kind of like many questions that this individual can kind of answer for themselves. And the first is whether she feels like there's like excess heat or cold. And so, if she... And she can do that by kind of just playing with a couple of formulas. And so, if she puts on, for example, some Ho Family, which is ultra hot, it seems to exacerbate the issue, then there's too much heat, and she needs to go with something cooler.

And then, in that case, she's looking at a couple of different things. People really, really like Bruise Juice for that type of thing, even though it's not really meant for like serious bruising, but it's so cooling that it might be useful. But then because of the potential joint issues there, the Ancestors really seems like the better option. It's mildly cooling, but it's really, really good for that type of thing. Then on the flip side, if she puts on the Bruise Juice with the Ancestors and that cooling makes it feel tight, then it's tighter, then she needs something hot like the Ho Family.

Nick: Awesome.

Josh: That's how she can kind of go about that. The other thing is, at 75, certainly, like the constitution of the body starts to become a concern and so some kind of tonic might be really useful. And, you know, she could go and get like a diagnosis and then, you know, Plum Dragon has like, Great Mender, or not Great Mender, Gecko Tonic. And Spring Wine, it can be a little difficult for people if their digestion isn't really like good. But something like Gecko Tonic might be...or even, you know, "Four Gentlemen" or something might be a really good thing to throw in with that.

Nick: Awesome, thank you. That was definitely a great answer. So let's move on down to question two, which is, "What's the best alcohol to mix with the Dit Da Jow Herb [inaudible 00:03:53]?"

Josh: So this is kind of a cool question because when I was doing a lot of R&D for Ancestors and a couple of these other formulas, there's actually a relatively good body of knowledge out there about solvents, right? So water, of course, is like the universal solvent and it's like pretty good at dissolving all kinds of stuff. And there was one study in particular that...I didn't wanna call it a study because it's not like this is new information, right, like we've been doing this type of thing for a long time. Alcohol will [inaudible 00:04:30] this, like, more than 95% pure. It's really, really good at extracting things that can't normally be extracted.

The problem is, is that you don't want Jow that's 95% alcohol, that's too much. It's great for dissolving things, but it's not great for like application. And so, you know, that's where some of the kind of different cooking methods come in. If you wanna really cook stuff like you could cook it in something like...I'm sorry, cook it, like, let it age and like, make some kind of pure grain alcohol for a while, you know, half a gallon, and then add water to that to bring it down to like 40-ish percent and then continue letting it age. And that's a real common thing and there's, you know, a scientific reason why that's very useful.

In terms of final alcohol percentage, if you're doing like Iron Palm training, I like prefer my liniments to be, like, somewhere between 30% and 40%. So like you'd even cut vodka a little bit, lower than that for Iron Palm liniments. And I prefer that like my injury liniments, are like, you know, 40% to 50%. So, it just depends on what you're looking for, but that's for sure a good range.

Nick: Awesome. Thank you. So the next question is, "Can you tell us more about how to know which formula would be best to use for my Iron Palm practice and, almost more broadly, how do I choose the right formula?"

Josh: All right, so we could probably do like a whole hour on this.

Nick: Oh, 100%.

Josh: So one thing for certain is you wanna like...and I don't mean to, like, go get all kind of like slightly philosophical on anybody. But when you're like in high school and you wanna figure out what you're gonna do with your life, right, like some people are, like, "Well, I'm gonna go to college and I'm gonna study, you know, science or history or whatever." And then they get out of college and they're like, "Okay, now what, right?" But, like, if you're like forward-thinking, you're like, "I wanna do this with my life," and then you go to college and you study that thing.

So it's the same kind of thing here like you wanna figure out what your objective is with your training, you wanna figure out what type of medium, you end up hitting for that objective, right? And so [inaudible 00:06:56] that's important is that a lot of people are hitting a bag. They're hitting a closed bag that, you know, has iron shod in it, or lead shod, or steel shod, or whatever people are using, right? So if you're hitting a bag like that, you want something that's a strong blood mover but it also needs to be really good at addressing the joint, the health of the joints. All the wind damp herbs and all the anti-rheumatic herbs and all that stuff is really important for hitting the bag because it tends to reverberate back into your hand and cause a lot of vibration and stuff there.

So, in that case, you're looking at things like Ancestors, White Dragon, if you're a little earlier on, and then the whole line of Ku Yu Cheong formulas, like the Ku Yu Cheong, and the Ark Wong, and the Feeman Ong and all that stuff have a lot of that stuff in it. And the Feeman Ong, in particular, is kind of cool because it's like got this huge quantity of Chun Ho in it, which is great wind damp that's just awesome.

On the flip side of the fence, there's this other crowd that's not as common but are hitting open medium, right. And so not as much with sand, but when people are hitting the taconite, and people who've heard of this, they know what I'm talking about, right. Taconite is, they take this iron ore, this iron, and they make these pellets out of it. And so when they do that, they're hitting it directly and so you get this, like, point hits on your hand, all these little, like, point contact hits, and so it doesn't hit the joints the same way. Like it's much harder on the skin, it's much harder on the kind of the muscle fascia, but it, like, doesn't get down to the joints the same way.

And so for people who are hitting that, you actually want more of a bruise-based liniment. Like, it doesn't mean you gotta use a Bruise Jow but like Ho Family and Southern Fist, and those kinds of liniments actually become more useful for that type of thing. Honestly, like, using a Ku Yu Cheong doing that, like you're probably okay, but it just doesn't... I tried using the Golden Lotus with that type of thing, like the Coconut Break formula, and those are...they're so low, in my opinion, on the strong blood movers that they just don't... Like, that was like the worst my hands ever felt.

It's, I think, just like the Coconut Break type formulas, like those Bak Mei type formulas on open medium, and I would just always walk away and my hands were like just so...they felt so stiff. So you really wanna match it like to the type of training that you're doing. So hopefully that answers your question [crosstalk 00:10:06.457].

Nick: [crosstalk 00:10:06.562]. And I guess, as an extension of that question, "Can you tell us which formulas you really like to use for your own personal training?"

Josh: Yeah, I love the Ku Yu Cheong formulas. The Ancestors is stronger than Ku Yu Cheong and it's got this really kind of unique feel to it, but like all the Ku Yu Cheong-based formulas, I love. In fact, I meant to bring it in here. I have this like 3-gallon jug of the Feeman Ong, which is actually really similar to the Ku Yu Cheong, and Ark Wong, and all these other ones. I love the aroma, I love the feel. They're not as strong...I mean, they're really strong formulas, they don't treat you the same way the Ancestors does. But those formulas, for me, like I just love them to death.

Like, I was saying earlier, about the Golden Lotus and the Coconut Break formula and the Bak Fu Pai, I said Bak Mei earlier, the Bak Fu Pai formulas. I'm not saying they're not good formulas. A lot of people like them but like those types of formulas, for me, I just can't get anything out of them. So for me like Ku Yu Cheong style formulas are really, really great. And actually the White Dragon is kind of like a... Well, the level two White Dragon is kind of similar to the Ku Yu Cheong in that way. It's different combination of herbs, but it works the same way.

Nick: Awesome, very cool. So another question that we have here is, "For those interested in making their own formulas from the herb packs at home, can you suggest any interesting modifications that can be made, or that you've tried that others may wanna try?"

