Knife hand striking article

Discussion in 'Kung Fu' started by splodge, Oct 4, 2005.

  1. splodge

    splodge New Member

    I have just posted a new article which is an overview to the knife hand striking technique. You can look at it here: Knife Hand Strike.
     
  2. oni_sensei

    oni_sensei Valued Member

    I totally disagree about knife-hands not being a power weapon. I don't know a thing about Wing Chun, though, so I won't make any criticism about that. Still, you can never be TOO accurate though.
     
  3. splodge

    splodge New Member

    Thanks for your feedback oni_sensei thats what makes these forums so good. I am sure in various martial arts that this technique is used as a 'power strike' however in my opinion it is used in Wing Chun as a short sharp accurate strike to weak spots of the body and so it relies on the accuracy of the strike with economy of movement and not the powerful strike to get the desired result.

    This is especially true using your lead hand in a Wing Chun stance as it is an effective tool that can be used without transferring any weight to your lead leg and so is a not a committed movement which is valuable when close fighting with a flurry of moves typical of the WC style.

    Hope this gives you some idea of how it is incorporated into the WC system. I would like you hear feedback from you and other martial artists about their thoughts on this.

    thanks
     
  4. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    Again, I have no knowledge of Wing Chun, but funnily enough was discussing knife hand techniques with my TKD Instructor recently. A point we were going over which your article doesn't mention is tensing the palm during the strike.

    Keeping the fingers together is one thing, but if the striking tool is the edge of the palm, then the palm itself needs to be tensed at the point of impact to give a solid strike.

    Personally I achieve this by cupping the palm slightly and tensioning it, you can feel the muscle down the edge of your palm tense when you do this.

    Don't know how relevant this is to other arts, and as Oni Sensei says, accuracy is never wrong, but I've also broken boards with knife hand in TKD.

    Looks like an interesting resource you've got going there, good luck with it.

    mitch
     
  5. splodge

    splodge New Member

    Thanks Mitch, that is a valid point and indeed one that I overlooked in the article. In fact I will go in and change it to reflect what you have said.

    I too slightly cup the hand for the same reason and I think its a good habit to have with any open hand strikes as it also helps to keep your fingers from snapping backwards if you make a hash of the strike. I also angle my hand inwards slighty to pronounce the palm to aid in striking with the palm and not my fingers.

    Thanks,
     
  6. JinkokMike

    JinkokMike New Member

    Hi Splodge, I like your artricle and I must agree with you and disagree with Oni Sensei as in our style (Jinkok) which inco-operates some elements from Wing Chun and one of which the knife hand strike/block. I think accuracy is the key to this technique as we use our Knife hands to vulnarable areas such as pressure points on the arms etc. So there is no need to really use a lot of energy to develop power in this technique as we are only striking weak points.

    Thanks for posting,

    Mike.
     

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