What Do You Hit With What? ...What?

By Joel Persinger

I try to stay away from “rules”, but here’s one anyway. When striking an opponent with parts of your body (hand, foot, elbow, knee, head, etc.) it is generally better to hit hard targets with soft things and soft targets with hard things. At this point you’re probably asking yourself what kind of stuff I’ve been smoking. We’ll, I haven’t been smoking anything, I’ve just hit a few people in my life and learned how to do it without breaking my hand or foot.

So, here’s what I’m talking about. If you’ve been in martial arts for any period of time you’ve probably been taught to launch back fists, punches and so on at people’s faces, jaws, temples and the like. You may even have been taught the ubiquitous head but. Well, I’m here to tell you “don’t do it”. Hitting some dude in the head with your fist is like hitting a bowling ball. The chances are good that it will hurt you much more than the bowling ball (head). Head butting is just as bad. It works well in the movies, but in real life, more times than not the one issuing the head but ends up just as hurt as the one who received it. Imagine, taking two bowling balls and smacking them together. Crunch! Nobody wins.

God created your head with lots of strong bone to protect the little gray cells inside that keep you thinking. In fact, your head is one of the best protected parts of your body. Let’s face it, we don’t call each other “hard headed” for nothing. So, if you’re going to whack some guy up side his head because he’s attacking you, do it with a club if you have one (just recognize that you might kill him in the process). If you don’t happen to have a club at the ready or the situation doesn’t justify killing your attacker, drill him hard with a palm strike or three. Just as God put lots of bone in your attacker’s head, he put lots of pad on your palm. With palm strikes you can splash his brain around in his head, snap his jaw around sideway or send his noggin flying up and back so hard he won’t know his own name, and you can do it without breaking your hand in the process. The other nice thing about palm strikes to the head is that they stick to what you hit. Try this (gently please) with a friend. If you punch someone in the jaw or head with your fist it will glance off just after impact. However, if you strike the same areas with the palm it tends to stick and follow through. Try it a couple times and you’ll see what I mean.

The reverse of this is to strike soft targets with hard things. Some examples would be; striking the eyes (finger and thumb strikes mostly), throat, neck, solar plexus, stomach, kidneys, groin and so on. These are places where hard objects like fists, ridge hands, sword hands, elbows, heals and knees can strike with devastating results. Try this line of thinking in your practice this week. Hit hard things with soft and soft things with hard. It might change your approach to what you hit with what.