Advice for hard punching with minimal padding, and still avoid ripping knuckle skin?

[Buka]

Of course it's nice if you have a trainer or cornerman do it. I've put on wraps with my own teeth!

We all have. It’s tougher the older you get, it’s not the initial two inch pull with your teeth, it’s the last two, especially if your wraps are a little bit damp from the day before or not comply dry from the wash. Doesn’t answer my question, though. Where would you snip them if they were a bit too tight just before you were to fight or train?

 

[HighKick]

So, where did you get your degree in psychiatry?

It really seems like you are projecting. And your attempt at being clever with that edit is sad, quite frankly.

Again, I am noticing a trend here of a couple of mods and posters attempting to suddenly disown my rational attempts at argument, with heavy handed attempts at being disingenuous.

What's next, you're going to call me autistic?

Definitely do Not have a degree in psychiatry unless the school of hard knocks and experience applies. That said, playing the autistic card does sound like you need to talk to someone.

Not sure what you mean by "being clever with the edit". I do make a lot of typo's that I try to go back and clean up but there in a time limit on my ability to do that.

Look at it this way; you are on a site where people with several centuries of experience offer advice, first hand experience, and Martial Arts information . When a single source goes against this very sage acquired knowledge base, who do think is typically in the wrong?

 

[Prince_Alarming]

What's next, you're going to call me autistic?

Now that you mention it...

 

[isshinryuronin]

"Martial arts career" That's an interesting statement. Do you think your own martial arts are a "career"? If so, what's your amateur or professional record?

Here is a part of the poster's problem - equating MA only with sport competition and not understanding self-defense TMA is different in purpose, application and training.

Few will deny that training for full contact sport (especially boxing due to the prolonged length of matches and repeated contact upon some part of the opponent) protecting the hands from injury is a concern, thus the use of wraps, tape and gloves is reasonable. I certainly agree with this.

But true TMA is not a sport - it is self-defense. Encounters trained for are not preplanned and do not entail many minutes of constant hands striking an opponent (actually, original karate utilized few punches). Being so fundamentally different in these respects, its training requirements and methods are different and should be no surprise.

Sprinters and long-distance runners train much differently and are subject to different types of injuries. Even their physical builds and diets are different. Seems simple to accept that 2 different things will be different. I don't understand all the fuss here. Whatever the validity of the Poster's views, they have been muddied by his attitude, challenges and overall hostility. This has invited defensiveness and much unnecessary back and forth

There are other topics and chains of discussion more worthy of time spent.

 

[Prince_Alarming]

I also think somebody needs to...ahem... have a thicker skin

 

[Badhabits]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but keeping your hands/knuckles moisturized does help with the skin cracking/splitting. Not just in training but overall.

 

[Prince_Alarming]

Thanks to badhabits this thread is staying on topic by the skin of its teeth

 

[Tony Dismukes]

It's weird that you keep focusing on this "3-4 times per week" thing, because if you look back through the thread you'll see what it represents.

I've looked back through your posts and I'm not seeing it. Maybe my eyes are getting old. Can you point out the post where you explain what sort of injuries you're getting 3-4 times per week? Or else just go ahead and explain again?

Are you seriously suggesting you've trained for 26 years and come home with no injuries weekly? This suggests your martial arts training is, quite honestly, light and little or no contact.

Yep. Admittedly I do a lot more grappling than striking sparring these days and I don't do as much hard-contact striking sparring as I used to, preferring to keep things more light and technical. I'm old and asthmatic and don't have the cardio for it anymore. But even when back when I was younger and prepping for a fight I didn't get injured every week or anything close to it.

Leaving aside mild bumps, bruises, and muscle soreness (which I wouldn't categorize as injuries) here's the list of injuries I can recall at the moment that I've compiled over my years of training:

• Two broken fingers and a badly broken thumb which required surgery. (3 separate occasions, not all at once)
• A broken wrist
• Probably 3 mild concussions. Not officially diagnosed, but getting TKO'd once in the ring and twice in sparring should count.
• A couple of cut tendons in my hand requiring surgery from an accident in sword practice
• A thigh so badly bruised that I couldn't bend my leg or support weight on that leg until the next day.
• Twice getting my thumb whacked so hard in HEMA sparring that I lost my thumbnail and had to wait for it to grow back.
• Twice getting cuts on my forehead that required stitches.
• Once getting poked in the eye that resulted in seeing flashing rings of light at nighttime for about six months. (I got poked in the eye a couple of other times and it really hurt, but there were no aftereffects and I was back to normal in a few minutes, so I won't call those injuries.)
• A dislocated shoulder from a Judo tournament
• The occasional mild strain that feels better after a couple of days

There might be more, but that's what I can remember right now. That's over the course of 44 years of martial arts training including 26 years of combat sports. It comes out to less than an injury per year.

