Fear of getting hurt badly in Kickboxing-is Judo/Wrestling more my style?

Well Master Betty,

My google skills are a fail. I couldn't remember the name of the technique so I fail.

Here is the technique, well close to it:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcDAzdctMoY"]YouTube - Krav Maga 6: Side Hammer Fist: Human Weapon Self Defense Technique[/ame]

The above is simply not great, but would be probably how to start teaching it to a beginner who didn't have a lot of time spent building the structure.

It starts out as a back knuckle strike. Depending on the target hit and whether the target is moving away or into you, the back knuckle rotates into a hammer fist.

For example, if the target is the heart, the strike rotates into a hammer fist. If the target is under the arm pit, then it stays a back knuckle as you jerk their arm and rotates only partially into a hammer fist. If the target is the side of the head, the back knuckle strikes but is quickly rotated on impact to a hammerfist to strike the side of the neck/jaw line with the forearm.

The Tai Chi version strikes with the back of the open hand instead of the closed fist. The rotation is then to a palm strike instead of a hammer fist.

So now I bow down to you Master Betty because I can't see how any of this demonstrates the power of the technique as I thought would be an easy thing to do. :hail:

Edit: what I have found is that the rotation to the palm strike after striking with the back knuckle gives the most power. The effect is similar to striking with the knuckle and then following up with doing CPR on them (the motion of the palm and body when you do CPR on someone to start their heart pumping, you get a lot of your body mass behind it in a short burst.

 

Back fists aside, was starting to think you weren't planning to take anyones advice, but good luck with your troubles. You've been given a lot of great advice, hopefully you use it.

 

:topic: Apologies to Ronki23 - the physics involved in different strikes is something that interests me, so I'm putting my 2penn'orth in to the latest turn this thread has taken........


Backfist equates more to a whiplash; a conventional punch is more like a piledriver. If you were to look at it purely in terms of the mass driven into the strike, the conventional punch would win.

BUT the actual energy transferred from fist to target, the kinetic energy, can be calculated from the following equation:

Kinetic Energy (KE) = 1/2 mv2 (supposed to be v squared but I can't figure out how to do superscript)

Where KE = kinetic energy/joules
m = mass/kg
v = velocity/metres per second squared (I REALLY NEED TO KNOW HOW TO DO SUPERSCRIPT!)


As Ratty, Master Betty et al have already stated, because of the body mechanics involved, a greater mass is behind the strike with a conventional punch (at least the whole of the arm from the shoulder, maybe more depending on the technique and delivery) than with a backfist (forearm and fist, or maybe fist only depending on technique and delivery).

Energy delivered to the target is not only dependent on the mass behind the strike, but also the speed of the strike. Because of the whiplash motion of the fist at the end of a backfist strike, the strike is delivered at a much greater speed, therefore the kinetic energy delivered will be greater.


BUT BUT a backfist, by its whiplashy nature, only results in a very brief period of contact. A conventional punch results in contact (and thus delivery of kinetic energy) over a much greater time period.

If a backfist strike could be sustained over the same time period as a conventional punch, it would deliver more power (the amount of energy delivered per unit time). It can't, so it doesn't.


It sounded to me like Rebel Wado may be talking about tetsui, or hammerfist strikes rather than straight backfists (correct me if I'm wrong, I hate living in ignorance!). These strikes are not flicked out from the elbow and wrist in the same way as a normal backfist, but use the whole arm as a shaft to deliver the hammer strike (imagine swinging a pickaxe, the head travels a large arc and can pick up a fair bit of speed) so there will be a greater mass involved than for a backfist but also greater speed than a conventional punch.

Swings and roundabouts - basically as I see it you can have high speed and low mass, or lower speed and greater mass. If anyone can figure out how to put the whiplash speed of a backfist into the piledriver power of a conventional punch, I reckon they're on to a winner.........

 

Yes, you are correct. Basically the technique is a backfist that rotates into a hammer fist strike.

However, the most powerful version of this technique, IMHO, is the version used in Tai Chi or internal arts. This version basically starts as a back hand strike that rotates into a palm strike.

P.S. I'm been practicing this in the air as I was writing. Now my shoulder is sore... gah. I think this is probably best practiced actually hitting through something or more slowly... I got carried away.

 

That's similar in the wy that may boxers use their jab. It causes a whiplash type effect, which is why you can often see people gettin their head snapped back with a jab - then taking a cross which moves their head less drastically yet causes a knockout.

There'll be more power behind the jab.

 

Just my two cents worth on the backfirst:

I was under the impression that the backfist was not designed to be a powerful knock out strike. It is a quick whip strike designed to traumatise the more delicate bones of the face e.g the nose.

The force on impact is f=mxa. The backfist relies on the acceleration part to generate more force. It's a quick, disruptive strike designed to damage delicate parts of the opponent and pave the way for more and heavier strikes.

 

Yeah I understand the theory behind it... but in practice it just doesn't do anything, nor ever will. Yeah if you stand with your body completely turned around and rotate right into it then you're goin to get power - that's basically a half spinning backfist though. It's hard to apply, easy to disrupt and defend against etc.

The true strength in a backfist lies in it's unpredictability and speed when thrown as a recovery technique spinning out of a combo or kick etc. I don't know that I've ever seen a backfist land on someone any other way whilst still causing effect.

 

True - a jab has more power than a backfist because of the mass behind it, and a jab will be faster than a cross, so will deliver more energy to the target. The momentum can be sufficient to stop forward motion of the opponent's head completely and reverse it - this change in the target's momentum is what makes the head whip back.

The whiplash nature of a backfist I mentioned in my earlier post refers to the motion of the fist though, not the effects on the target. The cracking of a whip is caused by a sonic boom as the tip of the lash breaks the sound barrier (travels faster than the speed of sound), not by the lash striking a target. This is as good an explanation as I've found for the phenomenon:

http://www.reference.com/browse/whipcracking

Don't think a human backfist would break the sound barrier, but it does move fast......