Josh: Yeah. And so some of the stuff kind of comes down to...like if you wanna get real deep into this idea, then the answer kind of becomes, like, you have to learn the herbs, right, and then there's the Materia Medica. Like, if any of the people that...there's like about, I don't know, 30 or 40 people out there that have done, like, kind of formal herb training with me and those people would be familiar with this term that I've used, called the block design. You can actually go and you can take a formula, and you can break that formula down into kind of these, like, modules, right, and you look them up, you look at the herbs up, and you see what they do. And you kind of take each herb and you break it into these categories, right?

And, then, you know, you kind of weigh each of those herbs in each of the categories by how much they have in there or how strong they are or, you know, both. And then you kind of look at the formula and you say, "Well, what is this formula doing and what do I want it to do?" And so then the first thing there is like, if it's doing something totally different than you want it to do, then you pick another formula. But then on the flip side, when you find a formula, and you block it out into these categories, these bins, and you say, "Okay, this formula is doing the things I want it to do," then you can kind of go into that primary category, like that primary, you know, group of herbs, that's really the primary function of the formula and you just start experimenting, right?

Some people are gonna tell you, "Don't mess with it. These have been around for hundreds of years," and all of these things, like, forget that. We're not talking about internal medicine, you're not gonna hurt yourself by experimenting with throwing another herb in a formula. So, you take, you know, these categories and you go look it up, you go look up in the "Materia Medd invigorating formula like, you go in and you say, "Well, these are some other herbs that sound cool for blood invigoration like I'm gonna add some Jiang Huang or like a big one. And this doesn't mean you go just add this to everything out there.

San Huang and [inaudible 00:14:17] are like these two really, really strong blood moving herbs. And so a lot of really strong gel formulas have those two herbs in them, you know, in a decent quantity. And so you just kind of say, "Well, I want more of this and then, you know, you do that." Actually one of my good friends and students, he makes new little jars of jow all the time.

Nick: Oh, very cool.

Josh: And he'll take all different manner of herbs and he'll just play with all different manners stuff. And his sort of thing is that he feels like...sometimes if it's too blood moving, it tends to like detract from these other qualities. And I don't feel that as much but he really does. So like sometimes you add too much of this and maybe it like feels too blood moving. So then you're like, "Well, I'm gonna pull that out and I might add something to this other thing to balance the formula out."

And I think a lot of it is just that kind of experimentation, as long as you have like this basic idea, basic understanding of what the formula does and what each of the herbs like categorically is performing, it becomes really not a, you know, difficult process to play around with it and make some modifications with a book in front of you. And you don't have to be worried that you're gonna hurt yourself like it's just some gel in your hands.

Nick: Exactly. So here's a question that we got from Instagram, from Brian Williams. "When you buy herb packs, how long do they have to age before they are ready to use?"

Josh: That's a gray scale. Like, the very, very first bottle of jow I ever made, they were like "Take these herbs and age them for a month, and you're good to go." And there was always this idea that the longer they age, the better that they're like you can use it after a month. So here's the thing the jow. It's like a logarithmic scale, like it plateaus. So when you first start aging it, it's not strong, but at the beginning, it gets stronger really fast, right, and then it plateaus off.

So the idea there is that you could open the jow and use it after a couple of months. It will be effective, it'll do things, but it won't be that strong. It won't be as strong as it could and so you just use a little more of it, right, if needed. The advice I've always given everybody, to make it kind of like cut and dry, the advice I've always given everybody is just give it six months. Put it in the closet for six months, if you wanna shake it or whatever, do it, but just give it six months, and then start using it. And I think that's a pretty good guideline. I think that there aren't a lot of people out there that are gonna, you know, say that that's just definitely not long enough, right. A year is better, but I mean, six months is good.

Nick: Exactly. Awesome. So, here's another question that we have. "So can you tell us how the internal tonic wines like Plum Dragon Dit Da Wan, Comprehensive Iron Palm Tonic, and Spring Wine can be used to enhance training or healing? And do you have a favorite internal formula, and if so tell us why?"

Josh: There's kind of more categories of how internal stuff works. These are good questions. They're really good questions. You could go really in-depth with this. The internal stuff isn't just about... Like, when you start talking about Dit Da Wan, you're talking about healing, right, you're talking about how you're healing the body. And in that case, you could break it down again into blood movers and like stuff that kind of like works deeper like wind damp and works with the joints and the fascia and all that stuff, and inflammation and other things.

But you can also break that down into like the tonics, right, which is kind of the very opposite thing, right? Like, in healing, you're promoting... The tonics are like...in kind of layman's terms, it's kind of like a vitamin that promotes a specific thing, right. Like we've got multivitamins, then you've got maybe a vitamin that really is for a specific use. And the idea there is that when you take like, for example, Spring Wine, it's a very strong tonic, but it's a general tonic. Like as a Qi tonic, and as a Yang tonic, and as a Yin tonic. And so you tend to be tonifying all of these things.

And like when we talk about Qi tonics really in some ways we're talking about your digestion, right. Like we're talking about like how good is your body in extracting nutrients and, you know things, from food and converting, you know, this stuff into ATP and all these other sorts of things. So it's almost like an energy thing, you know, a part of it as immunity. Yang tends to be like, you know, your basal metabolic rate and like libido and all these other sorts of things.

And so general tonic is good for training because it tends to promote certain things like, for example, if you're doing Iron Palm, you're hitting the bones hard, right? And so the Chinese like to say that type of thing undermines the liver and the kidney, and so like you weaken the liver and the kidney. And we're not necessarily talking about like an actual physical way, like your kidneys are, you know, gonna go bad that's the meridians, right? And they talk about the liver and the kidney being responsible for like the tendons and the bones.

And so Yang tonics tend to be really good at tonifying whatever...giving you whatever nutrients in your body you need to help not just keep the bones strong and the tendons strong but help them grow and strengthen. And so, for me, that's like where a lot of that type of stuff comes in handy. Like, I don't personally feel a lot from the Qi tonics but the Yang tonics...

Nick: [inaudible 00:20:37].

Josh: Sorry?

Nick: Not to interrupt at all but...

Josh: Go ahead.

Nick: So a little bit more on what a Qi tonic is.

Josh: Yeah, so when we take a real simple example like Four Gentlemens, which is, like, you know, the big one, it's composed of these ingredients, that... When we say Qi, for me, we're really talking about your body's ability to extract nutrients and energy or whatever from your food. That's what it is. And so, in that kind of way, you're kind of getting energy from that, right, you're getting energy from how you digest your food and all of that stuff. And so, there are people that... And the tonics are most useful for people that either have issues with energy or training really, really, really hard, right. Just take a Qi tonic and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, my God, it's so much energy, it's just crazy."

It's when you have a deficiency, right, deficiency either because, you know, a lot of years of eating poorly or being in the wrong environment, conditions, or whatever. Or when you're training so hard that you tend towards deficiency and then those Qi tonics kind of bring you back to a homeostatic place. And it's the same way, like, with people, like, going for testosterone, right. Today, the whole craze is like, "Oh, I need my T levels higher," right. And there's a range, right, where your testosterone should be in this range and like if you... So long as you're in that range, you're fine.