Of course, I'm not any kind of hardcore professional fighter. But I have friends, coaches, and training partners who are current or former hardcore professional fighters and none of them get consistently injured on a weekly basis. Some of them have taken some serious damage over the course of their fight careers, but none of them ever got injured on a consistent weekly basis.

"Martial arts career" That's an interesting statement. Do you think your own martial arts are a "career"? If so, what's your amateur or professional record?

It's a figure of speech. I've never made a living from martial arts. I also said "martial arts career", not "fight career" because I haven't had enough fights to call that a career even figuratively. But for the record, here's what I've done in competition:

A bunch of heavy weapon tournaments in the Society for Creative Anachronism. (Hard contact with heavy sticks and armor) I got to the point of being an above average competitor, but was never good enough to win a tournament. My best showing was 4th place one time.

A couple of amateur Bando/Muay Thai fights. 1-1, both the win and loss by TKO. I was 37 at the time. After that I had some health issues for a while and then got to an age where full contact competition wasn't for me anymore.

A handful of BJJ and Judo tournaments. In my late thirties I managed one gold and one silver in BJJ and the same in Judo. Never medaled once I got into my 40s and the last tournament match I won in BJJ was around age 48. I haven't competed in BJJ since I turned 50, because there's no one in my rank and age bracket and I don't need to pay $100 to compete against black belts who are half my age.

In my 50s I did a handful of HEMA and amateur Sumo tournaments. I've won less than a third of my Sumo matches in tournaments, so no medals there. But since the other competitors are typically half my age, I don't mind so much. In HEMA I've done a little better. The only tournament I've won was an in-house tournament. In open tournaments, the best I've done is end up in the top 25% of competitors.

I haven't competed yet in my 60s, but I'm planning on doing some more HEMA competitions. The cardio demands are much less than for BJJ, age doesn't play such a major role, and the tournament fees are cheaper.

Oh, and in my 20s I had some non-sportive fist fights when I was working retail and had the bad judgment to chase after shoplifters who would run out with a case of beer. Those fights were much easier than any of my competitions. I was just lucky that I never got shot or got in legal trouble.

Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson's opinion is one anecdote. If anything it's a good example of the fact that people like him like to hit all sorts of things.

And I'm not trying to disenfranchise the makiwara, just trying to point out it's old and antiquated compared to, say, the modern heavy bag. Let's be honest, there are a thousand full contact, amateur and pro fighters out there who don't use it.

I have no problem with that statement. I prefer the heavy bag myself and I certainly don't think the makiwara is a necessary tool. But your quote that I was responding to said:

Hitting a makiwara is antiquated and has no value to the modern martial artist.

I was just pointing out a high-level modern professional fighter who does think that it has value. I'm sure Thompson wouldn't suggest that everyone has to use the makiwara. But he does argue that it has value. He also advocates for doing at least some bag work with bare knuckles rather than fully wrapped and gloved, which relates to the original topic of this thread. (I don't believe he does all his training that way. Just some of it.)

 

[Yokozuna514]

I've looked back through your posts and I'm not seeing it. Maybe my eyes are getting old. Can you point out the post where you explain what sort of injuries you're getting 3-4 times per week? Or else just go ahead and explain again?

Yep. Admittedly I do a lot more grappling than striking sparring these days and I don't do as much hard-contact striking sparring as I used to, preferring to keep things more light and technical. I'm old and asthmatic and don't have the cardio for it anymore. But even when back when I was younger and prepping for a fight I didn't get injured every week or anything close to it.

