Combo Hitting

In my last post, I talked about the idea of chain hitting. I would like to extend on that a bit further. Whether it's training wing chun or even observing others at the boxing gym, it seems that the first hit is always the hardest and then the second or even the third hit is substantially weaker.

Why is that always the case.

Or, another common scenario is the one-two hit, where the second hit is the hardest, but the first hit doesn't really do much.

In wing chun training, it seems this also happens. Yes we learn to chain punch or chain hit, but the first hit always seems the hardest and the hits following up are much weaker. The hits all come in a one beat count - one - one - one - one..each hit being fairly strong/powerful.

But if you extend that power to a two beat count - onetwo - onetwo -onetwo...or even a three beat count onetwothreee - onetwothree...

I would expect the hits to be quite weak after the first hit and...even if the subsequent hits are strong, the person hitting will tire quite quickly. Why? This is quite normal as we practice in our drills, it's always the first hit that we emphasize, in which the drill resets. so it's always the first hit at a one beat count.

As an experiment, i want you to try it. Hit a heavy bag as hard as you can...try for different combinations and see what you discover. See if your one beat count hits harder than your three beat counts.

Now try to discover what it takes to really throw powerful hits, three times in a row or four times in a row.

Until then.