White Man Fighting Tip 15

Arms like a rope, fist like a stone.

I want to flesh out some ideas and principles behind staying loose while punching. Beginners are horrific at this and many of you have probably noticed this in yourself or others. Beginners, fire, and utilize many of the wrong muscles or wrong muscle groups at the wrong times when throwing a punch.

We only want to utilize the muscles that are relevant to the strike being thrown when they are needed.

Now you don't have to throw this way but if you want to throw with higher velocity, greater power, and more weight transfer behind your punch this is the way.

The best way to be loose when you punch is to be loose when you are fighting in general. Only tense or use muscles when they are actually needed. Especially thinking about your shoulders or upper body being loose will often help you keep the rest of your body loose.

When you punch, tense the muscles to initiate the movement. Then, for fraction of a second, you can relax much of your musculature, while the punch is "in-flight", then you tense again, bracing for impact right as you connect. You can look at the picture I attached of the graph showing for different levels of boxers how effectively they are able to tense, untense and re-tense again during the punch itself.

10.5 minute video discussing these dynamics.