Pushups

[Battousai]

I was looking through Bruce Lee's Art of the Living Body book and noticed his pushup regiment. His thumb pushups seem to be the hardest thing that he did according to that source, but it seems to me Bruce would have been doing harder types of pushup like claw pushups, were each joint of each finger is bent.
I know for me, from all my sai training probabily, doing a thumb pushup for the first time wasn't a challenge. What do you guys think, does the book purposely not get into the other things that Bruce did? Do claw pushups and such seem hardly anatomically possible? Someone should at least know of someone who does them.

 

[Cthulhu]

Actually, Bruce Lee was also quite fond of doing one finger pushups. He'd do pushups with one index finger.

That's pretty hard, ain't it?

Cthulhu

 

[Kirk]

There's footage out there of him doing finger pushups at the
Parker Internationals.

 

[Chiduce]

I do them myself and also teach the tiger claw push-up! In my system of kenpo i assign each student and animal name; such as, tiger, snake, leopard, crane, etc,. I currently have 1 leopard, 2 tigers, 1 crane and 1 eagle student! They all train in each others push-ups as well as their respective animal! The snake, crane, and eagle main push-up is the wrist push-up! The tiger and leopard's main push-up is the claw push-up on the fingertips, in the standard tiger's claw. The dragon will become skilled at each animal's main push-up and variation; such as the eagles talon push-up, etc! Though i personally have a preferred push-up myself; which is the wrist push-up! I've demonstrated the claw and particularly wrist push-up on course gravel, fine gravel and concrete! Sincerely, In Humility; Chiduce!

 

[Jay Bell]

Bruce would have been doing harder types of pushup like claw pushups, were each joint of each finger is bent.

Actually, those pushups aren't too hard at all. They just take some conditioning. Many people look at "ken-pushups" and think they can just jump right in and bang them out. The body has to go through preparation exercises to be able to support the weight to prevent serious injury.

I do a lot of hand-strike pushups...getting older and wiser has tamed the idiotic beast in me that used to strike really hard stuff

Claw pushups with the pads of the tips of the fingers as the contact point aren't too bad.

My basic regimine for pushups (when I get around to doing them...I've been on a hell of a lazy streak) is --

Shakoken (claw type strike on the *tips* of the five fingers)
Boshiken (thumb drive strike)
Shikanken (striking with the second knuckles of the four fingers...on SOFT surfaces like pillows)
Shuto (sword hand)
Bent wrists (four directions)

Tanemura san was once quoted as saying that once you have the strength to do 100 of each per day, you have the power to kill with one blow. I honestly doubt I'm ever in danger of such a thing happening

 

[Yari]

Originally posted by Chiduce

I do them myself and also teach the tiger claw push-up! In my system of kenpo i assign each student and animal name; such as, tiger, snake, leopard, crane, etcIn Humility; Chiduce!

I want to be a Jelly Fish

/yari

 

[Chiduce]

Originally posted by Yari



I want to be a Jelly Fish

/yari

Hey, that's a pretty good one! Sincerely, In Humility; Chiduce!

 

[Battousai]

Cool, thanks for the insight everyone