Characterized as a physical hit with any part of the body or an inanimate object, strikes are meant to cause pain, injury or death to an opponent. For martial artists, striking usually involves hitting with the legs or arms. For the legs, the practitioner strikes with his foot or knees. He also can stomp. For the arms, the practitioner uses his elbows, wrists, fists or fingers in a variety of ways.
Finger strikes can be executed by individual fingers or in combination for soft-tissue and vital strikes. Sometimes the practitioner will hold his hand in a clawlike grasp to rip at flesh or grab at soft tissues and vital points.
Closed-hand techniques include punches and hammerfist strikes. Various open-hand strikes like the spearhand target soft-tissue areas. Open-hand strikes like the knifehand, chop, cupped hand and palm strike instead attempt to bludgeon larger areas with powerful hits.
Depending on the martial art, the head, shoulders, butt and hips also can be used for striking an opponent.
– February 15, 2012
The neck is vulnerable — plain and simple. Compared to the rest of the human body, it is remarkably weak in its structure — and yet it houses some of the body’s most vital pathways for circulation and respiration, not to mention outright support of the skull. Therefore, neck attacks
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– November 30, 2011
Based on their acclaimed best-selling book of the same name, Jean Jacques Machado and Jay Zeballos’ highly anticipated three-DVD set, The Grappler’s Handbook: Gi and No-Gi Techniques, serves as a martial arts multimedia companion wherein the two Brazilian jiu-jitsu masters demonstrate takedowns, chokes, holds and submissions in living color and
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– November 23, 2011
Are you into the close-quarters combat training styles of Avi Nardia, Albert Timen, Alain Cohen, Mike Lee Kanarek, Richard Ryan and the like? Are you interested in realistically depicted street-fighting scenarios and step-by-step breakdowns thereof? Then Black Belt has a new group of krav maga and kapap DVDs that might
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– October 27, 2011
Unfortunately, there’s been an uptick in multiple-assailant violence involving zombies. Just this morning, I read an account of a young man who was jogging home when three or four zombies attacked him. He landed in the hospital with a bite wound; doctors then monitored him until he transformed. It’s definitely
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– October 26, 2011
Eyal Yanilov and his krav maga defenses against variations of the front kick were featured as the cover story for the March 2011 issue of Black Belt (which happened to be the third of five special 50th Anniversary issues leading up to the June 2011 50th Anniversary Collector’s Issue, all
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– August 24, 2011
Bruce Lee’s jeet kune do comprises many principles, one of which is economy of motion through efficiency, directness and simplicity. Second-generation Bruce Lee student Lamar M. Davis II, who studied under five of Lee’s original students (Joseph Cowles, Patrick Strong, Leo Fong, Jerry Poteet and Steve Golden), brings this concept
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– July 11, 2011
To help you become as successful as possible in your self-defense training, Richard Bustillo shared four of his favorite defensive jeet kune do techniques with us.
Bustillo devoted much of his life to preserving and propagating the timeless teachings of Bruce Lee. Bustillo was one of the “Little Dragon’s” first followers
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– July 6, 2011
It’s been called the edge-of-the-hand strike, the ax hand, the shuto, the thousand-hand strike and the judo chop. It can be found in virtually every martial art from karate to kung fu and in every kata from those practiced at the Kodokan to those done at Kukkiwon. So how did
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– June 29, 2011
Antonio Graceffo takes you to the Philippines in this martial arts travel-video supplement for his Destinations column, appearing in Black Belt magazine. Graceffo explores a variety of martial arts styles and gives an overview of the fighting and training scene in this island nation. Included are his experiences training in
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– June 22, 2011
In any sport from football to fighting, when two opponents are practically equal, usually the one who makes the fewest mistakes becomes victorious. With that in mind, presented below is my list of the 40 most common errors martial artists make in the ring.
Kickboxing Training Mistake #1
Trying to counter when
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