I would agree that a backfist is best used as a distraction technique, especially in an MMA type fight where the fighters are used to taking knocks and are less likely to be stunned by a nose break than the average joe. On the other hand, if your opponent is NOT used to taking knocks, a well-delivered backfist might just end the fight for you. I'd still recommend following it up with a solid jab though, just to be on the safe side......... :evil:

 

I doubt anyone will ever break anyone's nose intentionally with a backfist though. It'll be impossible to generate that much speed to offset the mass that a backfist lacks in order to produce enough force to break a nose. That's why, in part, it's a useless technique. A jab is easier to apply, has more power, is just as fast and more importantly, is far more defensible.

 

One other thing to note is the fact that in order to generate much any force with it you have to turn your lead shoulder in and/or draw your hand back from its place in front of you. This is cool when you're point sparring and getting tagged in the back doesn't matter, but in a full contact event, especially one involvin takedowns or leg kicking, giving the opponent a wide open route to position himself ideally to stuff every strike available to you short of spinning kicks and that generally completely ineffectual backfist is suicide.

 

People always seem to use this excuse that "well in a real fight most people will go down or quit if you tag them once". If that's what you're judging your techniques on, why not just condition and chainpunch all day? It's not like your "average joe" is going to be able to hit you as hard as an MMA fighter or pick or dodge well enough to avoid a flurry.


The problem is, this only works on people that are mostly harmless anyway. All you have to do is not fall apart when they start swinging and you win. The people that take some sort of practice to survive against demand solid movement and the ability to put someone down who isn't going to just quit.
I can't understand why anyone would use "Well it doesn't matter what you do, the average guy is just going to quit if you hit him, doesn't matter how." as an excuse.
Why would you even bother with a backfist if it needs to be followed up with a jab? They both serve the same purpose, albeit one better than the other. Why not just jab him in the first place?

 

This attitude comes from styles that either do no contact or light contact sparring. So they have no real experience in hitting someone or being hit by someone with bad intentions.

Instead of learning how it really feels they spend time discussing the theories of how it would work and what your opponent will do when you use your technique. This leads to a big reality disconnect thats not corrected until they either get in a fight or go to a school that spars/rolls/randoris and have a rude awakening when their art "fails" them.

Unfortunately way too many of them won't learn this lesson the easy way from discussions on a forum like this.

 

Lol well I was hoping someone would engage in discussion and we could logic it out to that point but... I agree 100%.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to spoil your fun. However I do love it when someone with a high belt in another style comes to the school and finds themselves being owned by one of the senior white belts (like me).

 

Who's using excuses? I merely suggested a possible scenario where backfist might be effective as a stopping technique, as opposed to in an MMA fight where it really wouldn't work as one.

There aren't many situations where a backfist would be preferable to using a jab, but there are a few and it's always useful to have another technique at your disposal if your preferred technique is not practical at the time when you need it. It boils down to body mechanics and what bits of you are available to use at a given time.

For example, imagine a point in a brawl where your primary opponent is leering into your face while his mates are hanging on to your upper arms to prevent you punching him. A conventional punch won't work until you break free because you can't propel your fist forward with the weight of your whole arm behind it, but you have full movement of your forearm and can therefore backfist to the front, into the guy's face. I'm not saying that would necessarily be a good idea (that's the sort of decision you would have to make depending on your assessment of how things could go if you do) but a backfist at that point might work as a distraction to get the primary attacker out of your face long enough for you to work on getting free of his mates.

I bet JWT has a better way of getting out of that scenario, maybe you do too, but I'm using it to illustrate how partial incapacitation of your arms could make jabbing impractical (however temporary the situation) and make backfist a better bet.

 

I don't go to bars without my own mates. They all train too.

 

If it takes all of this discussion on hypothetical scenarios and limiting factors to show a backfist as a better punch than the jab is that not proof enough that it isn't?

What works the most in the most situations is the better technique and should take more focus on your training. IMO

 

I'm assuming that was aimed at me - fair cop, I don't train full contact (too many physical limitations at the moment already - I don't want to pick up any more). I have an academic interest in the physics behind different techniques and their possible applications. Why that is such a problem for you, I don't know. Perhaps wading into a thread on the Kickboxing forum was wrong of me, but the thread had strayed into an area of interest to me and I wasn't aware that practical knowledge of being hit in the face on a regular basis was necessary to contribute here. My bad.

 

Frankly, if all you're left with doing when it comes to striking is a backfist without any body involvement, you need to deal with the inhibiting parties via grappling instead of escalating a situation with an assault you can be quite sure won't even begin to end the situation or improve your position.

It's like standing in front of a tank with a pistol when there's a wide array of appropriate equipment available to you. Terribly shortsighted.

It's like the krav maga video posted. It sounds good in isolation, but when you look at it in motion, the fact of the matter is that he's advocating remaining stationary, giving up his side and back, and winding up a strike in response to a surprise attack. He's already behind, and he's throwing the one step he might get to prepare a technique that not only is generally quite ineffectual but provides the attacker with pretty much free rein over the situation in that moment.
You can contrive whatever excuses you want for the technique, but frankly a basic understanding of the strategy and mechanics involved shows it to be completely obsolete except in a few very specific situations for which the standard structure of a backfist is not appropriate.

 

No need to get your knickers in a twist ( I used that right didn't I? Trying to expand my horizons you know.)

Its just that you picked such a contrived scenario for your example that I picking on, not the physics or even the practicality of the backfist. A lot of posters go after the street effectiveness of combative sports with all sorts of "what if" situations it gets to be a reflex to come back with a dismissive post.