If you go in and your testosterone is good, and you start taking testosterone, creams or injections or whatever, that doesn't mean things get better, right? Like to go to the highest number you can get to like...it's being inside this region where your body wants to operate, and so, yeah.

Nick: On that same vein, here's a question from Graydon McKee, which is, "I'd like to know which jow is best for stimulating Qi."

Josh: Okay, so when you say stimulating Qi, the question I always wanna ask back is, like, what's the physical manifestation of that, right? So, like, in some ways, when people say that maybe what they mean is, like, they wanna bring... And the Chinese talk about Qi flow and blood flow. Like, these two things kind of operate in the same way, right? So, you're really talking about bringing some kind of energy or something with jow, at least, to a certain part of the body. So if what you really want is like, I wanna feel... Like, you know, some people do Qigong, and like, their hands get hot and they feel that sensation and like... Don't get me wrong, that's really cool, right?

Like I love...I don't do the Qigong anymore. But like, when I used to do the Qigong, pre-Iron Palm training exercises, like I wanted to feel that heat. I was like, this is so cool, you know. So if that's the type of thing that you're looking for, then any jow that's a really, really strong blood mover is gonna do it. So like actually Ho Family is phenomenal for that because it's so hot. Like, it draws so much energy into that hand that you start doing that directed Qigong and like your hands get hot, your palms kind of get sweaty, and it's like... So yeah. So really, really hot moving jows are good for that type of thing.

Nick: Awesome. So here we're gonna go to some other questions, we have two from Mark Mac. So the first is, "I've just started Iron Palm training, self-directed learning. I've purchased some of your IP liniment and book. I am doing daily IP training of 30 reps per hand that include front palm, back palm, finger claw strike, knife strike, knuckle strike, base of wrist strike. My question is, as a novice with IP training how do I measure my progress? Regards." And Mark is in Australia, so it's a shout out to Australia.

Josh: So, woohoo, Australia. So the thing is that when you wanna measure... Like, I'm sorry again, like I always kind of get like a little bit philosophical about these questions. When you wanna measure what your progress is, like you wanna know what's your objective, right? And I get this from... Shout out to Dag Tabamina, who, every time I do a session with him in the Philippines, is, "Josh, if you don't have an objective during your session then you're wasting your time."

And so for me, it's what do you wanna measure? What do you consider progress? Progress for a runner is like finishing a 5k more rapidly, right? Progress for a weightlifter is like lifting more weight. And these two things, they're perfectly valid goals that don't have anything to do with each other. And so, if the goal is strengthening the hand, then what you wanna do is you wanna test a little bit. And you don't want to do it too much, because you don't wanna hurt yourself. But you wanna test your hand on something, right?

And whether that's a capstone or whether that means hitting the bag, spending...after you've done your warm-up in your sessions, hitting the bag five times harder and just gauging the redness on your hand or how it feels, that's one way to measure progress. It's kind of seeing, like, how much conditioning do you think that you've gotten out of your hand?

Nick: A very physical way to measure that.

Josh: Yeah. And there's some subjectiveness in there, right? Because like, you know, when you hit the bag in the beginning, and you just hit it 10 times, your hand is all red, and then down the road, you hit the bag hard and you do it 100 times and it's not really red. So it's a little subjective, but like, when you're talking about conditioning, that's an important way of looking at it. And actually, if you're hitting open medium, you'll notice the skin. Like, the skin on the back of my hands used to get so thick and leathery, like the hairs would not even grow through it. So you could tell that way too.

If your goal is power generation... And for me like this is the thing that really matters, you know, because the conditioning, you guys have heard... I'm sure people who have listened to the blogs have heard me say like when I'm training and I get...and it doesn't really happen anymore. But when I used to get whacked with a stick, it didn't matter how much Iron Pump training I did. It was still just like, "Oh my god, my hand is dead."

But if power generation is the thing, and that's like where I'm always looking at it, then you use breaks, you use blocks. You can start by taking a single block, but you don't even have to hit the single block, like you can put the stack of paper on top. And this is a question...and we can come back, there was a discussion like three weeks ago about what paper does to your breaking. So we can revisit that if you want. But you can start with a stack of paper, like print a paper and hit it, and that's your baseline. And hit it and when you can break that block once like...a single block with a stack of paper, it's not that hard. Like, if you get some power generation, it's not that bad.

Nick: That sounds like great advice that somebody can do for pretty cheap and at home.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. So it's not hard to do. And then once you can do that, you know, take some paper off. And like maybe you take...depending on how you want your measurements to be like, maybe you just put a little paper on so that you're not so scared of like you're hurting your hand on the block. And then once you can do that like just do the block by itself and, you know, you've gotta get through that barrier. And then once you can do that, you do the same thing with two blocks. And, you know, you put the paper on top, and if you're right in that right zone, then the bottom block actually breaks before both blocks break. And then you reduce the paper and whatever and then you get to this point where, you know, you're breaking two blocks and you just go through that process.

And then like, for me, I didn't really care so much about breaking like lots and lots and lots of blocks. I was interested in kind of veering off and, well, what kind of interesting break can I do? Can I do it with a stick? Can I do it with the back of my hand? Can I do the short throw? Can I do it so that it looks really slow? I was more into that and so...

Nick: I feel like, even there you know, going back to the question, that would be a good way to measure progress is the different, you know, material used.

Josh: Right. Yeah. And you can do that. I have a friend I mentioned, so my friend Nate, you know, good friend, good student. He actually made this impact gel or ballistics gel. And so it's basically like...I don't know what's in it, but it's almost like collagen or gelatin or something. And you can make ballistics gel and you can put it on top of the bricks and it's a whole different kind of feel. But it becomes really easy to break up single block and like... I mean, it falls apart, it doesn't last that long. In a lot of ways, it's really just about being creative and digging in and being, like, "Well, how does this influence things, and how can I steer it and make it a little bit easier or a little bit harder?" And you can take that paper concept and you can do all kinds of different things with it.

Nick: Definitely.

Josh: In fact, I even did it with Nate. I think we broke a whole bunch of pieces of wood. And so, in karate, right, they like to break [inaudible 00:31:21]. So I bought a bunch of boards and we stacked them up in socks, checked how many we could break there and very different feel. A lot of people have probably seen the coupon blocks, they're like ultra cheap and they're gonna do things with those. There's all kinds of [inaudible 00:31:37].

Nick: [inaudible 00:31:38] you know, this really sounds like a blog that we should write of just reviewing materials that we can use. Here's Mark's next question. It's, "I have purchased your herbs to make at home using vodka but in Australia, the cheapest vodka is $32 U.S. for just 700 milliliters. So as a cheaper option, is using mineral water a good alternative to vodka?"

Josh: So, interesting. That's kind of like our first question, right, or one of our first questions. So water, in general, is like we said, it's like the universal solvent. It doesn't work as well as water in alcohol. It doesn't work as well. So you can use it but it's not gonna turn out the same way like you want to.

Nick: I guess to word Mark's question a little differently, "Is paying the $32 worth, you know, getting that much better of a final product than using the mineral water?"

