“Boards don’t hit back.” – Bruce Lee, Enter the Dragon When you talk to people about martial arts training, one of the first questions that usually comes up is the issue of striking power.
As Master Funakoshi goes on to state, “Those who think that the martial arts are about plucking out ribs and the like are fooling around in the leaves and branches of a great tree without any conception of its trunk.” Those who are familiar with our thoughts on this have heard us state numerous times that when many of these “Break artists” strike people, rarely if ever are they able to deliver their strikes effectively.
Even in their tool development, they fail to answer the mail because their methodology is not based on developing the strike for reality, but for show or sport.
TECHNIQUES – While we don’t advocate “Forms” or “Katas,” there is a small group of techniques within the art such as entry and preemptive striking techniques and finishing moves which form the basis of the Close Combat Karate training program.
A chop is not just a chop but a “Bullet” shot from the whole body’s explosion into the strike.
You need to do the same thing with your striking in order to develop what is referred to as your “Touch” with your tools.
If you’re just flailing with your arms, there is no way you can develop your proprioception and touch when striking for maximum effectiveness.
A sense of position We can feel the alignment of our body in relation to the tool we are striking with.
A sense of force This is the amount of effort and subtle muscle control needed to ensure we are striking with the proper amount of force when bouncing people away or penetrating them with strikes.
Developing Your Sense of Touch When Strriking The reason why you have to develop a sense of touch when you strike people is because unlike a board or even a heavy bag, the human body is mostly water, and is flexible.
Developing The Striking Ridge Before getting into all of this, I want to note that many people think that in order to develop your hands to strike with great power, your need to engage in some form of psychotic tool development methods.
In many older Kung Fu manuals, the surface that makes contact when fighting is called a “Ridge.” The ridge is pretty much any surface you choose to strike with.
Whether moving slowly or quickly, ensure that your body is properly aligned behind the strike.
If striking with the side of the hand, ensure that the thumb is fully extended, fingers are together and that you strike with the side of the palm and not the fingers, because the fingers generally lack to bone structure to be an effective strike from this angle.
Key Points For Strike Development Remember to strike only within your Sphere of Influence and no further, because no matter how powerful the strike, sending anything beyond your Sphere will cause you to become overextended, off-balance, and thus out of position when striking.
From there, begin to add power and strike the pads or bag, starting with single strikes and working up to multiple hits of the same strike.
Practice developing the striking ridges, whether striking with a little force or just touching as lightly as a feather, by aligning your body to the best of your ability.
Striking A Swinging Bag Or Fighting Man Dummy Now you want to take this to the next level by performing all of your strikes against a heavy bag or the I&I Fighting Man Dummy.
Start off slowly, lightly touching the bag, then gradually increase the amount of striking force.
Finally, you want to mix up your strikes, moving from side to side on the bag and progressing to moving around the bag, striking fluidly with any weapon of your choice, adding knee strikes to the mix.
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