Palm facing upward, or palm facing sideway?

[Kung Fu Wang]

Do you really need to turn your palm facing upward to block your opponent's punch?

After blocking, if you want to grab your opponent's arm with facing upward palm, you have to rotate your hand 270 degree. If your palm faces sideway, you only need to rotate your hand 180 degree.

Also do you realy have advantage to block with the inside edge of your arm than the back surface of your arm?

What's your opinion on this?

 

[skribs]

Palm up keeps the elbow tucked in slightly more. This makes it harder for your opponent to get an underhook, and makes it easier to follow up with a palm strike.

There's also the act of twisting itself. Done at the last moment of a strike or block, the twist adds an extra burst of speed. If my inner forearm bone rotates around the outside edge of my arm 180 degree, that can be 6 inches of travel. If that's done at the moment of impact, that's a much harder hit to your opponent's arm when you block. This rotation is also a big reason why Taekwondo forms (and I'm assuming Karate and Tang Soo Do forms) have that crisp "pop", is that twist at the end.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Do you really need to turn your palm facing upward to block your opponent's punch?

No, you don't need to, but it certainly has its uses. I think the primary advantage is that it hooks the attacker's arm so the block not only contacts the side of the punch, but the back of the hand also contacts the top of the punching arm. This helps keep the attacker from quickly escaping the block and allows more control of the attacking arm. This block is done 3 times at the start of my style's Seisan kata (of Chinese origin).

do you realy have advantage to block with the inside edge of your arm than the back surface of your arm?

Isshinryu blocking is usually done with the outside/back side of the arm so the forearm muscle and both bones take the impact. This also allows the blocking hand to have a back knuckle strike built into the block to cause further damage and pain. This follows our doctrine of blocks actually being strikes, at least in part.

makes it easier to follow up with a palm strike.

This too.

I'm assuming Karate and Tang Soo Do forms) have that crisp "pop", is that twist at the end.

At least some styles do.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

No, you don't need to, but it certainly has its uses. I think the primary advantage is that it hooks the attacker's arm so the block not only contacts the side of the punch, but the back of the hand also contacts the top of the punching arm. This helps keep the attacker from quickly escaping the block and allows more control of the attacking arm. This block is done 3 times at the start of my style's Seisan kata (of Chinese origin).

Isshinryu blocking is usually done with the outside/back side of the arm so the forearm muscle and both bones take the impact. This also allows the blocking hand to have a back knuckle strike built into the block to cause further damage and pain. This follows our doctrine of blocks actually being strikes, at least in part.

This too.

At least some styles do.

All of this. 100%.

 

[WingChunIsNoSport]

More options with the tan sao . turning your hand is what pak sao is for and also, just throw your arm out like you are deflecting a punch. First do it with a tan sao, then turn your palm/arm and do it, then tell me you can't notice a huge difference in how much the tan sao is much more protective and turning your palm narrows your arm which opens you up. The tan also just flows so much more naturally in my opinion.

At the end of the day, just remember that our gameplan is to mess up their gameplan and if you don't know their gameplan, you can't really mess around and what you do has to be effective in immediately mitigating an attack from, while attacking.

Have you tested this at all btw? You seem to be intent on grabbing the arm but you can't go into a fight fixated on things in my opinion. You lose focus of what is really coming at you, which is what you need to end asap. If you can pull off a huen sao/lop sao in enough time to pull him in, awesome but in reality, our foundational though process is constant forward pressure, deflecting and taking the opening we get to setup a finishing strike. No point in dancing.

 

[GojuTommy]

This is the sort of pointless minutiae that has robbed TMAs of any effectiveness.
It doesn’t really matter where your palm faces, you’re not grabbing someone’s arm after you block a punch, particularly if the arm or hand isn’t already in the palm when you do your block.

 

[skribs]

This is the sort of pointless minutiae that has robbed TMAs of any effectiveness.
It doesn’t really matter where your palm faces, you’re not grabbing someone’s arm after you block a punch, particularly if the arm or hand isn’t already in the palm when you do your block.

I've seen people do this in UFC. One of Rhonda Rousey's fastest finishes comes to mind, where she grabbed the arm and transitioned into a hip throw. But sure, slap that "TMA sucks" drum all you want.

 

[GojuTommy]

I've seen people do this in UFC. One of Rhonda Rousey's fastest finishes comes to mind, where she grabbed the arm and transitioned into a hip throw. But sure, slap that "TMA sucks" drum all you want.

What fight exactly?