Blog
Guides, hand-health tips, practice ideas, and stories about Chinese meditation balls. Browse by topic, or jump to a section below.
Getting Started
How to choose balls, history, materials, and what the designs mean.
How to Select Baoding Balls
Selecting your baoding balls depends on a few main factors including your hand size, skill level, and goal for using them. You can use this chart as a suggestion of what size you may want to look for. The measurements of each size will vary between a range. This is because the balls are hand […]
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History and Types of Baoding Balls
Baoding balls could be referenced to as far as 26-220 AD during the Han Dynasty to the Hebei province in China where Baoding city is located. Although, the archives show balls were not used at this time, the people used walnuts instead to train the hands. Many centuries later, iron balls replaced walnuts during the Sung Dynasty, […]
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How Do You Pronounce Baoding Balls?
A common question people have is how do you pronounce "Baoding"? Bao is pronounced "bow" as in bowing down like the Japanese do when they greet someone. So baoding is pronounced bow-ding. Now you are one step closer to being a baoding ball expert!
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What is Cloisonne? A Royal Treasure in the Palm of Your Hand
When you look at a baoding ball with elegant designs, you might wonder what kind of artwork this is. It is a technique called cloisonne (pronounced like cloy-son-aye). It is an art method dating as far back as the 14th century in China. Cloisonne is the technique of creating designs on metal with enclosures of […]
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A Ball in the Rough. Revealing the Hidden Beauty of Natural Baoding Balls
The way the earth has created the variety of natural gemstones in the world is a remarkable part of nature. Holding such stones like quartz, hematite, tigers eye, and amethyst, you'll often wonder how can nature create such things so beautiful. The old saying "A diamond in the rough" rings true as the beauty is […]
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How Baoding Balls Are Made
Ever wonder how they make these intricate hollow musical balls? It's a process that has been developed for many years and once a secret of China. Machines have taken over much of the world's manufacturing of products these days, but the chiming baoding balls are still handcrafted by hand in a very detailed step by […]
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Hand Health & Strength
Therapy, grip, circulation, and everyday hand comfort.
The Little-Known Trick Physical Therapists Use to Improve Hand and Wrist Strength
Physical therapists often recommend the use of baoding balls to their patients as a form of hand therapy. These small, metal balls are held in the palm of the hand and rotated back and forth, providing a gentle form of exercise for the muscles in the hand and wrist. One of the primary reasons physical […]
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Help for Thumb Pain from Texting or Gaming
Almost everyone has a smartphone these days and we are holding onto it all day long. We practically can't function without them and it has created a problem for some. Tapping the screen all day has lead to repetitive stress conditions called "texting thumb" or "trigger thumb". For gamers, it is referred to as "gamers […]
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Grip Training with Baoding Balls
There's no better validation that baoding balls are a great tool for building grip strength than from a world record setting grip strength strongman named John Brookfield. Some records he hold are bending 520 penny nails in 1.5 hours and ripping 100 deck of cards in 2 minutes 15 seconds. And by the way, Mr. […]
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Cold Hands All the Time Could Be a Disease
If your fingers and toes are constantly cold to the touch while your body is warm, it could be a sign of Raynaud's disease. This disease affects areas of the body like your fingers where the blood vessels shrink and restrict circulation and blood flow. During times of stress or being in cold temperatures, your […]
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Live Longer by Using Baoding Balls
Live longer? How can a simple exercise of rotating a couple balls make you live longer? The answer is knowing how to manage the culprit called "stress". Stress is the Root of Aging Faster We all know too much stress is harmful to us. When your body is stressed out, we behave differently and the […]
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Healing Philosophy of Chinese Health Balls
To understand how Baoding Balls keep the body healthy, a person would need to have some understanding of the Yin and Yang philosophy. The Yin and Yang are symbols of two forces kept in balance by the flow of your internal energy. This energy is your Qi ("chi") which is the energy of life that […]
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Baoding Balls May Help You Quit Smoking
I've noticed several customers have purchased baoding balls as an aide to help quit smoking. They either purchased them themselves or a loving friend bought them as a gift for someone trying to quit. Several customers have successfully quit smoking and told us baoding balls helped them. While quitting smoking is hard, it does make […]
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Baoding Balls can Improve your Career
Are you an future surgeon, dentist, or musician? Many careers like these require skillful manual dexterity, the ability to use your hands in a coordinated way to grab and manipulate objects and perform small precise movements. As one example, the Dental Admissions Test (DAT) has a section that specifically tests manual dexterity because dentists must […]
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Practice & Meditation
Routines, tai chi, qigong, focus, and calm practice ideas.
