Written by Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved
One main reason people study the martial arts are to develop
power, or at least a sense of power. I
started studying Karate at a point in my life when I felt pretty powerless and
the training gave me a sense of getting some of that power back. By spend hours upon hours at my local dojo
throwing punch after punch, and kick after kick, into the air I began to feel
that I was powerful and being a small kid that really helped my self-esteem.
The problems came later when I really began to test my
skills and see how powerful I really was.
At the age of about 12 I was a black belt in Taekwondo and studying
Ryuku Kenpo and, while it was clear that it was all “Karate”, what I was
learning in Ryuku Kenpo was so drastically different from Taekwondo that I
decided I needed to test things to see what worked and why.
I asked a lot of questions of my instructors, read lots of
books, spent hours in the dojo and at home hitting punching bags and homemade
striking pads, and of course getting into fights. I learned that while both arts taught the
reverse punch, they were different in their application and I found that I could
hit a lot harder with a Ryuku Kenpo reverse punch than a reverse punch from
Taekwondo; later I was floored to discover that I could hit a lot harder than
either method by doing simple western boxing techniques.
Every now and then I hear about studies that say this as well. In every study that I’ve been able to find is
seems that when tested the force delivered by a boxer’s punch seems to range
between 776 pounds of force per square inch on the low side to about 1,300
pounds of force per square inch on the high side. A popular 1985 study of professional boxer Frank
Bruno showed that he averaged about 920 pounds per square inch of force. (Note:
it should be noted that these figures were compiled in a laboratory setting
where boxers stood in one place and focused on punching as hard as they
could. In a ring where they have to move
around and worry about getting hit the numbers you’d see would undoubtedly be a
lot lower.)
When martial artists are given the same study and given the
opportunity to put the reverse punch up against the boxer’s cross the numbers
are considerably lower: in most tests
the force delivered by martial artists range between 325 to 412 pounds of force
per square inch.
If the martial arts, Karate in particular, are so
sophisticated and deadly why are our punches so much weaker?
The answer isn’t that difficult and can be found both by
looking at physics and what other arts teach.
For example, Taekwondo is largely Shotokan Karate which was developed by
Sensei Gichin Funakoshi. Sensei
Funakoshi grew up studying Ryuku Kenpo but then changed the art from the
effective fighting system that it was to a greatly watered down version
designed to improve the spiritual and physical development of school
children. He wrote about this in his autobiography
about how his “Karate-Do” was a far cry from the skills he learned from his
teachers. Many things taught in
Karate-Do are actually designed to NOT hurt people so it would be safe for
children to practice them on each other during school. However, when we look at the original teachings
in Ryuku Kenpo and even the Chinese styles of Crying Crane and others that
formed the original arts we can see that there are a lot of differences in the
teachings that make the techniques more effective.
The first thing that robs a Karate punch of power is the
lack of intent. I’ve wrote about this numerous
times, about how boxers tend to be able to beat up martial arts practitioners largely
because of their intent, or in other words…boxers train to hit people and
martial artists train to “preform techniques.”
Every time a boxer works their pads, the heavy bag, the speed back, spars
with their partner, or even shadow boxes the air, with each and every punch
they’re thinking about hitting their opponent and putting them down. Boxing is the art of hitting people with
punches and they do it very well.
Contrast this with a typical Karate class; students and
teachers walk up and down the floor punching and kicking the air. In most schools they don’t actually hit
things with their techniques very often and when they do throw a punch or kick
they’re thinking about how their arm is positioned, where their knee is,
etc. More often than not a martial
artist is focused on preforming the technique a certain way and that is a huge
problem the martial arts face today if they expect their practitioners to be
able to survive a real violent assault.
Sure, you have to get down the performance side of techniques but once
that is done you should spend your time actually using it; learn to actually
hit things with it and when you hit things with it start to build the intent of
actually putting people down with your strikes.
By getting used to hitting things and by starting to develop
that intent to deliver the force to put a person down will by itself greatly
increase the power and effectiveness of all your techniques.
The second thing that robs the Karate punch of power is
really the context of the punch. While I
do, from time to time, break boards or other objects for training I believe
that board breaking is largely to blame for the lack of power in Karate
punches.
I remember I was told that it took the same amount of force
to break a pine board that it does to break a rib bone so if I could break a
single board then I could break a rib and if I could break 3 or 4 boards with
my punch then I should pretty much just register my hands as deadly weapons. The problem is that while there are some
great benefits to breaking boards, there really isn’t any correlation between
the experience of breaking a board and the experience of hitting the human
body.
To break a board you need to snap your technique so the
force is delivered in a very short burst in a very small area. Since boards are stiff and don’t give they
fight you and break as long as you have that good snap. Hitting a human body is the opposite; hitting
the body is like hitting a big sack full of liquid and it bends, compresses,
and gives in order to keep from breaking.
If I hit someone in the ribs what will happen is firstly the
soft tissue of muscle and fat will absorb some of the force, then the body will
move away from my punch and it may bend, curl, and rotate to further dissipate
the force of the punch. After that the
ribs will actually compress about 3 inches to avoid breaking. If you want to hurt the things inside the
human body you have to focus not on snapping your punch which will largely be
absorbed by everything I just mentioned, but instead you have to focus on
driving your punch through and penetrating with your blow.
