Thank you all for the complimants.
I am not sure how deserved they are. My posts were more or less just explaining something we were all doing anyway.
Humble makes some great points in his post.
This brings to my mind something about this whole generating power/energy transfer/weight transfer thing. Most books/articles/lessons seem to really emphasize how to create the momentum and spend less time on making sure it is delivered to the target in a way that does the injuries we want.
Most novices can be taught to get a decent amount of power going with at least a few strikes. Where I see the most mistakes are that when they hit, they buckle all over the place and waste their momentum. It really doesn’t take much momentum to accomplish pain/injury. I think we have all rung our bells walking into tree branches, stumbling into a corner/wall in the dark, or standing up into a cabinet. The fact is that when flesh meets solid, flesh gets fucked up.
When I think of the tremendous strikers I have met/seen in real life, the ones who hit HARD, I realize they were very solid when they made contact. On the other hand beginners sort of crumple and waste the energy of the collision. In essence padding the blow by allowing their own joints to move.
Here is an example of what I mean by solid.
Now granted Foreman’s technique left a lot to be desired in terms of “boxing”, I think duffy wrote in another thread that it seemed he “should lose a boxing contest to a mechanical sheep”, but he could hit.
Here is not solid.
Granted, he is much smaller than Foreman, but so is the bag. And he is indeed turning his hips and shoulders. If you watch any one level/marker it is not so bad, but then contact is made and “where did all the force go?”. NOTE: Even though he is not yielding blows that are all that hard, notice how tired he get? That is all of the spurious and useless tension humble was explaining. He is working harder than George, but for much less result.
Of course we all recognize how important this stability is. Wrapping/taping hands and wrists is a benefit largely because of the extra stability it lends the wrist joint. Most hit harder with a palm than a punch(bare handed/sans gloves and wraps), taking the wrist out of play seems to allow it.
Of course even though I am saying be solid to get the force into the target, I am not saying to do any kind of two part, slap then push, non-sense.
Regards,
Robert A
