

In last week's Fighting Motives: The Kingdom Without Weapons, we discussed the fascinating story of Okinawa which has been disarmed since the 15th century and consequently developed a flourishing martial arts tradition. In the course of that article we touched briefly on karate's Chinese origins and on the body conditioning found in Okinawan karate.

Today I want to talk a little about the reason for these old school conditioning methods, and the overall weakness of the human fist.

The Problem with the Human Hand

If you didn't already know, the fundamental problem facing any kind of martial artist or fighter is that the human hand is absolutely rubbish as a weapon. It is made up of 27 different bones, in a sack of meat. When you hit stuff, they wobble around as if to beg you not to do it again.

Our hand is dexterous and our opposable thumb puts us miles ahead of our competitive species, but what humans don't have, which so many animals do, is an effective means of defending themselves or attacking others.

Almost every great puncher in the combat sports world has broken a bone in one of their hands at some point, and it noticeably affects their fighting. If you suffer from “brittle hands” your repeated injuries can enormously affect your career. Fedor Emlianenko's highly anticipated match with Mirko Filipovic was delayed several times. One of these was because of Fedor breaking his thumb on Gary Goodridges' head in a one sided beating.

Part of that was due to Fedor's reckless thumb down, long style hooks. Sometimes called “Russian hooks”, occasionally called “Sambo punches”, they're pretty uncommon universally, but when you do see them it's normally out of former Eastern block fighters. I can't give you any definitive theories on why this is, but I suspect it is because of the straight line movement and looping punch strategy which the U.S.S.R brought to Olympic boxing while the U.S.A boxing team was studying lateral movement. Really the idea of national styles is less relevant now than ever, but in the days of the iron curtain there was an arms race of fighting strategies.

But it's not just punching wrong which breaks hands, and that is the problem. Prince Naseem Hamed was a thunderouspuncher despite his small frame. He achieved this by using his powerful legs to throw his full bodyweight into every punch.



Notice how Hamed uses the corkscrew uppercut to jump his lead foot outside of his opponent's. This gives Hamed the dominant angle and places his opponent in front of the left shoulder and, therefore, the left straight.

By the end of his career, however, he was reportedly having cortisone injections into his hands after each fight because they would swell to double their original size. Joe Calzaghe finished his career amid criticisms of being a “slapper”, but Calzaghe started his career as a “banger”—repeated hand injuries forced him to change his style. The great Willie Pep used to joke that his brittle hands were because “the referee kept stepping on them!”

The list goes on, and on...and on. If you have been around the fight game long enough, you know someone who has broken their hand in a fight and you know how much it changes their ability to perform.

The Boxer's Fist

One of the major problems in combat sports is the learning of the so called “boxers fist”. Many boxers do not learn to clench their fist fully in their gloves, furthermore the wearing of gloves often prevents the full clenching of a fist.

Early gloves, which were considerably smaller, allowed great mobility in the thumb and a full fist could be formed. The downside, of course, was that fighters could use their thumb to flick or gouge the eyes. Modern gloves, with the thumb tacked in place to prevent eye gouging, and with considerably thicker padding actually force you to punch with your thumb separate from your fingers—like an oven glove.

Take this legendary photo of Muhammad Ali's fist—the life size version of which hangs in my office and is certainly daunting to put your fist up against.

Notice that Ali's thumb rests on only his index finger. This is, for punching purposes, a fairly shaky form. Now Ali was a volume puncher, and loved to flick his punches out with loose hands, slapping and stinging his opponent rather than blasting them with heavy shots, but it still serves as a great example.

Ideally, for power punching, the fist should be balled as tightly as possible. This is achieved by using the thumb to wrap the top two fingers (the knuckles of which will likely be the striking surface) and even three if you can manage it. The ideal knuckles to connect with vary on who you listen to—some say the index and middle finger knuckles, others (including Jack Dempsey) say the middle and ring finger knuckles.

Here is an photo from Dynamic Karate of a tight fist. Notice how the thumb wraps both index and middle finger, balling the fist.

If your thumb is not wrapping your fingers, you allow your fingers greater flex and movement when you hit with power. The human hand is a floppy bag of meat and bones, but you should always be trying your utmost to hold it tight when you strike something and minimize that wobbliness. And if the thumb is hanging loose, it is far more likely to get broken.

You can test this yourself at your desk. Make a fist with the thumb out, or not doing much, and punch your own palm. Now do it with the thumb tightly wrapping the fingers.

Do I rate karateka as harder or better punchers than boxers? Of course not. Put a karateka in with a boxer and allow just hand techniques, and the karateka will get picked apart every day of the week. But the act of punching against resistance without gloves and hand wraps onwill quickly adjust the form of a fighters fist.

Obviously a balance must be struck—if you punch a bag without gloves on all the time you are going to hurt yourself. But punching it without gloves and wraps on will rapidly tell you where the holes in your form are. If your wrist is kinked it will hurt, or if your hand is loose it will hurt—both of these are normally prevented somewhat by the wearing of tight hand wraps underneath gloves.

It's similar to the old argument over deadlift form. If you deadlift with one palm up, it alleviates any trouble you have with grip—but many argue that you're never going to go back and amend that weak link in your strength if you use this method. If you always punch in gloves and wraps, your wrists don't have to stay straight, your gloves and wraps are going to protect you.

