Karate Punch - Understanding All The Elements Of A Perfect Punch

It has been many centuries that martial art instructor have been busy training their students the most efficient and devastating art in Karate, the punching techniques. This equally true in Okinawa, It is the dedication and many years of training and experimenting that the students reach the point of proficiency.

To be efficient and perfectionist in that devastating punch, a student is expected to perform this technique 10,000 times and master it. This is true for all the techniques which modern day Karate students learn.

Once mastered, that devastating punch could be delivered even without thinking about it. The students have never been told about all the aspects of the punch as these were part of secret techniques. This aspect was not available to all but some of the honest martial artists had complete access to such aspects, but this was used only for personal/family defense or passed on to other family members.

This was done to ensure that these secrets do not go wrong hands and misused. To understand the proper execution of the punch, a student must have complete understanding of basic three human responses when in danger and deal accordingly.

This is common with every human being and has been there from the primitive age. The basic 3 responses to a dangerous situation are Freeze, Flight and Fight mechanism.

This varies from person to person, some people may simply freeze and will not be able to anything, some people will run to safety and some people will fight. These are basic responses of a human being.

As martial art students, you will have to overcome the response of freezing and take action against a threat. If you freeze, your opponent will punch you down and you will get hurt.

The flight response is a good defense strategy; it should be the first response to be considered when encountering a danger. The fight mechanism should be applied when there is no other alternative and fight is the only option. With some training and knowledge one can quickly overcome the basic responses easily.

A punch or strike needs to effective, quick and fast with full power and has to be executed properly; otherwise it will have little or no impact. The speed matters a lot in such strikes, the physics state force equals mass time acceleration.

The main aspects of Karate punch is focus, muscle control, eye location, breathing technique, mental attitude, unification of body and mind, formation of fist, ready stance, hip action, shoulder and arm movements, elbow placement, knowledge of maximum power range, recoil and understanding of physics of the strike.

To the untrained, it seems like a lot of elements have to come together to execute a punch. When you are well trained and experienced, throwing a punch is automatic.

Though tough to remember, a proper punch is the combination of all the elements mentioned above. Once you gone through a period of training, you do not have to remember all these aspects, everything comes automatically from the sub conscious mind. The subconscious mind works so perfectly that responds to any danger is instant.

Most Karate students spend years together for years in perfecting the punch, some of the students learn it and quit it as they are able to master it. Understanding these aspects will go long way in perfecting the punching techniques.

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