Leaving aside mild bumps, bruises, and muscle soreness (which I wouldn't categorize as injuries) here's the list of injuries I can recall at the moment that I've compiled over my years of training:

• Two broken fingers and a badly broken thumb which required surgery. (3 separate occasions, not all at once)
• A broken wrist
• Probably 3 mild concussions. Not officially diagnosed, but getting TKO'd once in the ring and twice in sparring should count.
• A couple of cut tendons in my hand requiring surgery from an accident in sword practice
• A thigh so badly bruised that I couldn't bend my leg or support weight on that leg until the next day.
• Twice getting my thumb whacked so hard in HEMA sparring that I lost my thumbnail and had to wait for it to grow back.
• Twice getting cuts on my forehead that required stitches.
• Once getting poked in the eye that resulted in seeing flashing rings of light at nighttime for about six months. (I got poked in the eye a couple of other times and it really hurt, but there were no aftereffects and I was back to normal in a few minutes, so I won't call those injuries.)
• A dislocated shoulder from a Judo tournament
• The occasional mild strain that feels better after a couple of days

There might be more, but that's what I can remember right now. That's over the course of 44 years of martial arts training including 26 years of combat sports. It comes out to less than an injury per year.

Of course, I'm not any kind of hardcore professional fighter. But I have friends, coaches, and training partners who are current or former hardcore professional fighters and none of them get consistently injured on a weekly basis. Some of them have taken some serious damage over the course of their fight careers, but none of them ever got injured on a consistent weekly basis.


It's a figure of speech. I've never made a living from martial arts. I also said "martial arts career", not "fight career" because I haven't had enough fights to call that a career even figuratively. But for the record, here's what I've done in competition:

A bunch of heavy weapon tournaments in the Society for Creative Anachronism. (Hard contact with heavy sticks and armor) I got to the point of being an above average competitor, but was never good enough to win a tournament. My best showing was 4th place one time.

A couple of amateur Bando/Muay Thai fights. 1-1, both the win and loss by TKO. I was 37 at the time. After that I had some health issues for a while and then got to an age where full contact competition wasn't for me anymore.

A handful of BJJ and Judo tournaments. In my late thirties I managed one gold and one silver in BJJ and the same in Judo. Never medaled once I got into my 40s and the last tournament match I won in BJJ was around age 48. I haven't competed in BJJ since I turned 50, because there's no one in my rank and age bracket and I don't need to pay $100 to compete against black belts who are half my age.

In my 50s I did a handful of HEMA and amateur Sumo tournaments. I've won less than a third of my Sumo matches in tournaments, so no medals there. But since the other competitors are typically half my age, I don't mind so much. In HEMA I've done a little better. The only tournament I've won was an in-house tournament. In open tournaments, the best I've done is end up in the top 25% of competitors.

I haven't competed yet in my 60s, but I'm planning on doing some more HEMA competitions. The cardio demands are much less than for BJJ, age doesn't play such a major role, and the tournament fees are cheaper.

Oh, and in my 20s I had some non-sportive fist fights when I was working retail and had the bad judgment to chase after shoplifters who would run out with a case of beer. Those fights were much easier than any of my competitions. I was just lucky that I never got shot or got in legal trouble.


I have no problem with that statement. I prefer the heavy bag myself and I certainly don't think the makiwara is a necessary tool. But your quote that I was responding to said:


I was just pointing out a high-level modern professional fighter who does think that it has value. I'm sure Thompson wouldn't suggest that everyone has to use the makiwara. But he does argue that it has value. He also advocates for doing at least some bag work with bare knuckles rather than fully wrapped and gloved, which relates to the original topic of this thread. (I don't believe he does all his training that way. Just some of it.)

Good God Tony, I hope this isn't going to start a trend of everyone listing their injuries, That is going to be one long show and tell, hahaha.

Although the poster isn't suggesting something ludicrous in the global sense he did fall into the trap of applying the ideas and values of one art (boxing) and trying to relate it to another (Kyokushin) without understanding the art and values of the other.

Kyokushin is not living in a bubble where it cannot see the modern advances in equipment of other combat sports. Although it sees that there are ways to better protect a fighter, it still clings to the idea that full contact fighting is done with little to no protection at all. That comes for a certain risk for their proponents and each person understands what they need to do to become successful in this art. We don't wrap our hands or wear shoes. Men wear their dogi and a cup (if they remember to put it on). Therefore training is done accordingly to strengthen the wrists and the fists as well as the shins and any other striking surface we are allowed to use on the tatami. The body is also strengthened to be able to withstand bare knuckle fighting.

