# Tightness, and throwing an effective punch



## PhotonGuy (Jan 10, 2016)

To throw an effective punch you do have to be loose. If you're all tense and tight when you throw the punch than the punch will be slow and ineffective. You've got to relax when throwing the punch, experience in the martial arts should teach you that. However, you do want to be tight at the moment of impact. If you're not your wrist could bend when you make impact which you don't want. I used to have that problem myself. Anyway, what I've been taught is that at the moment of impact you want your hand to be as hard as a rock but the rest of your body loose. By making your hand as hard as a rock at the moment of impact you will avoid bending your wrist but you want to try to keep the rest of your arm and the rest of your body loose. Hand strengthening exercises can help with this. Prior to impact you want your hand loose but at the moment of impact you want to make your hand hard while keeping the rest of your body loose and then to quickly retract it.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 10, 2016)

PhotonGuy said:


> To throw an effective punch you do have to be loose. If you're all tense and tight when you throw the punch than the punch will be slow and ineffective. You've got to relax when throwing the punch, experience in the martial arts should teach you that. However, you do want to be tight at the moment of impact. If you're not your wrist could bend when you make impact which you don't want. I used to have that problem myself. Anyway, what I've been taught is that at the moment of impact you want your hand to be as hard as a rock but the rest of your body loose. By making your hand as hard as a rock at the moment of impact you will avoid bending your wrist but you want to try to keep the rest of your arm and the rest of your body loose. Hand strengthening exercises can help with this. Prior to impact you want your hand loose but at the moment of impact you want to make your hand hard while keeping the rest of your body loose and then to quickly retract it.


I don't subscribe to this point of view. You really need only tighten the striking surface; so, just the first two knuckles, or last three, depending on how you punch. This method is basically touching people with your knuckles, and more a, "Let the weight of the weapon do the work", thing, but yeah, no rock hard fists. It makes you slow.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jan 10, 2016)

All true. And the vertical fist and fist formation of Isshin-Ryu are ideal for this. Thumb on top, keeps wrist straight.


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## Danny T (Jan 10, 2016)

One need be relaxed and at the point of impact I want my fist compressed and dense yet the arm is relaxed.


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## drop bear (Jan 10, 2016)

Whole body tight and braced on impact. Otherwise the force is going to escape back.


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## jks9199 (Jan 10, 2016)

I agree with drop bear...  

(pick your jaws up off the floor!)

If your body is not supporting the technique, if you try to fire a punch off of cooked spaghetti arms and jello legs, the force will go nowhere -- according to my system's power generation principles.  

Doesn't mean there aren't ways to do relaxed power punches, but even then, the structure has to be here to support it if you want it to be powerful.


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## PhotonGuy (Jan 10, 2016)

Touch Of Death said:


> I don't subscribe to this point of view. You really need only tighten the striking surface; so, just the first two knuckles, or last three, depending on how you punch. This method is basically touching people with your knuckles, and more a, "Let the weight of the weapon do the work", thing, but yeah, no rock hard fists. It makes you slow.


Well you only want a rock hard fist at the moment of impact. Prior to impact you want you hand and the rest of your body to be loose otherwise it will slow you down but at the moment of impact that's when you want your hand to be rock hard, but it would be interesting to see how it would work if you only tighten the knuckles you're striking with, I should try that out.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jan 10, 2016)

Some people let the impact close the hand. If your fist formation is correct this can work. I tend to go for a middle approach. Keep the hands formed properly but loose. As the hand moves towards target, begin to tighten. Tenseness of the body upon impact ensures impact is aligned with arm, shoulder, spine, legs, ground. Hips provide power, fist conforms to impact zone. Maximum power delivered, hand uninjured. Isshin-Ryu baby.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 10, 2016)

PhotonGuy said:


> Well you only want a rock hard fist at the moment of impact. Prior to impact you want you hand and the rest of your body to be loose otherwise it will slow you down but at the moment of impact that's when you want your hand to be rock hard, but it would be interesting to see how it would work if you only tighten the knuckles you're striking with, I should try that out.


Also, you make the fist, just before impact. You can practice while driving down the road.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 10, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Some people let the impact close the hand. If your fist formation is correct this can work. I tend to go for a middle approach. Keep the hands formed properly but loose. As the hand moves towards target, begin to tighten. Tenseness of the body upon impact ensures impact is aligned with arm, shoulder, spine, legs, ground. Hips provide power, fist conforms to impact zone. Maximum power delivered, hand uninjured. Isshin-Ryu baby.


That is a funny way of pronouncing Kenpo.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 10, 2016)

jks9199 said:


> I agree with drop bear...
> 
> (pick your jaws up off the floor!)
> 
> ...


consider throwing stones at someone, and you never back it up with any sort of form. The rock was thrown, and it did what it did.


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## PhotonGuy (Jan 11, 2016)

I just tried throwing the reverse punch on a target and just tightening the digits where the contact is focused as Touch Of Death mentioned. It really does work, for me its more effective than tightening up the entire hand.


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## Paul_D (Jan 12, 2016)

With stepping punches (oi-tsuki) the point of contact is mid point of stepping through to your stance (the stance just begin the position you end up in after the punch, not the position you get into to throw the punch) so I'm not sure how you would tighten your legs?


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## Human Makiwara (Jan 12, 2016)

PhotonGuy said:


> I just tried throwing the reverse punch on a target and just tightening the digits where the contact is focused as Touch Of Death mentioned. It really does work, for me its more effective than tightening up the entire hand.



