Just wondering, how many elbow strikes do people do?

To kick things off, we often start off with a 6-direction elbow strike drill in kata form which takes you through front, rear, sideways, round, rising and dropping elbow strikes. We don't do this every week though. And when we do elbow strikes it is usually coupled with some striking into a shield or pad for targeting and distancing.

What about everyone else?


Mick

Four - we don't do front or dropping ones (although I tried a drill involving "forward" elbow strikes once - and they felt ... weird and ineffective). We also put them together in a kata like drill that also experiments with different stances, and I have to say it is my favourite of all drills. I don't know why. It just feels good.

I imagine it only felt weird and ineffective because you weren't used to it. In reality, elbow strikes are usually devastatingly effective.

Mick, I place a lot of reliance on elbow strikes. The normal ('roundhouse') elbow strike is one of the 3 striking techniques I teach to beginners, the others being palm-heel and knee. Then they learn to put them together into a palm-heel, knee, elbow combination, which while it is simple and easy to do without damaging yourself in the process, is also one of my personal favourites.

Mike

I hoped it was because I was doing it wrong.

Elbow strikes almost seem like an afterthought in GKR - they appear in basics, and in some kata, but never really get looked at in a "what can I do with this?" way... especially because we don't use them in sparring or practicing self defence.
How does a dropping elbow strike work?


*must be time for a trip to Perth again*

...plus it's great fun slamming into a bag...


Mick

As a response to an attacker from the front:

(this is assuming you have disabled their first attack, this is the counter)

Grab someone on the back of the neck (ie your right hand to the left hand side of their neck/shoulder), step back and down with your right leg, pulling them back with you, you will now be in something resembling horse/sumo stance and as you are sinking into the stance, drop your elbow onto their back or neck.

I should imagine it hurts.

Thats probably not well described.

that sounds pretty cool i only thought there were two elbow strikes (but i am a yellow belt) i mite ask my class sensais about it
hell wanna learn the drop elbow strike sounds awsome (practice on my sis JOKING!!!!! nah karate only for dojo i no i no)

Careful with that technique Rancer. Never elbow someone in the back of the neck unless you want to put in appearance at the Old Bailey.

Mike

Basically bringing your elbow down from above.

Here, try it out:

First get a kid... ready? Ok I'll wait... Alright pretend you've done something and now you have them bent over in a restraint like an armbar. Raise your arm and strike down into the centre of their back with your elbow, so that the forearm is vertical - your hand will be above your elbow. Works a treat doesn't it? Drop like a sack of spuds they do.


Mick

Well, that takes the hassle out of bedtime!

Mick, try doing with the elbow strike with the arm in the same position as it would be in an outward block- ie. upper arm at 45 degrees, forearm at 45 degrees. You're still dropping the arm in just the same way as you described. Counter-intuitively it will make the point of the elbow sharper. Most people will jerk away from it even if you do it quite lightly.

And don't that just open a few interesting possibilities in terms of bunkai?

Mike

Yes, I see. It changes which way the tip of the elbow points. Have to think now whether I did that last time I did something with this. I don't think it was something I actually considered.


Mick

I'd never considered it either. For years I saw martial artists of various descriptions do it with the forearm vertical. We all intuitively understood it to be the right way. It took someone to point it to me for me to realise that I (and everyone else I'd ever seen) had been doing it sub-optimally all along.


Mike

Aha. A downwards strike with the forearm vertical is like a sideways elbow strike, hitting with a flattish area on the elbow. But changing the angle of the forearm you can really dig the point in... Where's Matt when you need someone to practice on...?


Mick

Hi guys,

I think there are 5 whenever we drill these. Front rising, front dropping (as you've described), rear, round and side.

Not sure about the 45 degree thing you're talking about here Micks. Do you mean you do chudan soto uke with the hand ending up outside the vertical like so |/ ?

Probably off topic, but wouldn't this reduce the strength you have in the block, even though you're pushing the attack further away from the body? You only need to get their attack outside you, not outside the room.

Same sort of thing goes for the elbow drop. You might have a smaller surface area to hit with, but you will hit harder and more accurately if the arm is vertical when you drop. There will be no 'bounce' in the technique when you impact to reduce the effectiveness.

Still, its all rather semantic. If you hit someone like this, even with bad technique, you WILL damage them.

Hi Mick

You can do a sideways elbow with the point too. Then it would look more like a rising block going slightly backwards. Think of the moves in, say, Kusanku or Rohai, where you've got a simultaneous age-uke and gedan-barai.

Mike

Yeah, Yeah! ^^

Apart from the round elbow and the rising elbow, we don't really do any other versions. Lucky for me I've got my punching bag to practise side elbows and downwards elbows. Heh Heh.

