[lakan_sampu]

the entry about punching:

Lebenswelt

thanks guys, need some opinion.

[zefff]

Have you got the youtube link?

Are you asking what to do? Well the first thing I would say is stop trying to punch the air. You cannot punch and transmit force through your arm into the air like you would punching a solid target so the mechanics and result performance will be different as your body's instinct is to avoid the injury caused by jarring and extending the joints.

When you shadow box remain relaxed throughout the whole movements as you are not trying to replicate actual combat performance (thats what sparring is for), you are trying to develop and maintain flow and fluidity in motion and mind. Remain relaxed but potent and flow from punches to parries to elbows to palms to headbutts to knees to kicks to takedowns all with correct footwork. Work on flow which is free of the mind. It should almost be like a moving meditation. Its all there in Panantukan. Once you have a good flow then you can 'tighten the spring' so to speak by increasing the accelerations in your movements and efficiency in your mechanics to increase the amount of force generated with less energy input.

N.B. Relaxed does not mean floppy or sagging and without any form - you should still have a firmness and correctness in all your mechanics. I know it sounds corny but you should be flexible with a tremendous power like Bamboo...the plant.

I remember you said you practiced an emptyhand art before, was it Shotokan or was it some TKD? How do you strike and how do you shadowbox? Is it linear, forceful body mecahnics you use or do you follow Phillipino boxing and Panantukan type movements? I never studied any 'hard' striking arts but I would say the same thing to you anyway.

If you want to punch correctly where the strike penetrates like a laser and all force is put into the target, through its surface then I would say punch Makiwara, focus pads or punch bag 1,000,000 times with constant analysis of your performance on each strike. Dont go crazy, dont waste a single strike. Each one must take you closer to perfection in body mechanics. Then transfer that form you develop to each shadow boxing session.

One is not better than the other IMHO. Both are useful but to punch correctly with maximum output where you can penetrate to split the target in half you must have true alignment in your entire skeleton and you must have a powerful and tight fist, wrist, elbow, shoulder, back, waist, legs, ankle and toes! ...Of course all of this work transmits into more effective palm strikes too!

This is all just my humble opinion, peace

[lakan_sampu]

here's the link, although that's not really my concern: YouTube - Mind Body and Kick Ass Moves - Pekiti Tirsia


I get that part of the shadow boxing, but my real concern is my punching. I trianed in shotokan karate before, but we don't do shadow boxing there-- JUST kata, hours and hours of kata, without bunkai, just kata. That's why I left that dojo already after realizing that I'll never learn anything better there. Remember the thread I started here before, the time when I was at par with our black belts in sparring? You get the idea. When I trained in shotokan again 6 months ago, I sucked at kata becaus of my new form, but I excelled in kumite becaus of my footwork and flow.

I'll do better the next time I try it. Thanks.

[zefff]

Oh yes I remember now! I thought it was Shotokan I just wasnt 100% sure.

I saw the vid and it reminds me of how much I love FMA! I cannot wait to get BJJ out of the way so I can go back to it one day soon!

I cant really say anything about the 'slapping' in the video because I didnt see anything in it and havent been taught anything like that. Maybe one of the CMA guys might have some theory on how it works?

[lakan_sampu]

What I think is that slapping action's easy to pull off when the opponent's vital organs are exposed as targets, i.e. what was shown in the vid.

[Wilhelm von Wankenstein]

Hello there again, lakansampu! It's been a while - good to see you again.

Before we go on - what kind of striking style are you aiming to develop through training?

[lakan_sampu]

I dunno, really. My striking style is mano-mano / panuntukan in form. I adopted that stance because it's close to what I use when training with knives. Although I'm pretty sure that I'm external rather than internal.

hope I answered your question correctly.