I thought this was very interesting too.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jan 12, 2016)

Paul_D said:


> With stepping punches (oi-tsuki) the point of contact is mid point of stepping through to your stance (the stance just begin the position you end up in after the punch, not the position you get into to throw the punch) so I'm not sure how you would tighten your legs?



We finish the step before the punch lands with seiken or jodan oi tsuki punches. Not saying it is the only way to do it, but it is how we do it.


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## Paul_D (Jan 12, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> We finish the step before the punch lands with seiken or jodan oi tsuki punches. Not saying it is the only way to do it, but it is how we do it.


Ok, thanks.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 12, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> We finish the step before the punch lands with seiken or jodan oi tsuki punches. Not saying it is the only way to do it, but it is how we do it.


There is a whole world of contact before the settle.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jan 12, 2016)

Touch Of Death said:


> There is a whole world of contact before the settle.



Not saying it can't happen, but we do not practice it that way.  Granted that the 'settle' and the 'impact' occur together, but no, we do not make contact before our stepping foot hits the ground and we establish ourselves.  I'm not saying we camp out on it; it's fast; but not a mid-air strike.  Again, not claiming to be right; just stating how we do it.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 12, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Not saying it can't happen, but we do not practice it that way.  Granted that the 'settle' and the 'impact' occur together, but no, we do not make contact before our stepping foot hits the ground and we establish ourselves.  I'm not saying we camp out on it; it's fast; but not a mid-air strike.  Again, not claiming to be right; just stating how we do it.


I almost wonder if it is, but you aren't there yet; because, in our system, depth is always first, then height, then width. Meaning, the attack will always start just prior, and then you tweak it as it goes. Anyways, there is no true with. Bio-mechanically, something should always be first.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jan 12, 2016)

Touch Of Death said:


> I almost wonder if it is, but you aren't there yet; because, in our system, depth is always first, then height, then width. Meaning, the attack will always start just prior, and then you tweak it as it goes. Anyways, there is no true with. Bio-mechanically, something should always be first.



I don't even know what that collection of words means.  It's like you put a few sentences in a blender and this is how it came out.  

Joking aside, I am just going to say this once more.  Your way is fine for you.  It's not how we do it.  If you think that's wrong, OK, no problem, you're free to think that.  If you think that's *not* how we do it, you'd better be my sensei, because otherwise you have no standing to tell me how *my* system works.  Are we clear?


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 12, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> I don't even know what that collection of words means.  It's like you put a few sentences in a blender and this is how it came out.
> 
> Joking aside, I am just going to say this once more.  Your way is fine for you.  It's not how we do it.  If you think that's wrong, OK, no problem, you're free to think that.  If you think that's *not* how we do it, you'd better be my sensei, because otherwise you have no standing to tell me how *my* system works.  Are we clear?


Pink Opaque.


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## drop bear (Jan 12, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Some people let the impact close the hand. If your fist formation is correct this can work. I tend to go for a middle approach. Keep the hands formed properly but loose. As the hand moves towards target, begin to tighten. Tenseness of the body upon impact ensures impact is aligned with arm, shoulder, spine, legs, ground. Hips provide power, fist conforms to impact zone. Maximum power delivered, hand uninjured. Isshin-Ryu baby.



The issue you might have is as the other guy moves around you can catch your hand before it is ready. 

Headbutting the fist can do this.


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## drop bear (Jan 12, 2016)

Touch Of Death said:


> consider throwing stones at someone, and you never back it up with any sort of form. The rock was thrown, and it did what it did.



There is form for throwing things.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 12, 2016)

drop bear said:


> There is form for throwing things.


Not after, before.


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## drop bear (Jan 12, 2016)

jks9199 said:


> I agree with drop bear...
> 
> (pick your jaws up off the floor!)
> 
> ...



Ok.  A simple idea.  It is the difference between throwing a water baloon at someone and throwing a frozen water baloon at them.


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## drop bear (Jan 12, 2016)

Touch Of Death said:


> Not after, before.



Not sure what you mean.


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## Touch Of Death (Jan 12, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Not sure what you mean.


Think through, not to.


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## BryceSPQR (Jan 19, 2016)

Completely soft, = weak punch
Completely tight = weak punch

Fluidly moving between hard and soft = maximum power.

There is a time for fluidity and a time for hardness. I was always told to be soft until the moment of impact then to tighten up for a split second on impact. I have found that it is impossible to accurately describe the sensation over text. 

my website - www.northernshotokan.com


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## PhotonGuy (Feb 3, 2016)

drop bear said:


> Ok.  A simple idea.  It is the difference between throwing a water baloon at someone and throwing a frozen water baloon at them.



That makes sense. At the moment of impact you want your hand to be like the frozen water balloon, hard. Before impact you want your hand to be loose. As for the rest of your body, you don't want it to be like a wet noodle but you want it relaxed, much like a hose with water going through it. 

Now, on the topic of punches, there is also a debate if punches should land vertically or horizontally. I would say it depends on the target.


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## drop bear (Feb 3, 2016)

PhotonGuy said:


> That makes sense. At the moment of impact you want your hand to be like the frozen water balloon, hard. Before impact you want your hand to be loose. As for the rest of your body, you don't want it to be like a wet noodle but you want it relaxed, much like a hose with water going through it.
> 
> Now, on the topic of punches, there is also a debate if punches should land vertically or horizontally. I would say it depends on the target.




Thumb up. So the arm is locked in a 90% angle or you loose structure.


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