Thoughts on specialty/small-surface strikes?

This blog was linked to a FB group I'm part of:

http://ryukyuma.blogspot.com/2013/04/small-surface-strikes-structurally.html

I've generally been dismissive of such things. Sure, you can pop a guy with a one-knuckle strike and get him to say "ow", but it would seem to me that such techniques are reliant on causing pain, which might be dulled or absent under stress or the influence of intoxicants. With that said, I've seen some neat trick with guys breaking boards with these strikes, so either a) they've gimmicked the target or b) one can actually generate damaging power with the strikes.

Considering their prevalence in East Asian martial arts, I have to think that those who developed those systems saw their utility. I've got very little experience with them myself, outside of trying them out on a bag and going, "Nope, not gonna do that again." Does anyone train them regularly? Anyone find them useful? Can they be used in a way that can cause mechanical damage as opposed to simply pain? Any other thoughts?

 

#NopeTrain

That looks like an amazing way to break your damned finger! I'm sure you could use it to some effect by conditioning, but to what end? The most "pointy" type strike I've been taught is the vertical fist in Isshinryu, but that's with the knuckles on the hand and not the fingers. I tried a few of the hand positions out and punched my other hand and it hurt like hell, never mind trying to do damage on a real target.

The only thing I've found using a concentrated point in a fist for striking is when you're trying to "frog" somebody. It involves punching a person to make their muscles, usually in the shoulder or thigh, cramp up and cause temporary pain. I can do this really well with the moose knuckle on my center finger due to breaking my hand twice. Overall these things sound dangerous to your hands. I would be training them if I was a surgeon or anything.

 

most are definitely not high-percentage (and many are probably made up by people trying to use every single square inch of the body as a weapon SOMEHOW, because hardcore RAAAAAWR), but some definitely useful if done right (but of course if you can't land a punch, you ain't gonna land diddly squat with your little finger).

two specific examples of useful and easy to use ones:

thrusting punch with second row of knuckles (hiraken in krotty, pantherfist of similar in KF, staple technique in some CLF): can be thrown ridiculously fast and throw off someone used to standard punching ranges, because it's more a percussive hit than a penetration strike (your hand would fold if you threw it as one without a ton of specialized training anyway). relies on the same skills as a feeler jab, basically, but is actually meant to hit. useful targets, without heavy training, are basically the face and the throat. can be used to set up attacks from a very long range, relatively speaking (or to try to shut down a kicker, for example).

one-knuckle shovel hook/haymaker/generic round punch with the middle finger (nakadaka ippon-ken in krotty, not sure of name in kf, maybe phoenix eye? or is that the index one?): the way a nakadaka ippon-ken is formed, it creates a structure that is not very good for thrusting (because the force would go into the hollow of the palm and you'd have at best a regular punch), but very good for circular strikes ala rapping someone over the head with your knuckles (where the force goes right into the rest of the hand and from there to the wrist). this can be very easily incorporated into a shovel-hook type motion, or a wider circular punch like a haymaker or a CLF/hung ga type swinging punch (like CLF's sau choy, kup choy and pow choy). strictly a power hit, and probably best done from some sort of arm control, it's basically a big frigging shovel hook to the ribs or swing to the head, but with a smaller impact area (which as always is probably best trained specifically before attempting it*)

*let's be honest though, a lot of people will even require training on how not to break their hands with normal fists, so except for the more out there strikes like thumb hits or whatnot, this isn't really THAT bad (although yes, harder and a bit more time consuming than teaching the use of the normal fist)

 

also note that structure for these is heavily dependent on wrist action as well as hand shape. make all the joints compress "into" each other, so to speak, and the structure will be solid and depend on muscles, tendons and ligaments (all of which can be strengthened), but if the reaction force goes into empty air, you're creating a lever that will act on the nearest joint and mobilize it, completely breaking your kinetic chain, and possibly dislocating the affected joint.

 

Fish you are correct. The single knuckle protruding punch in Hung Gar known as phoenix eye. It is done with the knuckle of the finger nearest the thumb.

In general strikes with a small surface area exert greater pressure and so the force penetrates deeper into the body. Such punches are known as peeper punches as they cause significant local tissue damage often leading to internal bleeding. It is said that a wound with internal bleeding feels warm - hence pepper punching (as pepper is hot).

The key with any striking hand is to think about the properties of the hand and match them to the area you are striking. Panther fists are a kind of half way hand between a closed fist and a snake hand. They can be used for both striking and controlling. The penetrating power of panther is often combined with targets that are above a bone. The muscles of the arm for example make excellent targets as the muscle is crushed between knuckle and bone to maximise the effect of the strike.

 

Well, a bruise is technically "internal bleeding". Are you talking about something more dire than this?

 

Yes and No

 

...would you care to elaborate?

 

Give me a straight cross to the nose or hook to the jaw anyday.

Well, don't give me one literally.

I even prefer spinning kicks over elaborate finger pokes.

 

In a sense a bruise is internal bleeding but on a small scale. The bruises caused by crushing a muscle between two bones can be extensive. In the short term these will lead to an Immediate reduction of function in the limb.

In the long term bruising can starve nerves of oxygen leading to permanent nerve damage. If the bruising is bad enough blood clots may form. Blood clots can cause pain and/or impair the function of the muscle.

