Theory: in most technical disagreements, both sides are correct.

[skribs]

If you ever wanted to make a distinction between street and sports. Closelining is one of the better examples. It works because you are running which you almost never do in a sports fight context. But may do in a street fight.

I closelined a guy once who was picking up a bollard. So I had to run flat tilt to make the distance.

Quick question: what is "picking up a bollard"?

 

[drop bear]

Quick question: what is "picking up a bollard"?

It is the metal heavy thing that holds the ropes in front of pubs.

 

[Buka]

If you ever wanted to make a distinction between street and sports. Closelining is one of the better examples. It works because you are running which you almost never do in a sports fight context. But may do in a street fight.

I closelined a guy once who was picking up a bollard. So I had to run flat tilt to make the distance.

I'll bet that was one sweet closeline.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Thumb down. So it goes the other way.

Okay, so just rotating past the ridge-hand position to get back to the knuckles?

 

[drop bear]

Okay, so just rotating past the ridge-hand position to get back to the knuckles?

It is a sort of the back of the hammer fist or a back fist. It just depends where I am. And where I can reach.

Striking someone in turtle does that a bit as well. I might reach over their head and sort of hammer fist them.

 

[drop bear]

I'll bet that was one sweet closeline.

Yeah I was pretty impressed with that one at the time.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

As a matter of fact, yeah, we worked that a lot. I never used it in competition, I never used any shady technique in any competition, ever, honest. But I've sure cracked a few people with that forearm strike in other aspects of my life. Works pretty darn good.

Joe was notorious for throwing that "ridge arm" as he frequently called it. I try to avoid the PC arguments of what's proper and what's not, but please keep in mind that Martial competitions were completely different than what they would later become and certainly what they are today.

In the following clip you can get a pretty good look at one of them in slo mo starting at the 3:40 mark, and again, in much clearer detail starting at the 6:10 mark.

I remember that particular competition very well, it was the first time any kind of Martial fighting was on prime time, network TV. It was my birthday and that's a pretty nice present for a young Karate man. It was rerun again, again on prime time, the week after Christmas. We were driving down to Fort Lauderdale, stopped and got a motel room in Maryland, watched it again, checked out and continued our trip.

Joe used to teach that technique in self defense class. One of the things he used to do with it was - after the hit with the inside forearm, he would immediately cup the back of your neck with his palm and yank you forward, down or to the side, into a knee, a sweep, an elbow, an uppercut or various other things. I still use all of them to this day. Especially that "ridge hand". Oh, I smiled so wide when I typed that.

Even in that low quality video you can still see pretty clearly that he was hitting with a forearm strike, but the commentators keep calling it a ridge hand and the ref allowed it. I wonder whether they didn’t see what Joe was doing or if they just didn’t care.

 

[isshinryuronin]

The ridge hand is used in American Kenpo as is the inverted back knuckle and they're pretty much interchangeable. I will use the ridge hand to the face or side of head, but if a little closer in, I am thrilled to use a forearm strike.

I throw them, not in a wide arc, but as a punch, just to the side (3 or 4 inches) of the target. At the last millisecond before the moment of impact, I rotate the arm and make contact. The straight trajectory gives the speed and the rotation transfers the power into the hit and adds a "snap" to it. As a forearm strike, it has tremendous power.

 

[Buka]

Even in that low quality video you can still see pretty clearly that he was hitting with a forearm strike, but the commentators keep calling it a ridge hand and the ref allowed it. I wonder whether they didn’t see what Joe was doing or if they just didn’t care.

I’m not really sure. I’ve always considered referees to be the most common users of Braille, but part of me thinks they just didn’t care.

 

[dvcochran]

I’m not really sure. I’ve always considered referees to be the most common users of Braille, but part of me thinks they just didn’t care.

I am sure most of us know this but it sure is a Lot easier to see some things from the bleachers vs. being 3 feet from the action. That said, I imagine things were a Lot looser back then. Hell, did anybody really know the rules?