Punching questions

I was thinking about the different ways that different styles of martial arts used punching. For instance, shotokan has a person hit with the first two knuckles of the fist (the index and middle finger knuckle). How does boxing and muay thai have a practitioner punch? Are you lining up on the first two knuckles are other nuckles?

Being that most karate is taught as a bare knuckle style the way they punch is great for a street fight to help to keep from breaking one's hands in a punch. Being that most boxing and muay thai practitioners wear gloves I wonder how they're punching techniques would fair bare knuckle?

Also, just out of curiosity, what all martial arts styles primarily punch without wearing any kind of gloves?

 

Hitting someone with the meat on the end of your arm is hard enough. It's even harder aiming with specific parts of it. I wouldn't worry about what you're supposed to hit with. Just hitting someone is hard enough.

 

Im just comparing punching styles when it comes to technique and when it comes to practically. Im curious as to how the gloved punching Styles compares to the non gloved punching styles. I wonder if the gloved punching Styles take into account for safety like the non gloved punching styles do.

I know the boxing guys usually hit harder than karate guys. But karate guys are thinking about striking bare knuckle and so they always have a consideration of not breaking their hands. I wonder how this mindset transfers in Muay Thai and boxing for instance being that 99% of the time they practice with gloves on. It seems to me that they would have to train differently then they do with gloves on if they want to really apply it to a street confrontation and not bust themselves up. So that would mean not practicing full power as one would with gloves so it can realistically be applied. After all, what good is it if one can hit with enormous power but they break their hand every time they do?

 

Ever been bitch-slapped by a boxer before? I have. Took me ten minutes to feel normal again.

 

We pad up to spar. When we hit pads, sometimes we're made to do it without gloves. I guess that gives us an idea as to what it would be like to hit someone without gloves. It also encourages good technique, and sometimes results in bloody knuckles.
If push comes to shove (or punch), it's probably going to hurt. But you'll be pumped full of adrenaline, and will probably have other things to worry about.

 

Generally the first two big knuckles on punches to the body (karate and boxing are very similar on body strikes). To the head can be different. Bare knuckle boxers tend to favor striking with the bottom three knuckles, whereas karate varies from open hand to same two big knuckle punch.

One of the keys is to apply the principle of pressure. You want to hit with the smaller surface area to maximize the effect. Striking with two big knuckles is about four times the force per square inch compared with striking with all five knuckles (spreading it out). Spreading out over five knuckles is considered watered down striking and is a sign of bad striking.

However, the more force hitting with, the more chance of self-inflicted injury. So punching full power on a hard target, like the bone of the skull, runs a high risk of injury. You learn how hard to strike bare knuckle for the target and situation. I prefer bottom three knuckles on hard targets if punching, open hand even better.

 

Since Im either about to start boxing or muay thai this area is a concern for me. That was one of the things I did like about karate. They always did everything with bare knuckle in mind.

 

Unfortunately you don't always get a choice of what lands. Maybe they move and you clip the edge of their jaw or their cheekbone. The head isn't a perfectly geometric shape and it's moving.

The question isn't so much one of striking surface but of wrist alignment and force transfer through the metacarpals and the wrist. Personally I've done just fine using the first two, middle two, and bottom three with different striking styles with and without gloves. It's a more minor detail than some people make it out to be (with the exception of necessary certain mechanical reasons in wing chun's vertical punching).

 

No they don't, they just think they do based on historic notions of what the arts USED to be like

 

Or based on what we know from sport aspects of martial arts from 100 years ago in China. We know that in sport, many tournaments rules in China did not allow open hand strikes to the head for safety reasons (too many fighters getting poked in the eyes, I believe, so they could not continue). In addition, punches to the head were considered inferior to open hand strikes to the head.

Karate seems to have followed under the same type of rules/guidelines as that were used in tournaments in China, IMHO.

Boxing with hand wraps and gloves makes punching the head more practical.

 

Karate and bare knuckle boxing also have mechanical reasons. I'm not sure I really believe Wing Chun has any mechanical reasons over Isshin-Ryū karate, for example, which also uses the vertical fist. Bare knuckle boxing tends to use vertical fist for head punches too.

My first karate instructor, Chinen Sensei, told me the meaning of hard and soft in Goju-ryu karate was use hard weapon on soft target and soft weapon on hard target. Using the right tool/weapon for the job is a major concern in karate.

