• Archive through November 30, 2002 November 30 - 12:57 pm [20]

• Archive through December 02, 2002 December 02 - 08:55 pm [20]

Internal Enthusiast,

Intrude away -- I welcome any & all attempts to help me (as long as you don't toss me an a brick when I'm drowning, I'm OK with it).

I know that exercise as a "wrist roller." I've done 'em up the Yin-Yang periodically for months at a time since I was in high school (almost 30 years now) & still have weak wrists (yet firm forearm muscles). So far I've also tried knuckle push-ups, reverse curls, "Dyna-Bee" brand gyroscopic wrist rotation exercise, & hammering motions with hammers, weights, & a thing called a B.O.I.N.G.

Ah! I just figured out (as I'm sitting here doing the exercises) that when I grip a hammer or handle of any kind, that my wrist isn't straight, but rather the backside of my hand is flexed outward (just opposite to what an arm-wrestler does). I'll add a straight-wrist-grip to my new exercise routine & see if that helps (it feels like it's going to help a lot).

I would probably not have discovered this without your post. Thank you.

Why not just stop using you fist as your striking tool,you have many other body parts to hit with, and the hand can be used quite a few ways than clenched.

Mike,

I tend to think that strengthening your wrists won't solve the problem if Meynard is correct about your punch itself. At the point of impact if the alignment of your hand/wrist/forearm is incorrect even a strong wrist will buckle under a powerful blow to a solid mass. If you are punching a small bag and this is happening to you I would check into correcting the structure of your punch as well as doing the exercises Tim recommended. In the mean time you also might consider wrapping the hands for bag training.

Regards
Bob Shores

Mark Hatfield,

Exactly. I haven't considered my forward fist strikes as useful since I started having problems 30-some years ago; so since then I've mostly used other means & only occassionally used a forward fist strike in practice (usually to check if I could pull it off... & the answer was always negative). I know that forward fist strikes have their place & value. Such fisted blows can reach their targets in ways that would be impractical using open-hand strikes. I love open-hand strikes as an option, but they have their limitations. Not having an effective forward fist strike limits my options. I like having options. And now things are looking up...

Bob Shores,

Yes, you're correct: improper alignment was a problem. I just discussed this with my buddy Kevin (in person) & he pointed that same thing out to me as well. Kevin's a Jack Dempsey fan. Apparently I had misinterpreted Dempsey's instructions, so what I thought was a straight "Power Line" wasn't (I was slightly cocked off center). My "Karate fist" was even more cocked (about 30-degrees off center in the same direction). My "hammer-grip fist" was a few degrees off in the opposite direction. The first two fists were causing my palm to fold in, & the last fist was causing the back of my hand to fold.

In all fairness to Tim, he too has shown me proper alignment before, but I somehow always forgot the exact look & feel shortly thereafter & fell back into my bad habits. I was even doing Tim's knuckle push-ups with my wrists slightly cocked in -- thinking they were straight (so I wasn't getting the full benefit of the exercise).

Kevin showed me a variation of Dempsey's "Power-Line" test which is more dummy proof (er, Mike Taylor proof). I then tested my "new" alignment on a makeshift makiwara (as my newly-acquired, small punching bag isn't up yet). No buckling! Again, your assessment was absolutely correct. Thanks.

Tim & Bob Shores,

Thanks. My fist is working much better these days. Nevertheless, due to concern over hurting my (not-so-tough) hand-bones (& considering my age), I think I'll use my fist-knuckles only on occassion for uppercut/drilling & jolting/smashing body blows; I'll stick with palming & hammering at head targets with certain Xing-Yi & modified Boxing methods. Later.

http://stickgrappler2.tripod.com/kbox/dempsey.html

How did you find this? are there any other books on this site, i tryed to dig around, but it seems that all other directorys were unavalable.

thanx

I was reading the discussion on Jack Dempsey's book on this site. I went to the link at the end and read around a quarter of the book online. After an hour of practice with the basics of power punching that Dempsey teaches, my punches are much more powerful.

I though my punches were powerful before. I could knock the wind out of someone only 5 lbs lighter and wearing a TKD 1 inch chest protector with a not full power punch to the chest. He 12 years of martial arts and even some boxing sparring under his belt (he usually fought cruiser weights in sparring at the gym despite weighing 155, the instructor used to just say, "He's got a lot of heart" when he would get pounded and took everything they could dishout.)

After reading and applying some of the things in this book with only an hour of practice I've greatly increased my power and have even turned my "jabs" into "jolts" designed to stun or knockout an opponent as Dempsey calls a them.

This has all come about by learning how to "throw" my bodyweight behind every punch and how to use the leg drive and hip twist in conjunction with it.

Interstingly Bruce Lee used very similar principles when hitting, dempsey even advocates a vertical wing chun like fist in his book!. They are also very similar to that used by a pro baseball player to knock one out of the park. Read the book. It is amazing. Dempsey also explains things really well.

You may not have the same results as me. I think I picked a lot of it up so quick because I had been experimenting with it but rather poorly in my personal training. He showed me how to use it properly.

Hey guys,

For me, that last link didn't connect. But I somehow found this one...

http://web.archive.org/web/20040426222319/http://stickgrappler2.tripod.com/kbox/ dempsey.html

I found the book in pdf format here:

http://www.rapidshared.org/Detailed/66160.html

The download is compressed in .rar format so you might have to download WinRar to decompress it.

Thanks Nick.

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