Josh: I think so and here's why. If you bought like a gallon or a pack and you use...even if you use like one-half gallon of the alcohol and you ended up with something that was like low 20s percent because you're gonna use half a gallon and then you've got the herbs in less than half a gallon of water. So you're actually somewhere in the 20s, maybe even mid-20s, you're gonna get a lot of benefit there. And like if you've got an herb pack that's, you know, 40 bucks or 50 bucks and you add 30 to that or 35 to that, whatever, and you end up in the 80s, I mean, you've still got a gallon of jow for $80. And a gallon of Jow is something that lasts a really long time.

You know, it's something that you can do, I don't wanna like say that you should do this. Again, there are some people that really don't like this, and I mean I don't care that they don't like it. But it's a controversial thing is some people are using a little bit isopropyl alcohol. So what you could do is you could use the ethyl alcohol, and you could just supplement it with a little bit of isopropanol alcohol to bring that percentage up. Another different kind of alcohol is they work differently but in some ways, that's a good thing.

So it really just depends. I suppose, if money is really, really tight, you could take that and you could stretch it a little bit. Another option is you can cook it in some water, you know, a low simmer for an hour or two like almost like a decoction. And then you add a little bit of alcohol and maybe you use your $35 thing of alcohol for 2 gallons worth or something like that. [inaudible 00:34:40] a really good idea to have some alcohol in there.

Nick: Awesome. Thank you, and thank you, Mark, for those questions. So our next question is from Carol Shapiro, she says, "Any advice on how to find a first-class practitioner of Chinese medicine and acupuncture?" And she's in New York City.

Josh: Okay, so there's a lot of stuff in New York City. I think Google's your friend, New York City's got tons of stuff. I think Google's good, I think that, you know, there's some educational facilities there that might be worth checking. I also think surprisingly, you can actually get some pretty decent recommendations from martial arts schools.

Nick: Cool, that's a great tip.

Josh: Yeah, there's a ton of martial artists in New York City that either are also acupuncturists and herbalists or are very good friends with that whole community. New York...

Nick: It's a close community.

Josh: Yeah, it is. It really is. And like, as many people in New York City, it's like a small pond up there. So, you know, aside from Google, I think that, you know, talking to martial arts schools and the TCM, kind of educational facilities is a really good bet.

Nick: Yeah. Awesome. So the next question is from Diane Roerich. [SP] Actually real fast, so back to Carol's question, is Kamwo [SP] in New York City?

Josh: Kamwo, yeah, I think they are. I think they are New York City. And there's a lot of affiliation with that in terms of people that get involved with it. And you know, they're serious place and they're more than... Like, as somebody that, you know, sold herbs and Jow like, Kamwo is like the place where, you know, you can go to get some of your stuff wholesale. But I mean, they're a big facility and they've got you know, people they're doing all kinds of stuff. So, I mean, they certainly... I mean, it's not like you go in there and okay, who's your acupuncturist? Like, you'd go there and they'd give you a recommendation.

Nick: Yeah, exactly. So ultimately, Carol's best bet is just to really start becoming active within the overall community.

Josh: Yeah, that definitely falls under the category of places to check.

Nick: They're awesome. So our next question is from Diana Roerich, I hope I said your last name properly. "Do you have a product of which to rebuild bones and joints?"

Josh: With the caveat, we wanna kind of be careful, I think, about that term rebuild. So coincidentally, there are, you know, like surgeries, right, where people get like bone... There's been bone broken bones and all this sort of cartilage missing all this. I'm not sure exactly what the studies are saying right now about like "rebuilding." With that said, the tonics, like we were talking about earlier, like the Yang tonics, especially, are really useful for kind of strengthening that bone.

So there's a couple of different avenues to kind of take this down. And one is that as you age, your bone is kind of like at the microscopic level is almost like foam, right? As you age, that foam like loses density. And you know, a lot of older people, like, you fall and you break a hip and like, that's kind of the end, right? And it breaks a lot of time because it's become brittle and it's less dense. So the Yang tonics can be really good at kind of helping, you know, maintain strong bones and tendons.

And so that piece of it is an important piece of the puzzle. The other piece that's important is that you don't just kind of wanna take these herbs and just kind of like be like, well, that's it, right? There's a lot of things that you can do depending on the situation, right? Like, this might not apply to everybody, but there's a lot of things you can do to help spur that process. And what I mean is like, for example, weightlifting. And I'm not suggesting everybody goes out and, like, you know, lifts heavy and, you know, doing Olympic lifting. But like weightlifting is actually really effective for, you know, helping your bones...strengthen the bones.

And so what you would do is you do something like weightlifting, and then you take a tonic, right? And, you hope it was kind of this, like, you're hitting it from both sides, right? Like, you're providing stimulation, which is, you know, the body...the only thing we can do as humans really is adapt, you know, so like we're adapting with stimulus. And then we're using that tonic to help that process take place.

Nick: Awesome. And actually, to go off with this question, we have this Plum Dragon whitepaper and it provides a lot of good information on bone health. And we're gonna put that actually in the Facebook comment section. So, if you're watching, you can find that there for further reading on that topic. So here's another question from Adam Lee Carter. "After jow is extracted, how long will it be potent? I know when it is brewing in the jars, the longer the stronger. Western herbalists say [inaudible 00:40:36] for about two to three years. Just wondering if Dit Da Jow is the same way."

Josh: Okay, so did he say...at the beginning of that question, he said after it's cracked?

Nick: Extracted.

Josh: Extracted. So essentially the idea here is that once it's extracted... We may wanna kind of go over that question just a second, we'll see if I [inaudible 00:41:03]. Once it's extracted, and it's never really, like, extracted, 100%. Like, if you remember how it kind of tapers off, you know. And if you really analyze it from this real kind of mathematical or scientific way, there's always like a little tiny bit left in there. And that's why people are, "Oh this jow is 10 years old, and there's a big diminishing returns," but there's like always something in there. So now once it's extracted... And if I'm understanding the question, he's saying like, what's the lifetime?

Nick: I think it's not only lifetime, but like also if you keep it brewed in jars, if it's the longer the stronger, you know, when does that die off? And I guess when its max strength too is [crosstalk 00:41:52.817].

Josh: Okay. So the idea is that when you...early on, you gain potency very quickly. And then somewhere in the middle from like one year to, like, a few years, you're gaining it fairly slowly. And after that jow is a few years old, you're gaining that potency, like really, really, really slowly. And so the idea there is that it's never really stopping, it's just you're reaching it at these little straws, right?

At two months, maybe the jow is like more than twice as strong as it was at one month, right, and that slows down, right? So then eventually it becomes linear and it's like every day that passes, it's the same, and then by the time you get to a few years, you know, you let it sit for a year and it might gain like 2% potency, right? And then in eight years it might be gaining 1% potency and then half a percent. And it's like, after 20 years, it might have gained like 0.001% potency.

So I think for a lot of people, and especially thinking about the previous like a few questions ago is, Thinking about the fact that you kind of wanna balance between, like, I don't want this stuff sitting in my closet for 10 years, and I wanna use it. But I also like wanna use it as fast as possible, you know, you're not gonna get a lot after a couple of few years, like just not gonna get a lot.