[Wilhelm von Wankenstein]

The line between external and internal is fuzzier than one might think, lakan sampu

What I meant is, are you throwing more linear strikes that require your skeleton to be aligned behind each one, or looser, more circular strikes with the feeling of throwing a stone or slapping someone with a sandbag, so to speak? There's a different methodology to training for each of the two, and the one zefff describes is probably better suited to linear, karate-style punching, though of course bags and mitts carry over into any striking methodology. Also, are you using open hands or closed fists primarily?

[lakan_sampu]

Yes, it IS fuzzy...

My striking is more linear-oriented, but then my footwork is angular.

I usually use slapping and open hand strikes into combinations (alternately)for distractions or follow-ups to punches and the likes. I also use open palms usually in drawing stop-hits. But I usually use closed fists for finishing blows.

[Wilhelm von Wankenstein]

Righto, sorry for the delayed reply. I couldn't access the forums yesterday. MartialFighter.com still doesn't completely like me, it seems

Anyway there are some drills you can do that will add weight and depth to your strikes, so to speak, both linear and angular.

Arm-swinging: Take a stance with one foot forward, then, with one hand on your hip, begin to whip the free arm through the air in vertical circles - vertical enough that the arm should clip your ear each time it passes your head. Alternate the direction of the circle every so many swings, and change the forward foot and repeat the process. Your entire arm and shoulder should be loose and relaxed and the power for the swings should be coming from the body and legs - in short, you should be spinning the arm fast enough that it will feel like it's going to fly off. Be sure to keep your posture throughout the exercise - the shoulders tend to hunch and the head tends to come forward. As you do this exercise, you will feel your hand fill with blood and get hot and tingly. After this feeling has been achieved, squeeze your hand into a fist a few times without interrupting the swings and then let the hand fill with blood again, repeating the process as many times as necessary. This will develop the circulatory system to your hand in both directions and pave the way to developing the ability to force blood to your hands at will.

As an extension to this exercise, you can start swinging your arms back and forth in different directions mimicking your combative strikes, whipping them from the waist, but the above exercise is the basis on which all is built. This drill primarily benefits the more angular strikes, but it carries over into linear strikes as well, particularly if you throw the fist like a stone. As an experiment, hit a pad or bag with a punch, then do enough swings to flush the hands and then hit it again. You will find that the strike will have more weight behind it.


Impact delivery: I normally prefer to train impact delivery (configuring the striking limb for maximal delivery of impact upon impact) on a live human body, but that demands that your partner must be well-trained in strike absorption, which may not be the case for you. In that case, a good substitute might be to strike dense but absorbent surfaces with some 'give' - bags filled with beans or loose sand are good, or banana tree stems, if you have access to them through your FMA training. At any rate, the goal isn't to whack them as hard as possible so much as to learn the optimal angles and hand configurations for delivering impact. When you strike, you should feel as little impact in your hand as possible while sinking into the target surface as much as possible or otherwise disrupting it. A good indication that you are achieving the latter without the former so much is if you manage to knock a big cloud of pulverised filling out of the bag - usually happens with good slaps. That's what the FMA master was talking about when he spoke of 'injecting power' into the target with a slap - you don't want it to stay in you or rebound back into you, but to go into the target and do damage

One posisble extension of this drill would be to mount the bags in a vertical configuration (or simply use a banana tree stem) and practice delivering slaps and knife-hand strikes as though you were cutting with a blade, aiming to deliver to and cut across the centreline. As you go, you can start to add footwork and rove around a bit.


Pushups: This helps develop bone alignment for closed-fist strikes and helps to supplement bagwork and makiwara training, which can be a bit traumatic to do in very high volume. The goal isn't to crank out as many pushups as possible, but rather to learn how to keep your balance on a relaxed fist and, in doing so, find your optimal alignment and sweet spot for punching. Holding a plank on your knuckles (ie. a frozen pushup position) or doing a pushup in slow motion also helps you feel the connection between your feet and your fists, which also helps striking power. Play around with the exercise and see what suits you.


That's all the drills I could suggest off the top of my head. Just add zefff's excellent recommendations and you should be good to go