Glock Glockler wrote:
Even when wrapping their hands up like mummies boxers routinely break stuff in their hands, this should be an indication that punching people in the face isn't wise.
Nothing “wise” about punching anyone anywhere, but a good punch in the face has worked for thousands of years, for millions of persons and it is taught by practically all reasonable self defense schools and marital arts in one form or another.
SOME boxers brake a bone in their hands sometimes because at the end of their
professional careers their bones are weakened, but this depends on each particular person and is in no way standard to all boxers. That kind of damage comes after a lifetime of professional boxing. Amateurs or people that box a couple of times a week don’t have this problem.
The other reason why you MAY end up hurting your hands is, not knowing how to wrap them up properly for practice. Doing this wrong is a good way to hurt you hands. NOW, this does not mean that your hands brake like freaking glass when you punch without protection. I worked my punching bag almost every day for years without any sort of protection and my hands are just fine, knuckles a bit larger than normal, but nothing else. I can still type, work with precision, even paint, draw and sketch well enough to teach my students how to do it.
I now wrap my hands up and use gloves for working out with my punching bag, but that’s only common sense.
”If you have ever been around people who have boxed for 20+ years you will notice they all have major issues with their hands”
There is a very good reason why that occurs: punching, especially to the face/head, is very stupid.
Skull/facial bones + hand bones and muscular tension = broken hands.
Actually no. Strong clenched fist impacting with the knuckle vs. small facial bones, lips and check bones = a messed up face. Gloves aren’t use to protect the hands, they are used to protect the face of the other guy. Now, this isn’t “ballet” either, at least from my point of view, we are talking about hurting people badly. Punching someone in the middle of the face may hurt your hand a bit if you happen to get cut by teeth or a broken nose bone, but the results at the other end are MUCH more effective than a “slap”
I’ve done it in the past, and I’m readily willing to exchange a bit of skin off my knuckles for a messed up face. Punches to the side of the head and jaw are also effective, specially without gloves, and you don’t have teeth to worry about.
If you want to mess someone up you'd be 100x better off giving them an open handed slap to the face with a relaxed hand.
The open hand has a lot more surface area which will trigger more nerves to fire which will increase the liklihood of a knockout. It also allows for a much better transfer of energy from you to them, think of that nasty feeling of being hit with a wet towell. Finally, hitting with an open hand will keep your triger finger from being broken.
Please tell me where you learned that so I never approach the place, even by accident.
Relax hand slap to the face messes up someone? What kind of marital art do you practice, hysterical middle age soccer mom-do ?
Seriously, that’s some terrible , terrible advice. Under some circumstances, punching with the heel of the hand is recommended to some people, specially when you have weaker men or women that can’t punch well and/or have weak hands, but a hit with the heel of the hand doesn’t come close to the damage you deliver with a solid closed fist punch.
Going back to the first post, the best thing you can do is learn from someone that teaches CQC, force on force gun fighting using bare hand techniques along with your firearms skill. When fighting in close ranges, chances are that you will end up punching and struggling with your attacker, shooting with one hand while you push/punch / make distance between you and your attacker with your other hand.
I tried TKD for some time but I found boxing to be much more useful as a fist fighting technique and concentrated on that. Boxing is a good “core” then adding other schools to compliment. Only one art or system isn’t enough, try punching, and grabbing techniques, one of the various wrestling arts, knife and gun fighting, try different systems and instructors and use what proves more useful in the given situation.
FerFAL