3 Tips for Meditating With Baoding Balls
Meditation is a great way to train your brain to focus and avoid unwanted thinking on stressful thoughts. It can help you clam and reduce stress from overthinking. To do that, you have to have your mind focus on something you can experience at the moment. Here are some ways to do that: Focus on […]
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Tai Chi Routine with Baoding Balls
This Tai Chi instructor shows you several Tai Chi movements using baoding balls. If you practice Tai Chi, you can learn these movements and incorporate baoding balls into your own Tai Chi exercises. https://youtu.be/L0h83gQnYrM This routine has five sections. Some moves have names which are shown in parenthesis. Part 1: Individual 0:00 – Start from the beginning […]
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Using Baoding Balls to Enhance Tai Chi
If you are a student of Tai Chi you will be aware of the many ways in which the hands, wrists and fingers are employed when practicing the movements and forms. There is always a reason why a particular hand movement is included in a routine and this is usually for the health benefits that […]
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Qigong with Baoding Balls
Qigong forms and exercises are very much focused on the inner workings of the energy lines or meridians which run throughout the body. Regular practice of qigong brings many benefits, as students will already know. Qigong is gentle yet powerful and increases the body’s flexibility, stamina and resistance to disease. It helps to calm the […]
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Activating Your Left and Right Brain by Using Baoding Balls
The use of baoding balls to improve health is widely known. The effects on the meridians of the hands and the physical benefits of doing the exercises are often discussed when talking about the balls. However, I recently listened to a doctor discuss his experience with using baoding balls in a different aspect regarding the […]
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How Fidgeting is Good for Concentration
Remember the explosion of fidget spinners into the market? Why were they so popular and do they actually have any usefulness you might have wondered. What we find is that fidgeting helps concentration more than you might have expected. Baoding ball users have known about this phenomenon since ancient times. Baoding balls where the original […]
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Baoding Balls ASMR Relaxation
Baoding Balls are an object that can induce ASMR, the ever so pleasant tingling sensation that occurs in your head. Experience relaxation with baoding balls just by watching and listening to them. Give it a try! Relax yourself, focus on the sounds, and watch the video. One tip is to try when you are about […]
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Using Baoding Balls With Your Feet
Did you know that baoding balls could be used with the feet? You can use them in a similar way as foot massage balls. When you're working at your desk and your hands are busy, your feet can be busy also! Here are some ideas you can try out when your hands are busy. Foot […]
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Baoding Ball Tricks
Take your baoding ball skills to the next level by mastering these ball movements. 1. Back of the hand rotation Harder than it looks, this movement is a difficult one to do. Who knew you could do that until you saw it right? 2. Jumping with 3 balls Instead of rotating the flats in a […]
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Culture, Stories & Media
Performance, history stories, gifts, movies, and books.
Baoding Ball Performing Arts
You probably have seen the posters for Shen Yun at sometime, a performing arts group that celebrates 5000 years of cultural dance and song from China. You might be surprised to know that there are also cultural performing arts of dance and baoding spinning. Here we take a look at a group performing dance with […]
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The Art of Chinese Yin Yang Baoding Ball Performance
Did you know watching baoding balls can be calming too? Relax and enjoy watching this very skilled baoding ball performance called The Art of Chinese Yin Yang Baoding Ball. You'll see some amazing baoding ball techniques rarely seen. Notable Sections of the Performance 0:10 – 3 Ball Rotation 0:50 – 3 Ball Line Rotation 1:25 – […]
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An 87 Year Old Baoding Ball Master Story
This is Li Zhanchun. He is holding up a tower made of baoding balls in his home of Baoding, a city in the Hebei province in China. There, he is part of the Sunset Red Iron Ball Group, and he is very well known. Li counts up the layers, "One, two, three, four, five, six, […]
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Meaning of the Chinese Dragon and Phoenix
The dragon and phoenix have been symbols used throughout Chinese culture for centuries. They are seen in most events, celebrations, and in surroundings. Dragon and phoenix baoding balls are particularly popular as you'll see why. The Chinese Dragon In Chinese culture, the dragon is a kind mythological animal representing auspiciousness. It symbolizes power, strength, and […]
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Chinese Zodiac Baoding Balls
2021 is the Year of the Ox! Baoding balls are a fun way to express your zodiac animal. Do you know which zodiac animal represents yourself? The Chinese zodiac consists of twelve animals that rotate on a twelve year cycle. Each animal represents characteristics of a person's personality which is often used for matchmaking. DragonBirth […]
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Baoding Balls in the Movies
Sometimes our visitors have told us they saw baoding balls in a movie or show. It's interesting to see famous actors using baoding balls. Here are some of the movies that baoding balls have been spotted in. If you have seen baoding balls in other movies or shows, let us know! Extraction (2020) A dangerous […]
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Baoding Ball Books and Media
There have been various books written and video dvds created on baoding balls. If your giving a pair of balls as a gift to someone, a book or dvd to go along with it might be a good combo. Here's what you can expect if you're looking at one of these. The Complete Book of […]
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A Gift That People Will Remember You By
We have all been there, trying to figure out what to get that someone who's hard to shop for. They are too picky to shop for or they already have everything. Every year we buy them something and goes in the closet never to be seen again or consumed and forgotten. How about something that […]
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More articles
Additional reading from our archive.
Vintage Baoding Balls
The old saying "They don't make them like they used to" can be said for many things including baoding balls. These days, quality can vary greatly depending on where you get them. In the old days, the balls were thicker and heavier, the designs more elaborate, and cases nicer. This post is a collection of […]
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Orgonite Baoding Balls
These days it is impossible to visit a Mind, Body, Spirit Fair, or similar event, without being drawn to tables piled high with decorative pyramids and other shapes which at first glance look like paperweights. These are, in fact orgone pyramids and are in great demand because of the way they can be put to […]
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