Sparring Foot

There's a big difference between an untrained novice and an experienced puncher or striker. It's not strength or power, and it's not size or reach. The difference is technique.

Experienced boxers and martial artists know how to make every part of the body work together during a punch. They maximize power while minimizing extraneous movement. Every punch is defined down to the smallest detail until it becomes powerful enough to render a grown man unconscious.

Here are some pointers you can use when you examine your own punching techniques. When you improve your technique, you add power; and when your technique is good, you'll have more than enough power in your punches.

Arm punching is weak: don't do it

Tip number one for adding power to your punches is the most important: don't arm punch.

Arm punching is what most untrained guys do when they get in a fight. The flail their arms around like a demented windmill.

But even if one of these wild punches lands, it won't have any real power. To get truly powerful punches techniques, you have to use your entire body. The feet shift, the legs and hips pivot, the torso twists, and the arms deliver all that power right where you want it to be: onto your knuckles.

Step in to pack power into your punch

Just as I said that it's not enough to simply use arm power to punch, you have to use everything you have to pack dynamite into your punches.

One of the most important ways to get maximum impact on your strikes is to step. Now, don't get ahead of me here. I don't mean that you should jump in like a crazed grasshopper every time you throw a punch. In this context, a step is simply a slight shift in your center of gravity towards your target.

Your feet might move only an inch, but it's still a step. And if you're throwing fast and loose combinations, your step might only be a slight foot tap. But it's still there, and it contributes to the impact you're creating with your strikes. Bet on it.

Shift your bodyweight to land heavy punches

So, in the last section I taught you that a step was integral to every power punch. But there's more to getting your body behind a punch than simply stepping and moving your center of gravity. You can shift your body weight without really moving your entire center of gravity.

You do this by moving the torso -- forward, backwards, or side to side -- during your punches.

Picture the left hook. If you don't shift your body weight when you throw a hook, the power just won't be there. It doesn't matter if you're stepping forward or back, you can still shift your torso during the hook to get power and pop on your punches.

Advanced techniques

Those tips are a good start, but they're only part of the story. Learn the other two tips for strengthening your punches at our punching power tutorial. Check out http://heavyfists.com for tons of boxing and martial arts articles.

Sparring $97.19 High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Sparring is a form of training common to many martial arts. Although the precise form varies, it is essentially relatively freeform fighting, with enough rules, customs, or agreements to make injuries unlikely, by extension, argumentative debate is sometimes called verbal sparring. The physical nature of sparring naturally varies with the nature of the skills it is intended to develop; sparring in a striking art such as Chun Kuk Do will normally begin with the players at opposite sides of the ring and will be given a point for striking the appropriate area and will be given a foul for striking an inappropriate area or stepping out of the ring. Sparring in a grappling art such as judo might begin with the partners holding one another and end if they separate. The organization of sparring matches also varies, if the participants know each other well and are friendly, it may be sufficient for them to simply play, without rules, referee, or timer. Author: Miller, Frederic P./ Vandome, Agnes F./ McBrewster, John Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 128 Publication Date: 2011/01/20 Language: English Dimensions: 6.00 x 9.02 x 0.30 inches

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