Are you familiar with the saying, "hard hit soft, soft hits hard"?
In the context of wing chun, it means that one would hit hard parts of the body like the skull or face, with the palm strike rather than using your fist. And when hitting softer parts of the body, say the neck or kidneys, to use your fists rather than an open hand strike.
So what's are some differences between a palm strikes and using your fists?
Striking with the palm offers some outright advantages - first, you're not as likely to break your wrist or hand. You can also hit quite hard with the palm since you don't have to worry about breaking the tiny bones in your fist and wrist. You also don't have to worry about spraining your wrist as much.
There are some disadvantages - your fingers are exposed. The fingers can be jammed, caught in your own shirt sleeve (or your opponents) or seen as a target by your opponent. It takes considerable skill to learn how to deliver power through palm strikes and a certain level of finesse to deliver palm strikes, versus just crashing through with your fists. You also lose some distance in reach. Perhaps in the context of wing chun, this won't matter as you're supposed to be quite close to the opponent, but it's just a physical reality that the reach is shorter with a palm strike compared to a punch.
What would you prefer to use? At my skill level, I wouldn't feel comfortable using my palms as weapons, although I wish I could. In the heat of battle, with the adrenaline rush, using your fists would be quite 'natural' and more instinctive. That said, ideally, if I could produce amazing results with open hand striking - that'd be the way to go.
So what would you use?
Until then.
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3 comments:
i've found that hitting the dummy a lot makes me more likely to use palms. and if i do a lot of aggressive crowding, i mostly end up using a larger percentage of forearms, which is actually what i prefer, once i get close enough. Personally in fists vs open hand, i would like to believe it is a matter of practise making perfect, although there will prob always be a mix depending on range, targets, opportunities etc.
And lots of bil jee practise type hits to the neck make it easier to favour chop, spade hand etc.
you should check out the website http://wingchunscience.com it has some videos where the practitioners seem like they know their stuff.
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