Of course, you can go about hand conditioning like an idiot—there are still plenty who will punch a makiwara until their hands bled, others push it further and even put salt on the cuts. Certainly some of the iron palm fanatics out there produce horrifying results which would be useless for any human activity besides hitting things.



Pretty grotesque. I'm sure you'll agree.

There is just absolutely no point in pushing yourself to that degree unless you have no desire to use a keyboard, play guitar, or hold hands with another human being ever again.

The Hunt for Alternatives

Because the fist is such a shoddy piece of weaponry, there has always been a demand in the martial arts world to find a better weapon.

In the bareknuckle days of MMA, hand breaks were fairly commonplace. Dan Severn, among others, advocated using palm strikes particularly in ground and pound. Shinya Aoki has made excellent use of these sort of short strikes into the ears on the ground. The great thing about striking with the palm is that you are avoiding using half of those bones in your hand. All those extra bits which just got in the way, aren't involved in the strike.

Taking your digits out of the way and using the wide, thick surface of your palm means that you can do damage to anything good that you connect with, and not really worry about any elbows that get in the way.

Punch the point of an elbow, or hit the forehead too hard with a fist, or even clip the hip bone the wrong way (as Arturo Gatti did in his third bout against Micky Ward) and that hand is done for the fight.

Bas Rutten still advocates the upward palm strike while defending a single leg takedown, because the angle suits itself so much better to the palm than the front of the fist. B.J. Penn would also do this a great deal during his lightweight reign.

Sure, you aren't going to see too many open handed palm strikes in boxing... but the inside of the wrist? The laces of the glove (in the days when those were exposed)? The palm while holding a fist? These are all commonplace. Check out Muhammad Ali's fights—his bout with Cleveland Williams, any of his bouts with Joe Frazier—he cuffs, slaps, palms and chops far more than he actually punches.

Or have a look at one of Junior dos Santos' overhands, he will often connect with the palm and wrist more than with the fist, which isn't best designed for overhand connections. Indeed, any time a straight arm swing is called for, you are going to have a hard time landing with the front of the fist. Here's Igor Vovchanchyn using a straight arm swing with open hand to throw his opponent into his right hand.

Remember, just because the hand is closed doesn't mean that the front of the fist is what is doing the damage.

Kote-Uchi

Something which I am surprised we have not seen more of in mixed martial arts, however, is striking with the forearm and wrist. In Champ Thomas' excellent How To Be An Ass-Whipping Boxer, this is outlined as an excellent strategy on the overhand. Thomas was a carnival boxer, and while he wasn't fighting world class competition, he had to fight dozens of psyched up young men a night and stay safe while doing it. Consequently he mastered the Stonewall or Philly Shell defence (behind the shoulder roll) and used his body jab to wind his opponents before lowering the boom with an overhand.

Thomas advocated throwing the overhand with the intention of the wrist catching behind the opponent's head. Totally illegal in regulated boxing bouts, but brutal. Remembering that catching an opponent behind the head if they turn into it is permissible (as happened to Vaugh Lee last week), it is only the striking with the wrist which is illegal in boxing, but that is quite okay in MMA.

Taking a look at Kiyohide Shinjo's famous trick of breaking a baseball bat with his kote-uchi (wrist strike), you can certainly see the potential in this striking surface. Of course, breaking things is just a party piece or as Mas Oyama called it “monkey business”, but power is power.

You're probably thinking “looks a little impractical”. It is, but boxers have been trying to find ways to hide forearm strikes as regular punches for decades. An old trick wonderfully demonstrated by Ray Sefo in his kickboxing “bout” with Bob Sapp is to throw a right hook over the top of a ducking opponent and catch them with the forearm on the back of the head instead.

You will often see boxers dropping their weight down on a forearm on the back of the opponent's head when they duck into a clinch too. This trick is almost the opposite of that old school favourite—missing an exaggerated uppercut in order to land a rising elbow to the sternum or face, a favourite of Sandy Saddler.

Conclusions

There really isn't an easy way around the problem of the fist. It is the best method we have come up with for using the body to attack—it can be looped around guards and pack a fair wallop, and when used in a strong lead it is the longest strike we have which doesn't compromise balance—but it just seems so easy to injure. Some martial artists and fighters specifically train to do this—parrying the jab across into the point of your left elbow is a classic.

Plenty of fighters have recognized that the elbow doesn't break nearly so easily, but the obvious limitations of reach make it difficult to use on an even footing with solid in and out boxing technique.

The truth is that if you punch or kick into a hard surface, there's a decent chance you'll hurt yourself and fighters have to work around that. Setting up kicks to stop themselves from kicking into checks, only punching hard on the third or fourth punch of a combination or on the counter, and so on.

But that doesn't mean that the fist is always the best weapon to use. The forearm and the palm are both excellent weapons in certain contexts, and can be easily hidden with a punch and performed with the fist still clenched—no need to give away the intentions. And as much as we've talked about traditional martial arts, they've been present in boxing for as long as people have wanted to cheat a bit.

Pick up Jack Slack's new ebook, Fighting Karate at his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Check out these related stories:

Fighting Motives: Life, Death, and Humiliation

Fighting Motives: The Kingdom with No Weapons