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"I shudder when I think that some younger martial artists might believe the forum."

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--Keith Pascal

Improve Your Punches:
Less Bicycle Pedaling

By Keith Pascal Mike Collins wrote in to Martial Arts Mastery. He continued our discussion about elliptical punches. I thought he was describing a bicycle motion for a 'straight blast' (a series of rapid-fire punches, one right after the other). I worry, when I see folks doing a circular bicycle motion with their rapid punches. In my mind, a straight blast is ... straight. After one punches enters, it drops out of the way for the other punch to follow a direct line. Then that one drops to allow the next to come in from above ... again, along a straight path. But Mike is talking about something different. His motions are taking the opponent's arm out of the way. Mike has a similar idea to one of the punches described in "The Tale of One-Armed Albert," where you learn to punch through resistance with the correct type of accuracy. Note: If anyone doesn't own 'One-Armed Al,' I'll include the download of it (and 'Little Brother Meets the Master') with all orders made this week. If you do order, drop me an email, and let me know that you are interested in "The Tale of One-Armed Albert." It really does teach you how to improve your punches. Mike uses his ellipse punching to progressively work towards his goal. Here's his strategy, with a quick comment from me following: "I'd like to add some obstacles to this direct situation. This individual throws straight and has a reach advantage as well as height advantage. Plus he's strong like king kong. "Under this type of circumstance there is an ellipse that I like to use and I call it climbing. You may look at it like pedaling a bicycle with your hands but the ellipse is flexible and can be three dimensional in it's revolution. "The hands have to clear space for one another after they make contact. They climb over the individuals hands. Moving them and redirecting them as they strike. If it were more serious I would smash over the individuals hands to gain access to a more potent hit. Not with strength! With accuracy, fluidity and quick repetition. Still direct and to the point with many hits."       -- Mike Collins End Note: Here are a few more tips to conisder. Eliminate the weak; emphasize the good. Incorporate the following to make your punches more effective: * Make sure your shoulders don't hunch as you climb with your punches. A good fighter will use your hunching against you. It's such a limiting posture for fighting, that I would avoid hunching anyway. * If he's that tall and strong, maybe you don't want to go over the top. I don't play a 'tall game' with someone taller than I. If I can't reach up top, then I hit and kick low. * Make sure the second hand is already starting to strike even before the first hand makes a clearing. * Why not "with strength"? Better yet, smash over with strength AND accuracy. * Learn the proper energy for a trap and a simultaneous punch. Mike is right -- precision is mandatory.   Improve your punches with The Punch Papers   A Test of Skill My Punch, your pun... My Punch, My Punch, My Punch Several of you wrote with responses to the elliptical punching we have been discussing. You told me how you dealt with a punch entering your range, and pulling down your blocking hand. You explained why the ellipses and changed angle corkscrew punches don't work on you. One of you even built a scenario of a first you punch, then I block, then I punch, then you ... Folks, this is what I love about the martial arts. When I first started my serious study, I would constantly ask which move , if executed at the exact same time, would win. I asked which style would win given a certain technique. Which strategy would cancel the other? I set up scenarios where the people performing the techniques were of equal ability, and I also had experiments of having inferior fighters using superior methods against better fighters. Friends played. I worked some scenarios out in notebooks. I watched and learned from Steve Golden. I developed a sense of what I thought was efficient self defense. I continued to explore. Doesn't make sense to want to know if your chosen art is inferior, of equal quality, or superior to other arts? Did you know that, depending on the timing and/or distance, just about every move has a counter. That's what fascinates me about martial arts. I love the counters to the counters. I love that you can't predict more than a move or two in advance, because of how all the variables change (constantly). You punch and draw my hand back with the elliptical punch. I have oodles of options -- everything from allowing my hand to slip around the pulling fist and redirect back in over the top of the arm to kicking the knee out when I feel my guard being pulled down. To me, martial arts is similar, but infinitely more exciting and interesting, to Chess and Go. (Sorry for the blasphemous remarks to lovers of the board games.) After all of these years, I continue to eliminate the inefficient, search for techniques that work in a variety of situations, and try to find the best, hardest-to-counter response to a given attack.   Improve your punches with The Punch Papers