Newsletter 1029

An interesting type of Punch

I’m not much into hitting pressure points.
Oh,
they work,
but the skill required,
and the time required to master,
better spent perfecting your punch,
the angles of your form,
etc.

But,
there are certain angles which I pursue.
Passing a punch can I put a finger
on a fellow’s shoulder and take him down?
Can I body bump somebody so they fly away?
And,
one of my favorites,
the pubic punch.

You block,
then you place your fist on his waist
POINTING DOWNWARD…
and you push down.
His legs collapse,
just like they have no muscle at all,
and he falls all the way to the ground.

If you examine this move,
it’s almost like a low block,
which tells people that a block
can be a hell of a lot more than a block.

Now
A BIG AND HUGE WARNING.
Be careful.
Don’t punch,
don’t cause impact.
The top of the leg is a small bone
that fits into the hip ‘socket.’
If you break this,
we are talking BIG surgery
and 6 months before any walking.
So you don’t punch down,
you gently push down.
Unless,
of course,
you really want the guy’s lunch money.

I can actually use this in freestyle.
I’ve have used it.
Very difficult,
requires exact positioning,
and you have to know what the guy is going to do
before you do it.

And,
I call this
‘THE PUBIC PUNCH.’

But,
the good thing,
once you have this technique down
the skill required offers itself to other techniques.

Anyway,
try it,
let me know if it works for you.
And let me toss the obligatory ad in here.

There are a lot of cool things like this
in Tai Chi Chuan.
Tell the truth,
I ransacked TCC for techniques
to use in Karate.
Quite interesting,
very beneficial.
So,
here’s the course that shows
all sorts of subtle moves
that will really work in freestyle.

Five Army Tai Chi Chuan

Now…
have yourself a great work out!
Al

And don’t forget to check out the interview

BTW
I’m always pushing my novels,
did you know I write other stuff?
If you want to know the truth about government,
you will find some startling matrixing going on in

THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT!

Newsletter 820

Arthritis and a Martial Arts Punch!

“It’s not how hard you can hit,
it’s how much weight you can deliver.”
Al Case

I just received a great letter,
a fellow name of Damian,
said Yogata helped his arthritis,
and he talked about how
he sometimes had trouble with a fist because of arthritis.

Click on the cover!

I recommend Yogata,
or any form of yoga,
but I really want to talk about punches,
which may impact on concepts about arthritis.

Arthritis is an interesting condition,
doctors sometimes lump everything
under the term arthritis,
and there are a lot of causes
behind arthritis.
It’s all sort of generic,
but generic with a bite.

So here’s the thing:
injury leads to inflammation.
The body is swelling.
Sometimes the swelling is obvious,
sometimes not,
but the pain,
or lack of usability,
is real.

Many, many years ago
I realized I wasn’t a breaking kind of guy.
My instructor was,
many people are,
there is something seductive
about Power,
and power is often associated with breaking things.

But I figured out that it’s not how hard you hit,
it’s how much weight you can transfer into the opponent.
So I thought about it,
and I realized something:

“you don’t have to tighten the fist.”

This is weird,
we all tighten the fist,
and it is important…for beginners.

Tightening the fist upon impact
teaches focus,
introduces one to concepts of power,
but,
at a certain point,
you don’t need to tighten the fist.
Here’s something to think about”

take a stick and poke it into a watermelon.

Did the stick get ‘tight?’
No.
It just had to be aligned,
and it required a certain amount of ‘quick’ weight.
Although,
when you think about it,
you could puncture a watermelon with a stick
using ‘slow’ weight.

So I started working on the idea
of poking the bones of my arm/fist
through an opponent’s body
without tightening the fist.

Having the idea of puncturing the body
in my mind.

It worked.
No fanfare,
no big deal,
just relax,
align the bones,
feed a little energy into the structure
to keep everything in line,
relax and throw the body.

Worked like a charm.

And…
I started holding thumbtacks in my fist
and breaking things.

And…
here is the kicker,
the more I relaxed,
the better I was able to thrust my
thumbtack holding bones
through an object.

There’s all sorts of things to think about here.
My favorite is this:

if you threw 20 pounds at somebody it would hurt.
(especially if that 20 pounds
had 200 pounds of body behind it)

So when you tighten the arm,
when you focus the fist,
the tightening of the muscles actually holds the strike back.

That’s very zen,
very tai chi,
very true.

BUT,
don’t stop practicing with a tight fist,
you need a certain degree of focus to develop internal power.
And hitting with just the bones,
as I describe here,
is not the only strike,
and focusing the energy is VERY important.

In fact,
I would say that it would be VERY difficult
to learn how to strike with a relaxed fist
if one doesn’t first gain an understanding
of how to focus the energy with a tight fist.

Anyway,
those are my thoughts,
and I want to thank Damian for making me think,
and sharing his win with me.

If you have arthritis,
or ANY condition,
there are ways to keep training.
You just have to relax your thinking,
look around,
and find what works.

And you can find what works
in Yogata,
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/yogata-the-yoga-kata/

in The Punch
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/hard-punch/

and if you think I’m just talking,
check out the video on this page…
http://monstermartialarts.com/martial-arts/4c-matrixing-chi-power/