Striking with the 2nd knuckle on your index finger

I was just wondering what people thought about this strike? It is refered to as the Phoenix Eye Fist (PE) and the Tiger's Tooth, which I prefer (TT). There have been many threads about this, mainly by me. Just wondering what the census is. Personally I think it is the best compliment to ANY art/style.

And anybody that practices this strike how long until you could put full force behind it? How long how often did you condition your TT?

 

I don't see the point in using it.

Seems the chance for injury is high.

Why not use the larger and more solid knuckle - as in a clenched fist?

 

The point of this strike is to internally attack the softer targets of the body. A fist strikes the outter body, yet a TT will cause damage internally to chi, blood and organs. I said nothing about conditioning, yes it may that some time to condition, no longer than any other body part. Basiclly putting your full force behind a space the size of a dime, so 1/8" circle vs a 3" by 4" area.

For future reference I am not talking unconditioned. If conditioned right the only injured person will be your attacker.

 

The TT woud also strike the outer body in order to even make contact. So the initial point of contact on the body is the same. The TT doesn't somehow magically bypass the muscle mass/body tissue to directly attack iternal organs.

As for 'Chi' do you have anything that can be scientifically proven. Or are we talking 'faith' and 'anecdotal' evidence here?

As for damaging blood. Hmmm - I'd say this verges on silly. How do you damage blood? What part of the blood? Cells? Plasma? Platelets? Again - have you any conclusive proof? hematology reports? Anything?

How does TT damage organs in a way that regular punch doesn't?

All the 'proof' issues aside - do you believe that you could throw your whole body weight behind that with less risk of injury than say throwing a hook to the kidneys with a fist?

How do you full contact spar and develop a weapon like this with all it's supposed power to devastate internal organs. Seems like you'd run out of sparring partners at an alarming rate.

 

Dropping the 'chi' debate for now, I think GN's point was that you could strike an exposed soft tissue area (eye, throat/windpipe) and have more PSI than in a punch, given you have a smaller area over which the striking force is distributed. It's like the difference between a spear-finger strike and a punch: punch is more common, easier to use, and more applicable in most bare-knuckle brawls, but each have their place/use.

I don't use the index finger knuckle for this strike. I prefer an open-fist technique, striking with the second knuckle of the middle finger and using the surrounding fingers for support. It looks sort of like a spear-finger strike with a half-clenched fist. A well-placed strike towards someone's solar plexus can split the sternum.

 

My old instructor used to break boards with this break and he also used to do a thumb tip board break. Looked pretty intimidating to me.

 

yeah funny that. When credible evidence in regards to Chi is asked for it usually go a little quiet. The same for the 'damaging blood' stuff.

It sounds as if you're under the assumption that 'punching' is somehow only for brawlers. I'd say a the larger majority of full fist punches are not in bare-knuckle brawls. Throwing solid connecting punches can be hard enough on the wrist as it is even with the larger area to disperse the force of the punch through. This being the reason boxers and other fighters tape up. By adding any length to fist - as when you stick a singe knuckle out - you would add leverage to the pressure and forces applied to the wrist if there were even the slightest roll, bend or slip during the punch.

I guess what I am curious about is this...

1) it seems quite prone for injury - especially if you're throwing your body weight and hips into it the same as you would for say a body hook or a right cross.

2) how do you train this without killing your sparring partner. or is it one of those ones that can only be used in a real situation and hopefully it works out the way it looks when practicing in the mirror?

3) I am still curious about the original posters idea of how he plans to damage blood by hitting with his index finger knuckle?!?!

I can see this kind of strike maybe in an application like a doorman/bouncer might use. He strikes first with the element of surprise and to the throat. But I have a hard time seeing this being very effective is some has a clue and get's their guard up. It's hard enough to get a solid fist through a guard let alone one knuckle.

 

My comment about dropping the chi debate was more along the lines of, "Let's forget the 'funny stuff' with blood damage and such for now, and focus on the original question: How do you perform this strike?"

Webster: brawl v 1. to quarrel or fight noisily.
Well, yeah, seems like punching is for bare-knuckle brawling.

Actually, you would be much more prone to injure your finger than wrist. Yes, any twisting or turning off center would be a problem. This is an advanced technique. In our school, you are not even allowed to attempt it for a board break without approval ahead of time by the Master Instructor.

One more time: FORGET the internal organs, chi-damage blood stuff!!! It's a strike, just like elbow strikes, knife-hand, ridge hand, or hammer fist. How do you practice those? Answer: Same way. Use heavy bag, standing bag, focus pads. Practice forms, controlled one-step sparring. Hit a board.

Fortunately, the rest of the fist, wrist and arm would be attached to that one knuckle.

Try this: grab someone slightly smaller than you by the front of their shirt with both hands, or start pushing them across the chest or shoulder area. If you are in close, your ribs are guarded against hooks by your elbows, and the slightly-smaller person is not in a great position to right-cross over your shoulder, at your chin. But you would be open to a knuckle from an open-hand punch (what we call this technique) to the sternum, inside your grab/guard. To the bystanders, ir wouldn't even look like a punch was thrown; more like another push.