A blood clot that forms in a muscle may break down over time or it may not. Those that do not will require surgery to remove. If a blood clot is formed inside a vein or artery it may break of and move around the circulatory system possibly ending up in the brain or heart.

However these strikes have the potential to rupture large blood vessels leading to extensive internal bleeding. Large scale internal bleeding can cause organ damage, affect blood pressure, affect circulation and induce shock.

 

Not everyone is an athlete. To many a spinning kick is much more elaborate than a "finger poke"

These strikes are not substitutes for a straight cross or a hook. They are simply extra weapons in the arsenal.

 

Any documentation of these techniques as actual muscle-crushing blows?

Also, I'm no doctor. How does large scale internal bleeding (not related to the organ itself) cause organ damage? I would have thought the reverse to be true.

I guess ultimately what I'm asking is for evidence that these types of strikes can cause the damage you're referring to, are the best tools to cause that damage (therefore worth training), and whether that damage is immediately fight-ending as opposed to, "dangerous if he doesn't see a doctor immediately", which would be the case in most Western countries.

 

The way I was taught ippon ken was to have the thumb overlap the index finger so if it hits a hard surface it goes back into a standard seiken protecting the finger from damage.

Definately has its uses my Kyokushin instructor loves attacking the shoulder joint with it and my Ju-jitsu instructor likes to aim into the bicep on counters as part of his limb destruction stuff and its a killer but it is also good for throat and I prefer it to Nukite for eye strikes ect..

In my Jow gar/Northern White Crane training it was taught with the thumb behind which I personally found more risky in terms of injury and prefer the Karate method I was taught...

Its useful but you need to train it extensively before being able to use it.

 

Just curious (as well as rhetorical): how completely immobilized would an opponent be in order for you to go for that exact little point?

No, I'm not trying to bring "pressure-point" related arguments here, but (just for an example) an eye poke is not very high-percentage against a moving adversary...too many variables interfere with the landing of the perfect poke--the poke with sufficient angle and penetration to be a fight-ender when you're facing somebody who's hopped up on testosterone and norepinephrine.

To make a real eyeball-popping gouge work at fighting speed, you'd pretty much have to have immobilized your adversary in something like a headlock.

Your next step would then be to explain, to the judge, why gouging somebody's eyes was necessary if you already had him immobilized. Best of luck there.

 

ive done quite a few styles with speciality fists, and honestly how useful they are really depends on the individual, if you can fight before you learn them and have the time to forge them they can be very useful but dont rely on them to give you special skills lol

one master i know of said they are useless unless you spend years forging them, another guy i respect for his skills never used them even though his style had a number of speciality fists as in his experience they couldn't be formed up quickly enough to be of real use.
A common theme from those guys who i respect as actually being able to fight with them is that such fists as the PE fist for example are used as a force multiplier rather than a weapon to hit small moving targets

As for how they are formed, forged and used the following videos are fairly good ones, and the guy who did them has a solid background in full contact fighting, everything from full contact karate to boxing true NHB from back in the day
how to form it
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAzmoaCTcXY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAzmoaCTcXY[/ame]
how to test it
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNWlBd-I8lw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNWlBd-I8lw[/ame]
how to build it up
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2bdeTraU4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q2bdeTraU4[/ame]
how to hit with it
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1kjj7ib00"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1kjj7ib00[/ame]

 

Yeah. Red bruise as opposed to purple bruise.

Maybe more effective at giving dead arm/leg, but still inferior to a full-fist to the jaw, temple, ribs, solar plexus, liver or kidneys.

 

A Phoenix Eye/Extended knuckle is a good strike to the eye and other soft tissue, provided there is opportunity

As for massive internal damage, I never heard of anyone dying from it.

I am little skeptical with "internal strikes" that lay claim to massive damage

 

Yeah the only time I have used a fist that had a knuckle sticking out was in kyokushin sparring. It's a useful tool that can add a little bit of extra bite if you want to target shoulders/biceps etc to soften your opponenet up but I couldn't imagine using it in any other context.

Kyokushin is a particular beast and its format is really at its best when its ingraining a particular mindset and set of attributes. Things like striking with a knuckle protruding are really specialty strikes that, as far as I have experienced, really only make sense in scenarios where wearing down an opponents endurance and body over a period of time takes priority over actually disabling the opponent quickly and effectively.

 

@icefield: pretty sure i've seen those vids before. that's a regular at kungfumagazine forums, no?

another point worth making: for whatever godawful reason might have popped up over the ages, people get really hung up on the "strike" part and think that all of these sorts of things have to be thrown like a KO punch (and to small, moving targets, to boot, which like icefield says is rather dumb). but you don't need to. spear-handing someone in the throat is not particularly the easiest thing to do, but getting your hand in that general area is slightly easier. once you've done that, then, IF you took the necessary steps to not get punched in the balls while trying, you can go from there to the throat or face or whatever and start doing the pokey fingers bit, which for example for the throat will rely more on pressure sustained over half a second or so (to screw with blood or air flow, or dig in to get nerves), rather than a strong percussive or penetrating hit where you go "TWO-FINGER POKE, HI-YAH" and lunge in and try to poke a hole in the guy's neck.

 

^ Interesting.

I have jammed spearhands between opponents' arms and their bodies to get that hand through to the back of their belt as a setup for nagewaza such as ogoshi. Not that this addresses OP's question, but it is a practical use for a spearhand (a phrase I never thought I'd write).