It is only really sport aspects that seem to lead to watered down striking because of some rule sets. Since the last 20 years, a lot has been done to address watered down striking in MMA and such. Now you have many more good strikers in the mix, IMHO.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=XoHKAwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT53&ots=IyU09J72zy&dq=knuckles%20spreading%20from%20striking&pg=PT53#v=onepage&q=knuckles%20spreading%20from%20striking&f=false

 

The Lethwei fighters of Burma fight bare knuckle and have done for a long time. They train very similar to Thai boxers.

 

Well when Isshin-ryu guys use the guard of their hu die shuang dao as a striking surface which mechanics do they use? How do they hold theirs in guard? Do they maintain that same wrist forward position when manipulating a 12-15 foot sue mai gwan. But for empty hand...

Tilting the wrist forward farther than flush tends to crunch the wrist of the closest guard hand a bit as it's already tilted to line up the knuckles. If you tilt the wrist during the chain punching to end up hitting with that surface you end up arcing the punches instead of driving them straight. Also you can't maintain that same wrist tilted position when transferring to other hand forms which mechanically interrupts certain transitions and movements.

I played around with seeing if the striking surface could be changed from mid two/bottom three but it's very mechanically tied to the rest of the system in both empty hand and weapons. That's rather different than what I've seen from Isshin Ryu which, correct me if I'm wrong, seems to use their vertical punch just like a standard tsuki from the hip only without pronating. That's also quite different from bareknuckle boxing.

 

The Isshin-ryu vertical fist punch loses something to me on the angle change to go for a head strike. But still, in the top three worst things I've ever felt in my entire life receiving a body shot from a good Isshin-ryu guy in a lively sparring session is one of them.

Some of the reasoning I've heard for their version of the vertical fist punch (and these are what I've been told by practitioners, not necessarily reflective of my own opinion and experience):

1) It's more bio-mechanically sound than the standard twist punch.

2) It allows for faster retraction, which supposedly adds some oomph to it in the form of sort of a "wave" effect, for lack of a better way to describe it. Sounded like the goal is to get organs to jiggle around in unhealthy ways. No more than 90% extension on the punch and immediate retraction is the goal.

To Sifu Ben's point on the weapon front, Isshin-ryu's traditional weapons are Bo, Sai and they added a Tonfa/Tuifa form at some point. The tonfa and sai forms that are done have some vertically oriented grips for some of the strikes. They don't use much similar to the two weapons he mentioned. At least not traditionally.

 

Isshin ryu vertical punch was developed based on the principle that you should be able to change direction at any time. In other words, it was developed for maximum mobility in mind. The punch is with the top two large knuckles and to support this striking surface, the thumb is placed on the side (top) with primary target being the body:



For bare knuckle boxing, the vertical fist is more for when striking the head. Since the power line of the punch is along the ring finger knuckle, to hit more accurately along the power line, the boxer will hit with the three bottom knuckles. It is important to spread out the force on all three little knuckles, if you end up hitting with just one or two, you can very easily break your hand striking a hard target with force.

The thumb is on the side:



My intention was to point out that every martial system that involves bare knuckle striking is going to have quite a lot about proper mechanics for striking in the system. Except when watered down due to sport rules, in which case, these details can get neglected or lost. Wing Chun is not the only system to consider these things.

 

Of course if you're any kind of good boxer you'll have knocked them out anyway. So it's a moot point.

 

No doubt. My point however is that for the most part the issue of striking surface is largely overinflated unless it specifically affects the rest of the system using it.
In a system for which the wrist orientation would affect the striking and other techniques that becomes a larger issue. This is not suggesting that the mechanics of other systems are irrelevant but that unless the change wrist orientation affects that system a great deal then it can be discounted to a greater extent. Wing chun may not be unique in an absolute need to do it a specific way based on the rest of the system but some systems, though they profess use of a certain way, would not be adversely affected by the change from the first two knucles to the middle two. For example there are boxers I've trained with who hit with the first two or middle two knuckles but they could just as easily use the other.

Also the boxer in that photo appears to have his thumb on the palm side of the hand covering the dorsal surface of the index finger as opposed to the Isshin Ryu fist configuration. Not sure if that difference is what you were making note of when you specified "side (top)" for the first photo.

 

From what I've learned, I'm supposed to use the two big knuckles to punch. Another friend of mine uses the smaller three knuckles, actually making impact with the smaller two. Even for breaking the thick non demonstration boards. There are times when I use the smaller knuckles as well. Personally, I've punched and not really worried too much about the point of impact. I don't punch too much to hit hard, I really punch to make space for myself. I would more often use a backfist which serves just as well for me.

 

this x1000.