 

That's silly. So all these people throwing punches in MA are bareknuckle brawlers eh?.

Obviously they do throw punches in bare-knuck brawls - bare knuck's is the root of boxing so it's a given. But punching with the fists is hardy the sole domain of bare-knucks fighters. If it was there'd be a lot of MA schools havin' to change their name.

Then what of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who do punches that have never been in a bare-knuck brawl in their life?

Because bare-knuck brawlers punch doesn't somehow now mean that punching is only applicable to them... it's used by them based on the fact the most bare-knuck fighting originally comes out of the UK and is the roots of boxing - so it's a given for them to be punching.

If you can't answer it or won't. The don't. The question still stands for the poster of the thread.

- good for conditioning aspects and learning to build power but doesn't move, parry or punch back.

- doesn't induce the adrenalin-stress response that you have in a real situation. Not much use in training something realistically.

- lol. sorry this one is right up there with the chi and the damaged blood. boards don't hit back and are usually made of soft pine and get broken with the grain. Kids do it all the time in TKD. I broke one when I was like 11 years old to get my yellow belt. Hardly useful.

Right from the get go - if you go grabbing someone by the shirt or start pushing them in the chest or shouders with both hands your either gonna catch a knee to the groin or get thrown. Or worse someone slips your push and your picking yourself up off the floor after an uppercut that you never saw comin' from under your armpit. Of if your in the pub - you'd just get a head butt. :bang:

As well - a knuckle jab from short range to the sternum - lol - many guys can walk clean through this. Even pushkicks to the sternum are not fight guaranteed fight enders. There's many people who can deal with that and fire back. And they are coming with a lot more force and musce power (not to mention hips) behind them than what you can generate with your shoulder at close distance. So a knucke jab to the chest or the sternum is only going to **** them off and escalate the situation.

And - lol - what happens if the person is bigger or taller than you?

 

My oh my, phoenix-eyes are gaining in popularity! lol

Hi slipthejab, I miss you on the finger-strength thread .

Phoenix-eye punches are great but very demanding. In mantis, we use it in many directions, wrist bent all ways as well as driven straight forward. Almost always it's done with a screwing motion to divide and penetrate tissue and skeletal gaps eg. pushing into the ribcage is not as effective as pushing with a twist - the twist separates the bones allowing the knuckle through.

This principle of penetration means that the force of the punch can be focussed into the flesh of your internal organs with far more effect than a standard fist. With stronger fingers, a two or one-finger attack might do the same except that the twisting is mcuh more effective in a fist format.

Except for the protruding index-finger knuckle of a standard phoenix-eye, the rest of the fist works like a normal one eg a phoenix-eye to the eye is also a punch to the cheek bone.

Blood damage means to damage the blood-vessel walls, valves or pressure-receptors.

In my own practice, the first thing was getting to the stage where I could actually close up the finger tight enough to be called a phoenix-eye. I remember having sore finger and thumb for a while.

Mantis conditioning is traditionally done by hitting other people and we train many parts of the body in this way as well as many parts of the hand. So far, I'm unaware of a bearable way of doing this for the phoenix-eye; it just hurts the receiver too much. So, I don't have a devastating phoenix-eye yet, but it's enough for many juicy applications. My main problem is a long skeleton affecting the phoenix-eye in terms of stability - the forefinger collapses towards the thumb or other fingers if I go too hard against a hard target.

For fun, I recently bought some rebreakable boards and now I do the weakest one with my phoenix-eyes for conditioning. I hope to do phoenix-eye pushups before I manage claw-finger pushups. You can develop it by pushing the phoenix-eye against a wall, building up the pressure over 10 secs, holding for 10 secs and releasing over 10secs. This conditions it but doesn't do so much for the stability. For that I guess you need to hit things.

I run out of time before I could tidy this up or finish properly.

Rgds,
David

 

Thanks david you saved me alot of typing. I was going to explain what I meant by attacking the blood, chi and internal organs, but david already did.

As for sparring with the TT don't be naive, nobody should hit anybody with this it can cause great damage. You should just spar with gloves on and application train with it.

And if you fight with your hands tightly clenched that's you, but don't assume I do. So for someone to see my TT then they would have to look at it right as I make contact, because I keep a loose fist until contact.

And as far as injury goes there is no difference in the conditioning just as you would your heart-jogging, your elbow-bag work or a finger jab. Your not gonna just hit someone full force on an unconditioned weapon, but with diligent and gradual conditioning sure enough you will be able to. Any the hell would I be trying to hit someone through their guard? You wait for an opening an exploit what is given. I prefer to strike to the ribs and armpit area with the TT.

Do you condition your strikes? Why would you think that anybody else wouldn't?

