Punching Power

[Killerbee]

Hi,

I do karate and we learn to give our punches extra speed --> power but using hip rotation, my karate teacher told me once that kung fu people dont do this but do lots of arm exercises to gain power, what kind of stuff do you do to give your punches more power?

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

huh?

[LEGEND]

Your instructor must be talking about the CHAIN PUNCHing in most CMA arts. Yes they don't have alot of power but it's more to set up an opponent for a trap or get close for elbows, knees, sweeps etc( Heavy artillery ).

Use boxing drills...they seem to be modern and updated! Not really rocket science.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i had to read that a couple times man.

i hit the bag a lot.

some of the mixed martial arts guys might say i'm full of ****, but i have also had a lot of results by going through all of my movements very very slowly. just repete any movement or set staying very relaxed and extremely focused. the theory behind going slow, the way i understand it, is that you are giving your body much more time to internalize and perfect the movements. it improves your form, makes you more relaxed with the movement, and gives you the chance to feel what your entire body should be doing behind the strike. i have had awesome results in both speed and power training this way.

i have no idea why your teacher told you kung fu guys don't rotate their hips for power. wing chun guys don't (as far as i know), but every other style i have heard about uses hip rotation behind a lot of their strikes. in addition to hip rotation some styles will use sinking, raising, and coiling power as well. i think there are a bunch of other types of jings, but those are the main ones to my knowlege.

[PLCrane]

We put our hips into our punches to give them more power. (surprised?) It helps a lot to have the foot unweighted on the same side that you're punching, so that the hip is free to drive the punch. And it helps a lot to be relaxed; tension will slow down any moves.

Which way did you rotate your hip? Did it rotate around your vertical axis, like you were spinning, or did it rotate around the horizontal axis, like you were doing a pelvic tilt on that side? Both at once is a better way to describe it. Hip goes toward the target.

[CD Lee]

In Xingyi, ,Bagua, and Tai Chi, our school teaches the rotation of the waist for whole body power in the punches.

BTW, you know in junior high, when you used to trade punches with a guy to the arm? You know, one guy stands there and lets the other slug him as hard as he wants, then they take turns until one has had enough? I learned from a karate book a straight power punch, where you rotate the hips into the punch, while turning over the fist. I blasted the **** out of everybody using that one. Nobody could beat me. Pretty stupid, but at the time it seemed pretty mature!!! The point is, if you do it right, your Karate punch can deliver quite a viscious blow!

[TaoBoy]

The power comes from the ground and is magnified through the knees, hips, waist and shoulders - it explodes out of the hand.

Strikes can also be performed with minimal hip movement using tension in the waist (a lot like coiling a spring). Maybe that's what your instructor was getting at.

If you wanna find out for yourself, join in on a few CMA classes - it can't hurt (well unless you get punched in the head). :D

[Choke]

What GDA said about doing your form very slowly with complete intent and concentration. That and well like I said in another post, use steel rings, oh and good body mechanics of course.