Most of you already know this but I thought I would mention it to the poster who suggested that wraps were the way to go. In this particular case, his suggestion would not be a good one. It may help with saving the skin on the knuckles but skin grows back and the act of skinning the knuckles also gives us feedback on how we are punching the heavy bag. Blood on the dogi is never bad especially when it isn't your own.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Kyokushin is not living in a bubble where it cannot see the modern advances in equipment of other combat sports. Although it sees that there are ways to better protect a fighter, it still clings to the idea that full contact fighting is done with little to no protection at all. That comes for a certain risk for their proponents and each person understands what they need to do to become successful in this art. We don't wrap our hands or wear shoes. Men wear their dogi and a cup (if they remember to put it on). Therefore training is done accordingly to strengthen the wrists and the fists as well as the shins and any other striking surface we are allowed to use on the tatami. The body is also strengthened to be able to withstand bare knuckle fighting.

This is part of why I actually do most of my bag work bare-knuckle these days myself.

If I was preparing for a ring fight with gloves, I would wear them on the bag. If I was putting in the amount of bag work that I used to, then I would wear gloves just to protect my skin, because I know from experience that if I do more than 4-5 rounds bareknuckle then my skin will start to tear.

But I'm focused more on grappling these days and I rarely do more than a few rounds on the heavy bag at a time. I'm too old to compete in the ring anymore, so if I ever punch someone with intent to seriously hurt them, then it will be a self-defense scenario with my bare hands. I have arthritis and bone spurs in my wrists, which means that my wrists are the weak link in my ability to punch hard. I could definitely hit harder if I was fully wrapped and taped, but I want to know how hard I can safely punch without those artificial aids and not injure myself. (It's still reasonably respectable power, enough to be effective. But not nearly as hard as what my pro fighter friends can throw.)

 

[windwalker099]

I have arthritis and bone spurs in my wrists, which means

A little up in age myself, noticing some issues with my hands from time to time.
Makes me wonder if the training I did when I was younger has something to do with it now.


Used to practice poking holes in banana trees for the fingers, not to mention hitting trees for the arms.
did the whole progression, mung beans, sand, gravel, then rocks in buckets part of burning palm training. Never used wraps when hitting the bag either.

In our gym "Tibetan White Crane" , we had one room with hanging bags filled with small grain pebbles.
Walk through another door and you'd find the main training room, where an Army duffel bag hung from a chain filled with sand. That thing must’ve weighed 300 pounds, hard as a rock.

The canvas was coarse and unforgiving if you hit off-center, it let you know.
There were blood stains from those who had. Eventually, I added my own.
It was actually kind of funny when it happened everyone would laugh, having been through it themselves.

similar training

Should mention training in the Army was also very demanding, had a way of weeding people out,
physically and mentally..All things that can make a person wonder



Do you feel like your training might have caused or influenced what you’re dealing with?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Do you feel like your training might have caused or influenced what you’re dealing with?

The bad bone spur is in the wrist that I broke, so that’s possible. The arthritis runs in my family, so that’s probably not training related.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

That's a weird thing to claim, since quite a few people here are "debating that".

And now you are on the "taking care of yourself" train.

I haven't shared my training, experience, age? "You still haven't told us". That's funny, I spent the last year sharing information about myself.

You're the troll here. Look at your posting history, vs. mine.

Don't patronize me. I've put you on my blocked list "Grandmaster".

“Grandmaster” here only has to do with how long you’ve been a member. I don’t have any official title. Im flattered by all this attention you are lavishing on me, but I’m really not all that interesting, aim higher.

 

[windwalker099]

The bad bone spur is in the wrist that I broke, so that’s possible. The arthritis runs in my family, so that’s probably not training related.

My first Taiji teacher in Hawaii, Master Sam Kekina.
Sam, as he liked to be called.
Came from a hard-style background, both his hands very gnarled not from age, but from the training he did as a much younger man, toughening them on the coconut trees growing around the island.

He was eventually advised to take up Taiji as a way to save his hands.

I think any kind of combative training is hard on the body, something one might not notice when they'er young, but understand as they age...Maybe to late.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I think any kind of combative training is hard on the body, something one might not notice when they'er young, but understand as they age...Maybe to late.

About 15 years ago I adjusted my BJJ sparring so that maintaining healthy body alignment at all times takes precedence over “winning” the round. Prior to that I would sometimes rely on flexibility to avoid getting my guard passed or to escape a bad position. But I realized that every time I did that it added a bit more cumulative wear and tear on my body. (My lower back in particular.)

I still want to be on the mats when I’m 80, so I place a higher focus now on moving in the healthiest way possible.

 

[Badhabits]

Yep. I have no interest these days in going home regularly with headaches from getting punched hard in the head. And it's hard to do business with "normal" people with a black eye or busted lip. Much past your twenties and people start to look at you funny.