The only example I could think of was like throwing a fist sized rock at a lake and a 1/8" round rod at the same lake. The rock will cause "external" damage which causes waves and ripples on top of the water. Yet when you throw the rod with equal force it doesn't cause the same damage as the rock. It uses the same amount of force the rock had yet it has little to no effect on the surface of the lake, it cuts through the water, hences "internal" damage. The force/energy/damage from the rod doesn't just disappear or go away once it makes contact. It actually goes INTO the water.

 

David -- it seems as if putting that much pressure on the index knuckle will simply damage it in the long run.

Also, why the index finger? Wouldn't protruding the middle finger provide for more stability?

 

I know it wasn't addressed to me but.....

If you condition it properly then no problems now or later. Conditioning is so your weapon can take the abuse. You forget you are also hitting the soft parts of the body.

The hand positioning depends on the style,art and person. I feel more stability and comfort with my index instead of any other finger or knuckle, I point the 2nd knuckleof my index finger out (as if pulling a trigger) and place my thunmb knuckle next to/behind the 1st knuckle of my index finger to "lock" it in. To me that is very stable.

 

If i see what are the set up techniques to use the fist, then maybe. As a stand alone, Id never use it. I value my hands too much.

Infrazael- If you do it that way, youre more likely to break your thumb.

 

You're learning that as a forceful strike? What about as a speed strike?

My style utilizes it. We first learn it as a distraction technique (a quick strike to the face). Next we learn it as a straight strike ot the temple. We also use it to break holds; it is better able to tag certain muscle groups than a full fist. I know it's also called a "snake fist" in some styles, and used in the EMai style to strike vital points/pressure points. Would I throw it as a regular punch? No way, not stable enough to attack anything but soft tissue, IMHO.

I just don't see it as being an overly forceful strike, but that's just my opinion.

As for that knuckle, it's the easiest to stabilize with the thumb.

I'm going to ignore the "it's teh d3adly" technique discussion. So not going there. Nope, not at all. :Angel:

It can be an effective strike if used properly, slipthejab.

 

There're no health implications from working with the phoenix-eye. We have Ye Olde Dit Dar Jow and Massage anyway :angel:.

The reason I think the middle-finger isn't used for preference is that we simply aim better with the forefinger. A variation on the phoenix-eye uses both the index and middle fingers. Another just uses the middle finger: this is called the chicken-heart fist or leopard fist and I think is more applicable in more specific circumstances where aim doesn't matter quite as much and the angles suggest better results.

MANoob, it's just one fist in an array of many. Fitness to purpose: the more purposes you have, the more fists you will train. Arts with phoenix-eyes are unlikely to be 4-technique arts...

I enjoyed the metaphor of hitting the lake; I think that's appropriate.

Rgds,
David

 

I made my own dit da jow and boy does it work, it's been sitting since 2002. Yeah the lake thing just came to me that very instance, I never knew I could describe the differences so clearly.

I believe you are talking about a snake fist NOT a phoenix eye fist or tiger's tooth. I have NEVER heard of a PE/TT be refered to as a snake fist. Snake fist is str8 fingers striking with the finger tips, if you bend just the 2nd knuckles you go from a snake fist to a leopards paw/fist which are nowhere near the same as a PE/TT I will find pictures.

 

Just thought I would say it again in case anybody was still :bang: (being hard headed)



THIS IS A TIGER'S TOOTH.
Uechi-ryu's shoken fist symbolizes a tiger's teeth. Notice how the thumb overlaps or wraps around the index finger to give it maximum support.
http://home.drenik.net/joemilos/bugeisha_uechi_1.htm




The Phoenix Eye fist (Fung Ying Chuan), is the basic white crane fist technique. It is named for the slightly protruding index finger which resembles the eye of the legendary Phoenix. It is most useful for pressure point strikes, since it concentrates the strike's entire power in one small area, namely the second joint of the index finger. It is necessary to practice specific hand and finger strengthening exercises to effectively use the phoenix eye fist with full strength. (This is from the site below, about 1/4 of the way down)
http://www.aei.ca/~straycat/kungfu/whitec.html




Some form it like this I find this form to offer no support and relies too much on mucular strength alone with no skeletal support. The thumb seems to be for show in this form, because it doesn't seem to offer anything else, but that's just my opinion.
http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/wengshunkuen/phoenix.html

 

I use phoenix eye?tigers tooth and its awesome. The best wat to explain how it works i think is, If some body hits you with a brick on the flat side it hurts but if somebody hits with the corner of the brick all the impact energy is generated into a small area and does alot more damage. This is why the phoenix eye works and works well. It took me months and months to condition it, and also when you use it it is more about speed than throwing your hole body behind it. I use it some times on the sly to the ribs when doing MMA with fingerless gloves on.

 

Actually, it is referred to as a snake fist. In my style what you've described is referred to as a "hooded snake strike", while the Japanese and Koreans refer to it as a "spearhand". My style, Bai Kai, and EMai both refer to the picture posted above as a "snake fist". So that's two styles which have a different name for the same technique. It does happen, y'know.