When I read that headline, which compared a hard fist to a shotgun blast to the face, I laughed, and I groaned. I laughed because it was so over the top that it would pull in tons of readers. I groaned because it is so far away from what a real Powerful Punch is.

The headline came from one of these internet pages. You know the ones I’m talking about. They hit you with the headline, then splash you with ‘Gee, I’m like you,’ and if you give me money you can kill the bullies.’

Now, aside from the fact that killing, even of a bully, is a little frowned upon, there is the misrepresentation of what a punch is. Do you know how much power there is in a shotgun blast? Do you know how much roid rage you’d have to incur to actually punch somebody in the face as hard as a load of buckshot?

And, if you were fighting ten guys, would you be able to get that much rage, and sustain it through hitting ten guys in the face? Can you see that this overkill is not really logical? Can you see that it plays to the emotional child within, offering a solution that is pure comic book?

I’ve written probably a hundred thousand words on how to punch. I’ve written these words in taekwondo articles and kung fu books, and, beyond that spoken a few hundred thousand words on the subject in martial arts DVD courses. So let me give you the real skinny on what a punch is.

Body alignment. Intention. Using as little energy as possible.

Go on, read that last paragraph again, because it says it all. On one of my courses I teach a fellow how to punch. No, it’s not three months of only punching, it is only five minutes of how to punch at the beginning of some twenty odd lessons, and concentrating on how to actually accomplish those three concepts I mentioned in the last paragraph.

The punching part of the lesson is four minutes and fifty seconds of working, until he understands, and the next lesson is four minutes and forty seconds of working, and then four minutes and thirty seconds until he understands, and so on, until he finally does his perfectly aligned, intense, effortless punch the first time. Personally, I don’t think training somebody to launch a shotgun blast to the face is very much fun, or very efficient; I would much rather train him how to make a powerful punch with no effort, a perfectly aligned body, and the correct knowledge of what a punch is.

I teach the correct method for how to punch in the Three Month Black Belt course. Check it out at Monster Martial Arts.

How to Break a Bone with a Punch

Do you know what clunking is?
Of course you don’t,
I made up the term.
It describes the feeling of a real hit,
a strike that goes through the body,
a punch or kick that shakes the very bones,
sets up a wave of destruction,
shivers the heart of the person being struck.

You think I am being a little too exuberant in my description?
Nah.

C8TeYB

The journey to Martial Arts Mastery

Listen, there are three depths of strike.
One to the skin,
one to the muscle,
and one to the bone.

Punch skin deep and you are playing,
no bruises,
nothing but gotcha, with no impact.

Punch muscle deep and you create bruises.
Little welts to purple blots.
There is room to descend here,
into the muscle to varying depth,
and it is a very educational time
when you are playing with this strike.
Got to be careful,
too,
because it hurts.

Now,
to strike bone deep is something else.
You actually have the perception of hitting the bone,
not even bothering with the skin or muscle.
Oddly,
there are very few bruises.
but,
you can actually feel the bone shake,
and the guy who is struck has a queasy feeling,
and he rubs his arm
as if there was pain.
It hurts,
but none of that sissy ouchie stuff
that the kids cry about.
This is the deep touch,
the hello to one more bit of depth
and that bone is going to break
and if I did this to your kidneys you’d piss blood and die.
Not pain,
but knowing that the body is going to break.

Now,
how do you practice this depth of punch?
Well,
I’ll give you a couple of good clues.

One,
you relax.
You don’t put your perception in your arm,
in the sensation of muscle tightening,
except by the way.
Instead,
you put your perception in his arm,
you feel him with your fist,
and this leads to the second hint.

When you hit somebody,
plant your fist on his body
and gently push.

Now, you are working the exact muscles
of the punch
at the point of impact.
Can’t get more specific with any type of muscular training.
The exact and perfect range and motion of muscles
at the point of impact.
But,
remember,
don’t concentrate on the sensation within,
concentrate on the sensation of his body.
Feel the muscle and tissue retreat before your fist,
feel the touch of bone with your knuckles.

After a while
you can actually feel the wave,
the vibration
of the bone.

Bone doesn’t like to be touched in this manner.

Muscles and flesh, you see
hide the bone,
protect the bone,
and you have just passed all the safeguards and
touched the bone.

Now,
there is more to it than this,
but if you just practice this kind of punch,
gently,
then you will get it.
And,
when students get this kind of ability,
to punch a guy right to the bone,
I call it Clunking.
Clunking
is just sort of the appropriate word
for the sensation.

Think of it like this–
clunking is like
dropping a rock into a pond,
and having the rock strike the rocks
just below the surface.
You hear a splash
and a…clunk.

Well,
that clunk,
that sickening, splitting sound
of rock breaking
(or almost breaking,
other rock,
is what you want.

Clunk.
Deep,
dull,
thud.

You feel his bone,
he feels his bone worry and revulse,
and
clunk.

Okey doke.
Holy sweet heysoos,
I like talking about
breaking bones.
I’d think there was something wrong,
but such fun…such fun.

So,
dig into your wallet,
get out twenty,
hit the monster
and find the page on the punch.
It’s right here…

The Punch!

cause what I have been telling you here
is just a sweet taste
of how to break bones
with a simple punch.

Viva Monkeyland!
And have a downright immortal work out!

=o)

Life must be understood backwards; but… it must be lived forward.
Soren Kierkegaard