I like the elbow strikes used in seiunchin, especially the one to behind you, at about move 12 of the kata.

With all the hugging that goes on in this world, it's probably a good idea to learn an elbow strike to the behind.

Elbowing someone in the behind would put them off hugging you I guess....

Im the same as Brodius we only do rising elbow and round elbow strikes so any one wanna describe side elbow and downward elbow rear elbow.............. i dunno wel just describe al the ones i dont do so i can ask my class sensai about them

Rear Elbow: If you bring your fist back to your side, your elbow automatically moves back too. Just speed up the process, and perhaps use your other hand to reinforce it.
Side Elbow: With the arm horizontal in front of the torso, just ram the elbow to the side it corresponds with. Can also reinforce this one too.
Downward Elbow: As said earlier in the topic, with the arm vertical, just ram the elbow downwards.

As Goyle says, we got a rear-elbow in Seiunchin, and we have the side-elbow in Sepai, and a kind of down-elbow in Kururunffa (sp?).

Hitting bags and focus-mits and kick-shields is for finding out what it feels like to make contact, and what works for you (I like making the students pummel after doing a series of standard basics on the bag). So rear, side and down elbow strikes are all available IMHO.

Yeah Yeah! I forgot about that elbow strike in Sepai. Heh Heh...

Where's there a downwards elbow strike in Kururunfa? The only thing I can think of which resembles a downward strike is in the YMCA/star-shaped sequence for which the most common application is done as a response to a full nelson. Poor Nelson, he's always either full or half but never sober. Not to say there isn't one, but I can't think of any use for a simultaneous double elbow strike.

IMO using the other hand to reinforce a rear elbow strike doesn't. You can rip the elbow back faster by itself than you can possibly push it with the other hand. What the other hand does do, however, is help guide it.


Mick

hmm intense stuff

aww my knuckles are munted i just had an extreme sesh catchin up on the boxin without bag mits ant al the skin on my knuclkes have been ripped off (ow) so yes im in pain and have alot of bandages on my hand so it looks a bit wierd annnnd i have a class tomoz (great )

Hi Mick,
Quite a few years ago now a guy I worked with used to tell me karate was useless and I would just say ignorance was bliss As I was crossing the road one lunchtime he ran up from behind and tried to jump on my back. My reaction was to move back into him with a reinforced rear elbow strike that he impaled himself on.. he landed on the roadway and lost a bit of bark and a lot of pride. He never bothered me again It was not intentional by me, I just reacted the way I had trained. When applying strikes one way is to brace/reinforce yourself or your weapon when the enemy is moving into you and utilise momentum when one is on the attack. Just my experience.
Boz

Edited asI hit the wrong button first time

No kidding i discovered the same thing a little while ago doing bag work, that by locking by back leg in long fighting stance as I hit, power was generated by the force I was exerting at a backwards-down angle to the floor. Suddenly I'm a believer in the usefulness of a strong stance.

<check relevance to thread...darn>

I like rear elbow strike. I always teach this as a very basic SD move similar to what was described by Boz (nice explanation btw). I also use it to ensure students (mainly white belt kids) have their fists retracted appropriately by telling them it can be used as a strike. (sorry if that sounds a bit confused)

I like elbow strikes in general though, they can do much more damage then a punch and less damage to yourself if you do them properly.

Yeah Yeah, I found that out too. Having a strong stance, use of the hips, and tension at the last moment all help in some way in creating a stronger strike.

Maybe because a strong stance affects the hip movement in some way, which in turn throws out the strike?

Okay,
How can a kick be strong then? What about boxers and kickboxers, they are often in short stances and hitting with one foot off the floor?
Cheers,
Boz

OK I mean't strong stance for arm techniques only, which I thought was obvious.

Boxers tend to use their upper body muscles and (especially in heavyweight divisions) sheer body mass, to generate a lot of power, hence the follow through on the hook, that's why they're athletes, they have to be strong or they are ineffective.

IMO Thrust kicks require a strong supporting leg to exert a force on the ground in the opposite direction to the kicking force to negate the recoil of hitting a heavy target. Snap kicks (comparatively) are not very "powerful" since any power is gained solely from the momentum of the leg, and the force generated is somewhat proportional to the strength of the muscles used, methinks.

The old ideas of power generation were created to explain a karate system already in place. Karateka need to generate force in punching in a similar way to boxers. We don't use the hooks and uppercuts in sparring for reasons of safety, ours and the opponents. We exhibit control like counting coup and we don't wrap up our hands and use protective gloves designed to prevent the bones in our hand breaking.

Cheers,
Boz

Hi Boz

You don't agree that the reinforcing hand has comparatively little strength when it is away from the body, and only becomes really useful as a brace when it is close to the body, when the elbow is almost fully extended to the target?


