Stop All Of That Punching!

© COPYRIGHT 2010 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – February 2010 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

American Combato
Seattle Combatives


THE normal, properly clenched fist is certainly a viable weapon. In fact, when that fist belongs to a professional boxer it is regarded under the law as a "deadly weapon". Whether this should or should not be the case is arguable; but unless we‘re talking about someone on the order of the late Mas Oyama, or Hidetaka Nishiyama, etc., please believe us, the fist is only accidentally a "deadly weapon" if it belongs to the statistically average karate exponent. Or to a ju-jutsu man, etc.

And if the exponent happens to be a female, or if the ju-jutsu "man" happens to be a “woman”, then the use of the fist, per se by that person in a seriously dangerous emergency is SUICIDAL.

We are all too well aware that there will be numerous individuals who will disagree with us, and certainly that is their privilege. However, we stand by our assertion, and we hope that our readers will at least reconsider their clenched fist punching in the dojo, and factor in the experiences of war, and of actual, real world close combat on the mean streets of the world’s cities.

The clenched fist, in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense, should be restricted to soft body targets. The STERNUM, the SOLAR PLEXUS, the LIVER, the SPLEEN, the BLADDER and TESTICLES area, and the KIDNEYS. A quick jab with the fist into the nose may sometimes be a good setup shot; but one had better close in fast with some truly destructive action following such a punch, or a hardened, street fighter/violent criminal adversary will merely suck it up, and proceed to kill you.

Be realistic. Who among the readership of this Newsletter, for example, has not, in some fight at some time, been punched? Are you dead? Did it drop you instantly? Did you even notice it? Or — perhaps more to the point — have you, as a martial arts student, ever found yourself needing to defend yourself for real, and finding that your "lethal punches" (that cracked so easily through insentient pine boards) were not all that bothersome to your attacker?

Clenched fist punching requires more than "makiwara training" to make it effective. It demands the advantage, which few of us possess, of having been born with naturally heavy bones, large and strong hands, and a propensity for coordinated hitting. Boxing — not karate — teaches the right way to punch with the clenched fists. However, boxing is a sporting/competitive form of fighting; it is not "combat".

For combat the OPEN HAND is almost always preferable as a weapon.

These should be your primary, mainstay "natural hand weapons" if you are training for self-defense and unarmed close combat:

• The handaxe chop

• The chinjab smash

• The tiger‘s claw thrust

• The extended fingertips thrust

• The ear box

Those five natural hand weapons constitute the cream of the very finest and most reliable open hand blows upon which an individual ought to rely in actual individual combat. Notice, with great educational benefit, that NOT A SINGLE ONE of those blows is permissible in any sporting/competitive venue! (So much for "sporting competition" as preparation for close combat!)

That list of five basic blows by no means exhausts the options of "open hand" techniques that are eminently viable in serious combat. There are arm strikes, elbow smashes, reverse handblade strikes, fingertip jabs (in addition to thrusts), and all sorts of variants of heelpalm strikes, from different angles and positions, as well as finger strangulation methods, that have their place in an extensive, long-term curriculum and training program in comprehensive close combat and self-defense. However, anyone who will make it his business to MASTER those five simple blows, will be fifty times better prepared to stop a real world assailant thereby, than would a "competition champion" whose forte in hand blows was his clenched fist normal punching action.

It is not merely that the blows enumerated are more powerful than clenched fist punching. That they are, but they offer something of equal or often even greater importance and value to the combatant: Those blows better enable the body’s most vital target areas to be accessed and destroyed with focused precision, than clenched fist punching offers.

Do not be misled about this. There is no rational disputation of the fact that the open hand blows of unarmed combat are vastly more reliable for anyone to employ, than are the clenched fists, in actual combat. Period. One of the reasons why the clenched fists are universally utilized in virtually every sporting/competitive venue where percussionary skills are the mainstay is because clenched fist normal punching is only MINIMALLY harmful and likely to result in serious injury or death. In close combat the opposite standard must be our guide to technique selection — or we are preparing to die.

"But what if I like to emphasize punching when I train, and if I believe sincerely in my ability to make punching work for me?"

Years ago we had an aunt who (with the help of her less than honest husband — regrettably, an uncle of ours) convinced herself that, because she "liked to paint" she was, therefore, good at it.

She and her husband (quite possibly, only she) were the ONLY people on earth who truly in their heart-of-hearts saw the smudges and streaks that she ruined perfectly good blank canvasses with, as "art". "Garbage" was a better and much more accurate designation for the laughably ridiculous blotches of junk that more closely resembled a monkey‘s attempts at finger painting than they did anything intentionally produced by a human being using brushes and oil paints. But — doubtless right up to the time of her passing (with the enthusiastic support of her attorney-husband) — this desecrator of canvasses believed, because she wanted to believe, that she was "an artist". The obituary placed by our uncle that read: "______________ , artist, passed away on ________" approximated, in its logic and accuracy, placing an obituary for a gibbon that had been caged at the Bronx Zoo and had died, saying: "Gomer the gibbon, debonair gentleman/entertainer/noted avant garde philosopher, passed away on 10 November."

It doesn‘t matter what you subjectively feel. The facts are what matter. And, concerning the fact about what works best in hand-to-hand combat, the hands down TRUTH, whether anyone cares to accept it or not, is: open hand blows.

You really should discover and accept the facts before an emergency strikes. It may just be a "lesson" that costs you your life, if you insist upon waiting for the emergency.

Our aunt never sold one painting. She was supported and insulated from reality by the unconscionable shyster whom she had married. There may not be anything or anyone to support you in an emergency but your ability. And even if some deluded fool were to write of a "great warrior‘s passing" in your obituary, it would not bring you back to life.