Most of the dissolution has already taken place. You can get more out of it, but it's probably not something that you feel the difference, right? Like, it still feels the same way, it still has the same impact, the same effect. And like I've always told people, you know, if you're using a jow and it's only like three or four months, and you just have to use it, just use it a little bit more, right? Like, we're talking concentrations, right, so it's just a matter...like it's like density, right? Like, if you wanna get like this certain dosage of stuff and you're using something that's less concentrated, well, then you just use a little bit more of it.

Nick: Awesome. So here are two more questions kind of, you know, in this same area. So the first is, "Once the jow is poured off from the herbs into the bottle, does it start losing effectiveness at some point?"

Josh: No, with a couple of caveats, and I wanna chat about this because this is a fun topic. So it doesn't start losing potency, it's just this stuff. And as long as you like, keep it out of ultraviolet light and you keep it sealed so that it's not in contact with air, it's pretty much, for the most part, gonna stay just the same as it was when you poured the herbs off, yeah, when you poured [inaudible 00:45:05] of the herbs. There's a couple of interesting things about this.

So like one of my ventures that I did after Plum Dragon was I like started opening this winery and some people are, you know, familiar with this whole thing. And so there's a really, really interesting kind of correlation between making jow and making wine. And that is, you know, there's this process, there's kind of this chemical and physical process taking place. Now granted with wine, it's being fermented and there's an organic process there too. But they've also found with jow that like when these things were being extracted, that there are like new compounds that weren't necessarily present before and there's some interaction and there's some stuff being, you know, created and swapped and whatever.

Well, when you make wine, you keep the temperature really low because there are certain chemical reactions that you don't want to have happen, because that will spoil the flavor of the wine. Well, when you're making jow, you don't care how it tastes. And so even though a lot of people are saying things like age your jow in a cool... I hear this all the time, and I've never ever heard anybody, like question it even to the smallest degree is stored in a cool dry place while it ages. Well, like I'm always kind of the one to be like cool, why? Like why do you wanna store it...what are you afraid of? It's not in contact with air, right, it's not in contact with UV light, what do you get out of storing it in a cool place?

So here's the thing, when you start in the cool place, actually the activation energy of certain reactions, you don't have that activation energy necessary. So there's certain reactions that are not taking place, you don't want those things to take place. In jow we might. And so actually, it's kind of an interesting thing that actually, if you're storing your jow while it's aging in a warm, dry place, then it will age more quickly, and you will have enough activation energy in that system, that some of those reactions that might not have taken place if you're storing in a cool dry place can actually now take place. I know, I that [inaudible 00:47:27]

Nick: [crosstalk 00:47:27.923].

Josh: There was a time when I did like a bunch of research on that.

Nick: So real fast to kind of going off of that I'm curious, what would you say the biggest difference would be if you're storing your jow in a cool environment versus storing it in a warmer environment [crosstalk 00:47:45.096]?

Josh: So I guarantee you 100% all other things equal, guaranteed... And when I say equal, I guess I also mean that like the jow is not like exposed to air and UV light and whatever. Guaranteed your jow, over the course of six or 12 months will age faster in a warm, dry place than it will in a cool dry place.

Nick: That's [inaudible 00:48:09].

Josh: No doubt about it. And it'll turn out different because like I said, even if we're talking like 10 or 15 degrees difference, the activation energy of certain reactions that are taking place in there, they will take place 15 degrees higher and they will not take place 15 degrees lower, you know. You could probably retire off of doing research on this and I don't know what they all are. But there is no doubt that that jow comes out differently at significantly different temperatures. And by differently, I don't mean bad I mean, [crosstalk 00:48:44.058].

Nick: Right, [inaudible 00:48:44]. That's fascinating. So here's somewhat of a loaded question for you. So if I purchased a premade bottle, how long will it last?

Josh: You know, there's not really a shelf life, that stuff is gonna last a long, long, long time. Now, we had a question earlier about the guy who said alcohol is expensive in Australia. And woohoo, Australia. So in that case, you know, water-based jows...Like alcohol really does act in a lot of ways as a preservative. And so water and oil-based jows, they might not actually have the same shelf life but assuming we're talking about an alcohol-based liniment it's gonna last like years and years and years.

I gave jow to my mom of course, and she's like like got all these bottles of jow sitting in her cupboard and like sometimes will be over and, "Mom, like, oh my god, like, she's got, like, bottles from like, 2007." And the labels are like you know, straight out of a time machine, I'm like, "What the hell? Like, this is crazy." And so that stuff is still good. Now I haven't seen those bottles in a couple of years but like it's still really...I mean it's just fine.

Now once the bottle gets low and you've got a lot of oxidation that tends to break things down. And eventually, you know a jow could turn into something you know weird that doesn't work well. Like some people talk about in vinegar rising and whatnot. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's gone bad but... I mean, you know, if you've got a bottle of jow that's been sitting half full or half empty in your cupboard for 10 or 15 years, like probably just go buy another bottle. But like you really don't need to worry about shelf life.

Nick: And the shelf life also pretty obviously depends on the usage and what you know purchased the jow for.

Josh: Exactly, the real high alcohol jows like I was mentioning, I like my bruise liniments to have higher alcohol, those will kind of stay longer. I mean, you think about it like the whiskey, you know, in your cupboard, like it can stay there pretty much indefinitely. And you know, meanwhile, you open a bottle of wine and two days later, you're like, "Oh my God, this stuff is terrible like, throw it out."

Nick: That's actually a great analogy. That's a great analogy. So here's a pretty interesting question, so this is from Herve [SP], actually. "Do you have anything specifically made for fingertips? I type a great deal at my job."

Josh: I think I mentioned in the last podcast, there's this formula called the Dit D

If you feel like your fingers are getting tight, the joints, your phalanges are getting tight and stuff then you can...I would supplement with like an Iron Palm specific jow. But for finger specifically, something like Iron Palm-based that's more on the bruising side like the Nail Turned Black. Actually, Ho Family, I experimented with some finger training when I was training Southern Mantis really heavily, and we had this bag hung up and I'm always doing here, I'm always doing these finger strikes on the bag, and I used all different kinds of jows and Ho Family worked really well for that.

The Nail Turned Black formula works really well. There's an iron stand palm formula that's got rusty nails and...it's all got this weird stuff in it. Some people like it. I told you my friend Nate, he loves that stuff, I think. That works pretty well too.

Nick: Awesome.

Josh: If you wanna stay mainstream about it, then you can't go wrong with Ho Family or Southern Fist for that. And then like I said, if your fingers feel tight, then use an Iron Palm gel almost as the injury liniment before and after.

Nick: Very cool. So here's a really interesting, really unique question. So this is from Suzanne Lynch who lives in Ireland. So she says, "Hi, guys. I live in Ireland so it's very expensive to ship your liquids. I was wondering if you can use granules to mix this formula or do you have to use dried herbs? I am an acupuncturist and herbalist but I also work with racehorses. The alcohol would cause blistering on the tendons very quickly, could you use it to dilute for the same effect? I feel so deprived that I cannot have access to your product. Any suggestions? So thank you very much."

Josh: I like this question because I have kind of a little bit a...not like it's a really entertaining story, but I have kind of a story.

Nick: Oh, it's interesting.

