turn your hips! Keep them motionless!” I never questioned this back then when I was a young neophyte, though I wish now I would have.
Today in my school, we occasionally do the classic-horse stance punching exercise, but with a twist (pun intended). We get low in the stance, hold our arms high, fists just below the jaw line, and thrust our punch forward as we snap the other fist back to our ear. The big difference is that we rotate our upper body as we punch, including the shoulders. You can turn the hip with the punch just a tad, but the emphasis is on rotating the upper body.
Punching in this fashion while exercising in horse stance keeps the concept of rotation alive in your mind. Why ingrain in your subconscious a rigid way of punching in horse stance, but then use hip snap and shoulder rotation when punching in your fighting stance? Always remember that how you train is how you perform for real. Secondly, when you punch rigidly in horse stance, you don’t stimulate the muscles that rotate your shoulders and waist. Every supplemental exercise you do should work the same muscles you are going to use when throwing a technique from your fighting stance.
Incorrect
While a good exercise, one problem with rigid horse-stance punching is that it conditions the mind not to sink the punch.
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However, slightly rotating the waist and shoulders trains the mind to sink the punch deeper, and exercises the muscles involved in the extension.
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Rigid punching in your forward stance limits your power potential and your reach.
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Without stepping, rotate your hips, waist & shoulders to increase impact and reach.
Rotating in your Fighting Stance
The classic reverse punch is usually done by extending the arm in conjunction or slightly before the rotation of the hips. This is fine. But many styles stop the rotation when both shoulders form a straight line, a position sometimes referred to as “flush to the front.” This is okay if that is where your target mandates that you stop your rotation, but too many karate students always stop at this point. This is unfortunate, because when you have the option of rotating your hips and shoulders further, but don’t take it, you greatly reduce your power and penetration capability.
How far should you twist? As much as 45 degrees beyond flush to the front. When throwing a right reverse punch, continue twisting your shoulders until your chest is angled to your left at a 45-degree angle.
Try this experiment. Face a wall and extend your right punching arm until your chest and shoulders are parallel to it and your fist is touching. Keep your arm up as you scoot your feet back until your fist is about 12-15 inches away from the wall. This is where a fighter’s punch would stop who does not rotate his shoulders and hips. Now, without moving your feet, rotate your shoulders, waist and hips about 45 degrees to the left. Hey! Your fist is now resting against the wall and you didn’t take a step. This simple illustration proves the reach potential gained when rotating the body in the reverse punch.
To test the dramatic penetration power of the rotation, try it on the heavy bag. First hit it with a punch with your shoulders flush to the front and then again with a hip, waist and shoulder rotation 45 degrees to the side.
3. TRICKY-KNEE PUNCH
No, this doesn’t have anything to do with a bad knee or punching at the knee; it’s just my way of being linguistically clever. It does, however, involve doing a quick bend of your lead knee to get a little closer to your opponent and hitting him just a little harder. This is a great trick to create an illusion that you are further away from your opponent than he thinks you are. Assume your fighting stance but position your feet a couple inches closer together than you normally do. To make him think you need glasses, throw a reverse punch that misses him by several inches. Throw another and twist your upper body just a little to show him that you are really trying. Ideally, he becomes lulled into a comfort zone because he thinks you are too far away to be dangerous (hee, hee, snicker).
The third time you punch (the third being the charm), bend both knees deeper, lean your upper body slightly forward and engage that shoulder and body twist we just discussed in #2. Tuh duh! Without taking a step, you increased your reach by more than 12 inches and punched a hole in his chest.
You can do this with your backfist, too; the only difference is that you rotate your upper body away as your arm extends and your knees bends. Throw out a couple strikes that miss your opponent by a mile, then sink your knees, lean in and whack him.
You can even combine your backfist and reverse punch. Set him up with one or two backfist misses, and then sink, extend and hit him with a quick one-two, a backfist and reverse punch combination.
Try not to laugh too hard at his look of surprise.
4. BOXER’S JAB
The jab may have originated with the “sweet science” of boxing, but karate people are free to use it too, though few do. I’m not talking about traditional karate’s straight punch, which is about as sneaky as an out-of-control Mac truck with a stuck horn. Yes, the karate straight punch can be extremely powerful, but it’s harder to sneak in than is the more versatile, easy-to-deliver and disarming boxer’s jab.
The jab is most often delivered from a high stance, a boxer’s stance, a position that allows your footwork to be fluid, light and highly mobile. It’s a stance that makes for easy and quick movement in and out of range, which allows for more opportunities to set up your opponent.
This technique is especially popular in those styles that are reality based, although not too many years ago there were only a few karate fighters who knew how to defend against it. The first time I tried the jab against karate people outside of my school, it was like shooting ducks in a barrel. Each time I popped one, my opponents would flinch as if startled, and only a few of them blocked it, or even tried. Today, however, more fighters are familiar with the jab, and the only people who have problems with it now are those who don’t include it in their personal arsenal or practice it in their style.
Historically Speaking
Just as many kung fu systems were created from watching animals, birds and even insects fight, early boxing most likely copied the way cats and bears slap and cuff their enemies. Historical boxing records show that before the jab came along, early fighters relied on swinging and hooking their blows. As boxing evolved, straight hitting was discovered and fighters found they could hit faster and more accurately with straight shots than with circular ones. They also found they could better maintain their balance, since it was safer to snap their punches straight out and back than it was to make over committed swings.
How to Jab
Let’s take a look at the mechanics of the jab and see how using your hips is so important to delivering a fast and powerful blow.
Assume a left leg forward fighting stance with your hands up near your