Mick

Yeah, the big wusses!


Anon

Okay this comment was made a while ago, but I have to agree wholeheartedly..... I tried this recently in class and its even more fun if you visualise someone who has really annoyed you recently and then slam your elbow into the bag!!










*edited by request*

To get back on the topic in hand,
many years ago I was at a Ramones concert and when I was up the front a bit higher than the rest of the crowd and kind of squished I was being grabbed on the breast by a bloke who was on the step lower than me and standing right behind me. I had asked him politely not to but he wouldn't stop.

I used a reverse elbow strike right to the nose (as I was drunk at the time I am amazed my aim was so good!) and broke it. Blood poured out everywhere. He stopped groping me though

*sigh* brings back the days when a 'reverse elbow strike' was known simply as a sternum crack...

Hi Mick,
I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I don't know what you meant to say now as you seem to have contradicted yourself and are now asking me to agree or disagree with something as if I had said or implied such a thing. Weird!

Boz

Ah. Worked out we're talking different purposes. I was talking about a rapid thrust of the elbow and not from the view of bracing against an impact.


Mick

They have more cons than pros IMO. A lot of the kicking force just accelerates the kicker away from the target (in physics terms), because the reactive force applied by the target is not negated by the supporting foot, which is not present in an airborne kick. Maybe if you ran headlong at someone and leapt at them it would be powerful, but an extremely reckless attack. Comparatively, i think they are weak.



Ok I oversimplified it. Boxers DEPEND on big muscles, maybe not super-duper-helium-balloon weight, but definitely the heavier divisions who can KO their fellow sportsmen.. Karateka DO use their upper body muscles--I said it wrong the first time--but it is more a case of accelerating the fist outwards and then tensing the muscles before impact to make sure the reactive force of the blow does not accelerate the fist backwards, whereas boxers push throught the target, relying on a follow through.

Karate students students still use their muscles, just in a different way. I didn't communicate this vbefore.

I try to liken it to kicking a football (AFL BTW) where a drop-punt is a boxer's punch, there is follow-through and the player really pushes through the football during and after impact, to ensure maximum momentum is genrated on the ball. My idea of a krate punch is like a stab-pass, where there is no follow-through, the ball flies low, fast and accurate, and the power coes almost entirely from the extension of the lower leg, instead of mouch of the power coming from the swinging of the whole leg like in a drop-punt.

Hope that makes sense (probably not).

Would you consider a short-punch aimed at the head to be a karate-uppercut? Maybe it's too linear a movement to be considered an uppercut.

Cheers,
Boz

I just wrote badly again I think. I can't get my point across because I don't really understand it myself.

Are you saying that the power of a punch, despite technique, is still proportional to the brawn of the puncher?

Hi Brad,
One can get lost in formulaes that apply more to objects than humans but punching power depends on mass, speed, distance, target and shape of the weapon. The appropriate technique with good timing is what we aim for in karate. The correct target is important as some throw techniques out with targetting an specific point.
Cheers,
Boz

Do you mean that a punch should not be aimed at a specific point, but instead a broad area?

Sorry,
Should have previewed the post first. I should have just said- Some just throw techniques without a specific target in mind. Doh!

Boz

I don't think Ive ever thought about attacking a specific target. The only target ever mentioned seems to be 'head' or 'stomach'. Still dont understand quite what you are referring to.

Well which part of the head do you aim at? If the opponent is facing you front on then would you just throw a punch at his head or would you target the chin or the nose as an example?

I see competitors stand there in a natural guard position and their opponent kicks them straight in the elbow with a R/house kick.. they haven't even moved nor tried to block!

In self-defense precise targeting is pretty important if you are 60kg and your attacker is 100kg!

Cheers,
Boz

This is one of the glaring differences IMO between the modern 'do' of karate and the older (or even the newer) 'jutsu' versions. In 'do' the emphasis is purely on self-improvement, so you don't have to worry about the realities of physically traumatising another human being. If, on the other hand, you are actually concerned with self-defence then you must pay some regard to selecting specific targets.

Some people select a small selection of obvious targets: jaw, windpipe, testicles etc and others get very specific about causing muscular/neurological trauma or even attacking acupuncture points. Personally I don't believe in the value of attacking the acupuncture points, although some of them do happen to coincide with some vulnerable parts of the human anatomy.

But don't think that its just a case of selecting a specific spot and kicking or punching away at it in the way that you usually train - it may be necessary to modify techniques for attacking different targets. On the other hand, in reality pretty much all of your techniques have to be modified in some way depending on the target - if you do your regular punch and hit someone just anywhere in the face with it, its quite likely that you'll damage your hand in the process.

Mike