Josh: So the thing is that granules... We played around a number of years ago with making granule-based jows, and they just don't work that well. They just...I'm not sure maybe if you put like tons and tons and tons of granules in there that they were just different. They just never felt like they were supposed to. I've tried it with jow, I tried it with vinegar, I tried it with water, I tried it with all these things, and I tried a bunch of different formulas and it just never really held up to a well-aged jow like an infusion.

And so with that in mind, there's two things. One, we also played a whole bunch with like Yao like oil-based liniments and balms and salves and stuff like that, then you kind of get into like patches and poultices and plasters and all these other sorts of like things. And so the oil-based jows, what I did find was like you can find... There's some places out there that sell like, you know, the concentrated essential oils and they sell all kinds of good stuff. And I did make this one...I was trying to market it at one point with this chiropractor because it's, like, really, really strong painkiller but it was all oil-based. It was using all these like essential oils and then I did end up putting a few herbs in it, but like it was all oil-based.

So you can make basic oil-based Dit Da Jow like that. And that might work because you can cut it with your carrier oil at whatever percentage. But then the other cool thing here is that there used to be a guy, a vet who used to buy...he probably bought a dozen half-gallon jars or two dozen half-gallon jars a year. Like, I don't know, if he's still a customer, I won't put his name out there or anything. But he bought all this stuff and he used it entirely on the horses, like the whole point he used it. And so like this question is kind of cool because she's, you know, using on horses, and what he says that he used to do is he used it as a wash. And so he would let it age.

And we kind of come back again to this whole potency thing, right, like, actually, if you used it early, it wouldn't be as strong, you know, or if you use it later you would just use less of it. And in his case, he would cut this wash with water or I wanna say that he even used like an Epsom salt bath or something. And like he would cut the jow with the Epsom saltwater.

Nick: Interesting.

Josh: And he would cut it 50-50. And he would use this stuff as a wash, I think like almost all over the entire horse. And he did that for like years and years. I bet he's still a customer because he loved doing that. And so...

Nick: That is fascinating.

Josh: Yeah. So there's a couple of options there, you know, given that it's hard to get stuff out to Ireland and...

Nick: Oh yeah, definitely. So here's a question about the Flexibili-Tea. "So tell us more about the Flexibili-Tea. What are the benefits of using this tea and where did the formula come from?"

Josh: So this was like an old yoga formula. So when I came across it like somebody had...somebody in like some country had been using it and they like really loved it and they're like, "Try this." And I got it and it was like this simple little thing. Like it had Zhong Wan in it and it had some Mu Gua, which is like the quince fruit, which is like really common on some, you know, islands and stuff. And it had some cinnamon twig in it. And, you know, I took it and I tried it and it was like...you know, actually it was cool like I liked the way it tasted. That was the big thing, it tasted nice.

I mean now, you know, like turmeric tea is like the hottest thing since sliced bread right now, so like it had a bunch of Zhong Wan in it, which is yellow turmeric. So it's like well this is great, but like, man, there could be some really good other stuff in here. So like I threw in some Bai Shao, which is great for the liver and it's like blood mover and then some Gu Tui [SP], which is like really good at relaxing sinews. And I changed...

Nick: What do you say like the biggest benefits are of just using Flexibili-Tea?

Josh: Honestly, it's relaxation. Like when we talk about Flexibili-tea, but when we talk about flexibility it's kind of you know, marketed for people who are trying to increase flexibility. Actually, the benefit there, it's really about relaxing the body, like removing tension. I don't just mean like physical, like removing tension like Free and Easy Wanderer style. Free and Easy Wander, for people don't know is, like this paitent formula that... So we always joke like if everybody took Free and Easy Wanderer like there'd be no road rage like everybody would be happy while they're driving down the street. So it really is a relaxive... I don't know if that's a word. It's relaxing for...

Nick: No worries.

Josh: Yeah, I like making stuff up.

Nick: Oh, yeah, that's what it's all about.

Josh: So it's very relaxing, right, for people physically, mentally and probably there's like a connection right between those two things. People who are like hypertensive tend to also be like really like tight people, right. So it's relaxing, it really does relax the body and being able to increase the flexibility is just like a byproduct of that.

Nick: And I know even for a lot of our customers, you know, they claim that it even helps them sleep. So we have one more question about another one of our teas, and then we're gonna dive a little bit into our top three best selling products, and then we're gonna wrap it up. So anybody want right now, now would be a great time to ask any question you might have in the chat because we'll probably be on for I'd say around 20 or so more minutes. So let's gonna dive into the next tea. "So how is the Plum Dragon Chai Training Tea helpful? When do you use it? And how do you make it?"

Josh: So the Chain Training Tea is...I ended up making that. And it's funny, it's the same kind of parallel with the wine and the jow and same with the Flexibili-Tea. I love tea and I'm always buying loose leaf tea and I got real into chai for a while. And like I was doing this experimentation where I would take like black tea and like I was taking a bunch of Ding Xiang, which is [inaudible 01:01:36] and all these different herbs. And I was throwing them in and I was simmering them and I was adding milk and I was trying to do this like really, you know... And actually the way it started is my father-in-law had tried some and he was like, "Oh my god, like this is the best chai tea I've ever tasted, you know." And, so then it kind of became this thing where he was like "Send me this tea, send it, send it, send it."

And so then I would send him, you know, the tea and that's how it kind of started. It was more of like, you know, a culinary experience, I guess. And so then I started adding things to it, I guess, like started adding the cardamon to it and other little things because I was like...you know for me...So when you look at like a lot of Iron Pump jows, everybody's like, "Oh my god that smells really good," right like the aroma. And the kind of like the Pavlov's dog thing that it does. For a lot of people that's really important, you know, the feeling that it gives in your hands, like it's not just being able to hit hard, it's like, you wanna experience like, being alive, like you want [crosstalk 01:02:46.850].

Nick: Yeah, it's like a reality shift. It's like walking into like a different room almost.

Josh: Exactly. So the Chai Training Tea became this idea of like...I wanna exhilarate my...I wanna experience being a human. And so then it's like, how can we take this stuff that tastes really good, and kind of this traditional tea and add some things to it that give it some effect? And so in this case, a lot of the hot stuff that's in there is really, really good, you know, especially in the wintertime, like promoting heat, promoting yang. I just love drinking it. Like every time I have students come over, I always have my thing of tea, I've always got tea sitting around.

Nick: That's awesome. So, you know, it sounds like for both the Flexibili-Tea and the Chai Training Tea, really any and all of our customers could benefit from just having some really amount to it.

Josh: Yeah, you know, the cool part about both of those teas is a little bit less...because the Flexibili-Tea is harder to make. And I'll come back to how to make it, I know that was part of the other question. But honestly, like these are all food-grade herbs. We're not talking about... Like some people like jump out of their seat when people talk about drinking Spring Wine because it's got some really pretty powerful stuff in it. And when we're talking about something like the Chai Training Tea or the Flexibili-Tea, these are food-grade items and just about anybody can drink this stuff. You don't even need to be looking to increase your flexibility or to use it for...they just taste good. Actually just make them just to drink and then go and do some stretching because it makes it fun, you know.

Nick: There you go.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Nick: So awesome, that's all great. So now we're gonna dive in a bit to our top three best selling formulas, Ho Family, Bruise Juice, and Ancestors Advanced. So to start, what are the basic differences between Ho Family, Bruise Juice, and Ancestors?

