Boxing with open-handed strikes. Opinions?

Langenschwert

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Boxing strikes can certainly be modified to be used with open hands, and it's not a bad idea if fighting without gloves. It's not terribly difficult to break knuckles on a skull. You can incorporate other open handed techniques quite easily.
 

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I box and I slap. Never the twain shall meet.
 

Anarax

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I've been developing simple boxing combos with the various open-handed strikes from karate. I suppose some people must already do this, so what are your opinions? Open-handed strikes require great accuracy, and I feel that mine have improved trememdously since incorporating them into a western boxing context.

Panatukan(Filipino Boxing) incorporates slapping techniques. It will help protect your hands from breaking on their skull as well
 
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Fuhrer Drumpf

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The bulk of what I do are open hand strikes so I'm all for that. However I am not sure what or how you are combining open hand and boxing. The body mechanics for boxing punches are different from karate. I have spent a lot of time on boxing mechanics, if your only doing karate strikes in combinations of 2 & 3 then that is really not boxing , it's just normal combinations.
If you are using boxing mechanics with an open hand....I'm not so sure it works well
Sounds interesting.

I'm talking about boxing mechanics with open-handed techniques. My friend (who's also a martial artist) and I have been working on this approach for the last couple of years and it's coming together for us.

Are you aware of those bob dummies that some people practice on? We've spent a deal of time perfecting rapid-fire open-handed combinations to vulnerable parts of the anatomy this way. We're both also musicians, and to improve our striking speed we came up with this amazingly effective method of practicing to a metronome. We're both at the point now where we can deliver up to five precise, full-powered open-handed strikes in under one second. Also, when we develop combinations, we take care to emphasize both simplicity and economy of movement so that we can deliver many strikes in short time.

Of course, the ultimate application of any technique is against a resisting opponent. We only have each other, and the nature of our strikes is such that, while we do spar with them, doing so requires a great deal of protection. This makes certain strikes, like ridge hand to the temple or whatever, a bit tricky to practice on each other.
 
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Fuhrer Drumpf

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so you don't actually know.

Lol. I told you what they are: open-handed strikes. I'm the one who brought them up, so how can I not know what they are? If you're so curious, just google each term.
 

Tez3

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Lol. I told you what they are: open-handed strikes. I'm the one who brought them up, so how can I not know what they are? If you're so curious, just google each term.

Touchy as well as evasive eh. I know very well what they are thank you. :rolleyes: However when asked you could actually tell the poster as a courtesy.
 

marques

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It makes sense for self defence purposes (or SD training context). But I found the techniques (and even tactiques) need to change a lot in order to protect (our own) fingers and wrists. And the forehead became a more interesting target than the jaw line.
 

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It makes sense for self defence purposes (or SD training context). But I found the techniques (and even tactiques) need to change a lot in order to protect (our own) fingers and wrists. And the forehead became a more interesting target than the jaw line.

You have to be really careful of flailing style defenses. Open hand has to hit a precise point or you can hurt yourself.

The idea that open hand protects better than closed fist isn't really the case automatically.
 

Gerry Seymour

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You have to be really careful of flailing style defenses. Open hand has to hit a precise point or you can hurt yourself.

The idea that open hand protects better than closed fist isn't really the case automatically.
Agreed. Different risks, and slightly different rewards. There are targets I wouldn’t choose to use an open hand on, and those I wouldn’t choose to use a fist on.
 

marques

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The idea that open hand protects better than closed fist isn't really the case automatically.
I didn't mean to say that. I mean protecting fingers and wrists when I am striking with open hands. I can't rise the elbows the same way (as when closed fists) or strike the jaw line easily without risking a broken finger (so different set up or different target needed).
 

JowGaWolf

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Traditional Martial Art Open hand techniques were never meant to be a "slap". These open hand techniques were done in the context of hand conditioning which made the hand feel hard like stone. These TMA "slaps" are more like getting slapped with a brick. If you ever get a chance to shake hands with someone that has hard hands from manual labor then you'll know right away that a slap from him is going feel like a punch.

Only one of these guys slaps. The other just has a brick for a hand.
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Open palm attack in MMA
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Gerry Seymour

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Traditional Martial Art Open hand techniques were never meant to be a "slap". These open hand techniques were done in the context of hand conditioning which made the hand feel hard like stone.
That's certainly true for some. I'm not convinced that is true of all slapping motions in TMA.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Which motions do you think it doesn't apply to?
Not motions - styles. There are styles that do not have any emphasis on that sort of heavy conditioning, and not much evidence they ever did. Within those styles, it's likely any slaps were intended to be slaps with a well-formed hand and nothing more.
 

JowGaWolf

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Not motions - styles. There are styles that do not have any emphasis on that sort of heavy conditioning, and not much evidence they ever did. Within those styles, it's likely any slaps were intended to be slaps with a well-formed hand and nothing more.
which styles?
 

Gerry Seymour

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which styles?
NGA, and Daito-ryu (from which it primarily descended) are my easiest examples. I'm not aware of that kind of heavy hand conditioning ever being a part of Daito-ryu, and it hasn't ever been for NGA (which may or may not be "traditional", depending which definition we're using).
 

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