If you really want to be able to cause injuries and put
someone down when you need to, you need to focus on driving your punches and
pushing them through the target. Since the
ribs can compress about 3 inches make sure your punch penetrates at least 6
inches, or better yet why not 12?
The problem with this is that this “driving force” is very
effective when it comes to injuring a person and putting them down but it is
not what you want to do when breaking a board.
In fact, I remember when I first learned the difference between “snapping
force” and “driving force” and when I did my board breaking went downhill. I had a really good right reverse punch that
could break 3 boards every time, but when I started to focus more on
self-defense and “driving force” I ended up either pushing my board holders
backward or, a few times, pushing the boards out of their grip. That is when I really stopped breaking boards
because it wasn’t fun anymore.
Karate largely teaches “snapping force” both because of
Shotokan’s “Do” design and focus on breaking boards that requires that kind of
power. When you focus on that kind of
power there are two specific things you end up doing that really suck the force
out of your punches.
The first thing that board breaking and the use of “snapping
force” teaches you that robs you of power is to make contact with your target
very briefly. I see all over the place,
schools teach people to punch and then retract their punch right away. Some schools teach to retract your punch
faster than the speed at which you threw it.
The problem is, in the same way that the longer you hold on to a hot pan
the more you get burned, there is a direct correlation between the amount of
time your fist has contact with the target and the amount of force you deliver
into your target. If you punch your
target and pull back right away then most of the force generated in your punch
will be spent retracting the punch and won’t go into your target where it does “work.” The best method is to punch your target and
then push your fist into the target until the target moves away from your
fist. That way all (or most) of the
force you generate isn’t wasted.
I see people punching and kicking pads that their partner is
holding and in their “snapping force is good” mentality what they’re looking
for to know they’ve landed a “good punch” is largely the sound. They want a good snapping sound when their
fist hits the pad; however, it would be so much more beneficial if they focused
on going through the pad and knocking their partner backwards. One of the drills my students do is one
partner stands naturally and holds a kicking shield tight against their body
and their partner has to hit them until they knock then all the way to the
other side of the room; and then they switch who has the shield and the other
partner knocks them back across the room.
By doing this student’s learn how to actually use the punch so much more
than they ever will by breaking boards.
The second power robbing thing that board breaking teaches
is the improper timing of the hip. When
you throw a punch you get most of the force by driving forward with the legs,
rotating the body, and throwing your hip forwards. The moments while your hip is traveling
forwards are the most powerful moments in the punch.
After I had received my 3rd degree black belt I
had an instructor tell me that I was ready to learn one of the closely guarded
secrets of Karate. He called it the “Double
Whip Principle.” He said the best way to
generate force in a punch is to move your hip first and fist second. He told me to start by bringing my hip back
and then throwing my hip forwards and right about the time my hip was square I
should start to throw my punch and finish my rotation. I have to admit this was very powerful. This works by increasing the acceleration of
your fist which can greatly increase your power. While I will always cherish this lesson it
only took me a few weeks to find problems with this.
The “Double Whip Principle” is in fact a fundamental
principle in Karate, and while not largely taught in the US from my experience,
it is taught in both mainland Japan and Okinawa. This technique generates a great amount of “snapping
force” but it doesn’t generate “driving force.”
If you think about it, if I need to drive my punch a minimum
of 6 inches into my target to make sure I break that rib then what happens at
the end of my punch is the most important.
Since the time when my hip is in motion is the most power portion of my
punch then it needs to come at the end as well.
I’ve seen more and more people in the martial arts community
start to teach this and I think it is a great thing. If you want to not just snap your punch and
leave all your force at the surface of your attacker but rather drive you punch
into your attacker so the force enters his body and defeats its attempt to
absorb and compress to not be injured then you have to focus on the end of the
punch and that hip needs to move second.
The best method for doing a reverse punch with power that I’ve
ever seen is to start by bending your knees to lower your weight and ground
yourself, then bring your right hip back so that it is at about 45 degrees from
your target. Chamber the punch and start
by pushing with your legs and shooting your arm straight out with you palm
facing the ceiling and your elbow tucked in and facing the floor. Once your elbow moves forward enough to be
flush with your side you both start to rotate your arm like a traditional punch
(I always hit with my fist at a 45 degree angle) and you should throw your hip
forward and rotate your body into the punch, finishing with an exhale and
pushing your fist through the target, allowing the target to move backward and
way from your fist.
By doing this you’ll notice that when your fist hits the
target your arm isn’t straight and your punch isn’t done like it is in a normal
reverse punch; rather your arm still has a good 6 or 7 inches to move and your
hip still has a good 3 to 6 inches to move forward making sure you drive
everything inside of your target.
While I’ve never used any electronics to actually test the
pounds per square inch of force delivered in a reverse punch delivered in this
manner I do know from personal experience that I can hit just as hard if not
harder than any boxer I know. I can have
a partner stand naturally and hold a kicking shield tightly against their body
and with a single reverse punch I can knock them backwards 4 to 5 steps and
they all agree that if the pad was not there absorbing the impact they’d all be
on the ground and wouldn’t be getting up.
Now while that is great for me, the important thing is that when I hold
the pad and they hit it I have the same response. It is the technique that works regardless of
who does it.