Josh: All right, so Ho family... So we were talking earlier about that block design methodology, and that's kind of a really good way of kind of like going through this. Like Ho Family is this humongous formula that has like all of this stuff in it. And I have no idea like what the mindset was when they added all this stuff 100 years ago or 60 years ago or whenever they made the original [inaudible 01:05:39].

But, the thing about Ho Family is like if you were to take the Ho Family formula and break it down using a block design methodology, then you end up with this formula that like actually has more structure in it than you think it does. But it uses a ton of pepper, uses like... I mean, traditionally they were using African bird pepper, which actually is... I think the African bird pepper like is used probably in there now that I was using. It's like 130,000 Scoville heat units. So it's not like crazy, crazy, crazy hot, there's hotter pepper out there and you could use it but not that it's really necessary. But it's got this huge amount of Osha root, which is like...the North American Osha root, it's related to like Chuan Xiong, which is ligusticum, and that stuff is phenomenal.

And so when you look at the huge concentrations there, you kind of get this idea that okay, like it's this real, really pungent, hot, like kind of crazy, you know, spicy, but a little bit sweet formula. And so it's really, really good...it tends to be really good for general injuries, right? Like I've mentioned before I've used it for Iron Palm just, you know, to see how it works, especially with hitting the open medium. It's really good for joint issues as long as the issue isn't like crazy amounts of inflammation. It's really like the serious injury formula.

Nick: Now I think that's like a great way to put it. So that's kind of where Ho Family is. Where does Bruise Juice and Ancestors Advanced fall in?

Josh: So Bruise Juice is kind of on the totally opposite side of the fence of Ho Family. It's one of the more cooling formulas out there and it's very, very specific. Now, I know a lot of people use Bruise Juice for like overall inflammation and joint issues. And I've even heard some people say that... Like it's spelled J-I-U and some people even said, well it's spelled jiu like that because we use it into jiu-jitsu. It's not what it was meant... Actually, J-I-U was supposed to be like, you know, you've got your management in Cantonese, like Dit Da Jow, and Dit Dat Jiu, and that was where that came from actually.

But as you see people use it for all that. But really the focus, focus purpose of Bruise Juice was like, I'm gonna make a liniment based on like a similar liniment that is better than everything on the planet for dispelling bruising. And so you can feel it, like in Bruise Juice, you get a humongous bruise, and like in two or three days, this massive, massive bruise is totally completely gone. But that doesn't mean it's healed, right? Like it's sore and it still hurts and you can feel there's still damage in there but the bruising is a thing of the past. And so like, that's where it really shines is that one specific purpose. But then the Ho Family would come in there and it would actually be better at the actual healing process itself.

Nick: Awesome.

Josh: And so then the Ancestors ends up being, you know, kind of a dual-use formula depending on what you're looking for. It's a crazy, crazy strong Iron Palm formula. And that's how it was produced, it's like, hardcore Iron Palm, advanced Iron Palm, like where you're really, really like pushing the body. But then at the same time, a lot of people are using it in a way that kind of fits it in between Ho Family and Bruise Juice in that it's a strong blood mover but like it does a much better job of dealing with the joints. Sinew, tendon, the bones, and all that kind of connective tissue in there, you know, kind of keeping that stuff healthy.

Nick: Very cool. So one follow-up question about the three and then we're gonna dive into each individually for a little bit. So can the three of these be understood to work on a continuum with the phases of injury?

Josh: With the phases of what?

Nick: With the phases of an injury. They could, like, start, beginning, end or something to that effect?

Josh: Actually, they can, with some, you know, small caveats. But, you know, there's kind of two philosophies. And one philosophy is that at the beginning of an injury, it's inflamed and swollen, so use something cooling, right? But then the other tendency there is, like, well, use something hot because you wanna push all that stuff out and move it through whatever. Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, like we can, like, let people war and battle over that. But regardless of what side of that fence you sit on, there's a continuum that you can go down.

So you start...and for me, at the very, very beginning of the injury, I prefer...especially It's like bruised or inflamed or swollen, and it's tight and all this sort of stuff, I'll use Bruise Juice. And I will like get the Bruise Juice on there and I will make sure that the bruising is like not the thing that's impeding the healing process. And then once the bruising is gone, it's on a Ho Family, right? And then it can branch off there a little bit in the sense that, well, if I feel like it's more on the muscle then maybe I'm going towards Ho Family. And if it's more in the like, the joints and the bones and it's deep, then maybe I'm going towards Ancestors.

And you can take that same path the other direction if you prefer to start hot with Ho Family, and then once it kind of gets better you can veer off in either direction based on the usage. For me, I always start with cooling first.

Nick: That's fascinating. And it's cool to see how they all work together. So let's dive into Ho Family specifically, so what would you say the best uses are for that formula? So if somebody came to you and said, "I am dealing with X, I want Ho Family," what would that X be?

Josh: So probably the thing that people are physically attaching to for that is pain. People are like, they got hurt, they have like low range of motion, it's painful, it's swollen, they like need to get past that. And the Ho Family is great for like, you know, helping reduce the pain and kind of getting the range of motion back there, it's really, really good for that. Of course, it's great for all kinds of other things. A lot of people use it for like, you know, tendinitis types of stuff and bruising and all this. But actually, what it really, really is good for is especially dealing with like, you know, the branch of the problem like the symptoms. And then, of course, it's a really good healing liniment too. Like I mentioned earlier like it's such a good general use formula, but it hits all of these other things, but like it's just really good at, like, jump-starting that whole process of getting you healed.

Nick: Definitely. And so how would a practitioner know when the use of this formula is indicated?

Josh: So a practitioner is gonna say, "Do I have excess or do I have deficiency? Do I have heat? Do I have cold? Is there wind damp?" These are the sorts of things that are gonna go to the practitioner's mind. And so the practitioner is gonna look at it and he's gonna say...if we wanna be like, really about the book and kind of robotic, right, and not terribly organic, say something like, "Okay, you almost have this tree, this diagram of if-thens, right? And like, "Is there a deficiency or is there excess cold or something," right? Okay, yes, use that, right? Is there pain? Yes, use that. Is it like a surface thing or are we talking about like something really deep like injury or some kind of rheumatics, you know, sort of issue? If there's not, then yes, use that." Like, those are the kinds of questions that a practitioner is gonna answer.

And then if you wanna insert the organicness into it, then he's gonna use his experience and he's gonna say, "Well, yeah, there's a lot of heat in here but it's not like crazy amounts of heat. There's a little bit of swelling, but there's some range of motion that's gone and the extra heat won't be so bad for the swelling and it's really gonna help the range of motion and the bruising, so I'll go down that path."

Nick: Awesome. And we actually have a question from Facebook this is from Jake Clemmer [SP]. It's, "What Plum Dragon products would you recommend for a contact sport athlete, for example, football, lacrosse or rugby?"

Josh: It's interesting because from the martial arts world, always the questions come in and people, they're like, "Well, I trained in Wing Chun, what formula should I use, right? Or I train, you know, Xingyi or I train MMA or whatever." And actually, that detail is not as important. The part that's most important about Jake's question is he says, contact sports, right? So see football, lacrosse, rugby, the thing is like you're getting hit hard. And so what you wanna look at is what do your injuries look like.

And so if you're getting hit hard and the dude comes in with his helmet and the football and he slams his helmet into the side of your stomach, and you're hit, probably what you're experiencing, there is a lot of bruising, right? Bruising is gonna be Bruise Juice, right? If you get hit in the side and you feel like achy inside, that's gonna be more Ancestors. But what I would recommend for what Jake is talking about, is probably he's gonna alternating between Ho Family and Bruise. And if he's feeling achy, probably the Ho Family is good, and if there's tons of bruising, then probably the Bruise Juice is best. And those are probably gonna be the two products that you're gonna cling to.

And it's likely that you'll use some of them and you'll feel like... Like, for example, if you get hit hard in the elbow, and use Bruise Juice, you might find that it doesn't reduce the tightness, the tension. It doesn't go away, it feels like it's still really tight. You throw some Ho Family on there and all a sudden you've got this range of motion and it feels nice again. And then the opposite happens for the bruising. One of those two formulas for sure you'll cling to a little bit more than the other depending on the nature of the injury, those two injuries, whether it's more bruising or the impact that makes you sore inside.

Nick: Thank you. That's awesome. I wish I knew about Plum Dragon in high school because I grew up lacrosse and rugby, and halfway through lacrosse season my arm it'd just be one big bruise. And so you know, thinking about just being able to know about Bruce Juice and all that I wish I knew sooner. And so here's another question based on, you know, the athlete. So what if that same athlete or any older athlete has an old injury that is not healed or hasn't healed properly?

Josh: So this is where something like Ancestors becomes more useful. When injuries don't heal, like when they become chronic, that tends to be like in a lot of cases what they might consider in TCM to be more of a deficiency, right? Like, initially it's an excess because you've got like excess swelling or you've got excess like accumulation, right? Like when bike riders fall they get like edema right. So there's excess water, there's excess blood, like, you know, swollen there's excess heat. But as the injuries heal, and you don't address them, sometimes they turn into this kind of deficiency. And like kind of, I don't know, maybe it gives up. It's like, well, I just can't get this all done so it's just gonna sit and linger.

So something like Ancestors which has a number of not just wind damp herbs, but also Yang tonics in it. Like things that are gonna help rebuild that become much, much more useful. And so Ancestors is gonna be a big one. Like the Iron Palm Jow, designed for Iron Palm, they tend to be more useful for older injuries like that, than something like an injury liniment. Now injury liniment still work, I mean, you could take a basic Bruise Jow and you could probably use it for everything, and it'll probably work pretty well. But Ancestors becomes real important there.

The other thing is internally, you know, a little bit of Great Mender to get things moving, and then a little bit of Gecko Tonic to help the body be able to have the constitution to do that healing can be really important as well.

Nick: Awesome. And Jake, you know, thank you again for your question. And I think overall, one of the big themes of today is, you know, our products can help a wide variety of issues. So it's which can help this specific issue the best rather than just, you know, what can help this specific issue. So to get back on to where we were with the Bruise Juice, Ancestors Advanced, and Ho Family, what are the best uses for Bruise Juice?

Josh: So Bruise Juice, best example is hardcore bruising. And we actually had...a long time ago there I had a series of pictures of somebody who like their entire thigh was like covered in black and blue. And there was Bruise Juice used on it and like over the course of like literally like four days, the bruising was...you could barely tell there was any bruising left. It still needed healing like the muscle was still damaged, the vessels were still damaged, and stuff needed to be healed in there but the bruising was gone.

And so like when you think about...you know on the last question, you think about the old injury, the old injury is like well, there was some stagnation in there that never really like probably got pushed out, right, causing some issues. And so like where the Bruise Juice becomes very specifically useful is that it makes sure...like there might be healing to do but it makes sure that like you flushed out everything. Like it's all flushed out, now it just needs to heal and then you don't run into like issues with long term injuries. That's where the Bruise Juice is really, really handy, is stuff like that.

Nick: Awesome. And I know one thing that customers say is that Bruise Juice works great for inflammatory arthritis with visible swelling, yeah.

Josh: So it's interesting because when we talk about arthritis and rheumatism and you know, joint pain in general, there are... And this is where TCM ends up being really powerful. In the U.S. basically it's like, well, you have joint pain so it's like it's either arthritis or it's rheumatism, right, like that's almost like what it boils down to. But in Chinese medicine, it's like, well, the pain in your joint, like, that's just the symptom, right, like that's a branch. Like if we're gonna treat the root of the problem, we say, well, is it due to heat? Is it due to cold? Is it due to excess? Is it due to deficiency? What's the underlying reason it's there and let's treat the underlying reason in addition to treating, you know, the symptom to make...I should feel better? In that particular case, you know, we find that it becomes really useful to match that up.

And so when people use Bruise Juice on joints that are painful and they're experiencing a benefit there, the reason that works is not because Bruise Juice is good for the joints. It's because there's some kind of inflammation in there, and the Bruise Juice is cooling, and it's helping deal with that inflammation. And of course, it also brings blood to the area, in almost every single case blood is like the stuff that makes everything better.

Nick: Oh, yeah, definitely [crosstalk 01:23:17.892].

Josh: And that's why Ancestors which is geared more towards the joints, is also a really good option where people are using Bruise Juice for their joint pain.

Nick: That's great. Thank you. And now let's talk a little bit about Ancestors Advanced. So what are the best uses for this formula?

Josh: So ancestors through and through is like a really kind of a unique Iron Palm Jow. And so to kind of expand on how that matters to people that don't do Iron Palm training in Iron Palm, the goal here is that we're like strengthening our hands and our joints. And actually, for me, Iron Palm is really about the power generation, I [inaudible 01:24:02]. But the thing is that part of that process is that you're smacking your hand, and to get real progress, you have to smack your hand enough that you would injure it without the jow.

And so the Iron Palm Jow is doing two things it's doing...first of all, it allows your hands to heal properly. And when I say hands, I mean like the joints, right, the sinews, and the bone and all that. But then the second thing it does is it helps strengthen that stuff. Like we were talking earlier about how bones kind of spongy, right you're putting some kind of pressure on your bone, that helps it grow denser, but then the liniment also helps support that process and like internal stuff as well. And so that's where Ancestors is very useful for people that don't care about Iron Palm, kind of looking at that use case. That I use it to heal my joints, but especially I use it to like help strengthen them. And it's really, really useful for that type of thing, especially when you have some kind of activity that you're doing with that at the same time.

Nick: Awesome. Thank you so much, Josh. Thank you for doing this Q&A, I think we got a whole lot of great information from this. So I just have a few things in closing. So with the holidays coming up, and specifically, you know, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are doing a few different sales. So be sure to subscribe to our mailing list. You can get that on our website at www.plumdragonherbs.com. We're offering a lot of special once a year deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So be sure to subscribe to take advantage of that. But once again, Josh, seriously, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. It's always super knowledgeable when we get to talk with you.

Josh: Yeah, I love it. I guess I like to talk. So I always enjoy it.

Nick: Awesome, well, thank you so much and have a great rest with your Saturday.

Josh: Yeah, you too. Thanks for everything, you guys. Thanks for everybody. Enjoy.

Nick: Have a great one.

Josh: You too.