The Palm Heel Thrust Discussion Thread

[Sakmongkol]

My friend's son was held up at gun point in the restaurant he worked at. The guy threatened to kill him. When he turned his back the kid knocked the gun out of his hand and started beating the guy's face. Somehow the perp got the gun back and pistol whipped the kid, smashing one of his eye sockets. He also threw hot french fry oil on the kid out of spite.

The reason I mention this is that her son is currently recovering. He had to have surgery on both of his hands as all of the knuckles were broken, required plates and screws, etc. It's possible he may never regain feeling in his right hand as the knuckles broke again when the initial cast was taken off.

The other alternative to the palm strike is a hammer fist or ridge hand. I've broken bags of ice with a hammer fist with relatively little effort. Either way they both sound like good alternatives than to punch bony parts of the body. There's always that slap to the throat or nose....

Relevant news article to support your claim?

Ridge hand is the most retarded strike ever invented by man.

[vaquero de las nalgas]

Relevant news article to support your claim?

Ridge hand is the most retarded strike ever invented by man.

It was not reported in the news because the cops are still looking for the guy. He left one of his teeth on the floor of the kitchen but there has been no DNA match and the surveillance video is not clear enough to identify him.

[1point2]

It was not reported in the news because the cops are still looking for the guy. He left one of his teeth on the floor of the kitchen but there has been no DNA match and the surveillance video is not clear enough to identify him.

Um, yeah.

Anyway, I like palm strikes. I value my finger bones, and don't want to hit a big bone (skull) with little precious (meta)carpals.

I'm drinking, so will not research obligatory "boxer breaks hand giving some guy a nice present of KTFO" links. I just don't see any major difference--I don't bend my fingers back when I hit a bag or people, so I'm not sure how it would suddenly start to happen on teh str33ts.

But yeah, it's not a magic wand like ninjas and RBSD thinks it is. It's just...hitting someone in the head with your hand.

Re: palm strike to ribs...no. I don't think it's worthwhile as anything but a distraction. My knuckles do much better there.

[Deadmeat]

And for the record, wrapping your bare shin or bare knuckles around someone's head does hurt quite a bit, and isn't advisable without having done some work on conditioning.

[Jim_Jude]

Mechanically it runs plenty of risks, if you dont hit with the solid boney part of the palm you put a tremendous amount of stress on a rather weak joint. There are a lot of small bones in the hand....things break easily.

I've never heard of a "Palm-healer fracture" but I've sure heard of a Boxer's fracture (5th Metacarpal). It's much more difficult to hit a solid moving target correctly with a naked fist than it is to use a palm-heel thrust or an palm-heel slap.

I went downstairs and smacked up my heavybag a few times palm striking....I see two problems:

First, if you keep your wrist pulled back, fingured strecthed backwards to clear then out of the way...that's a lot of muscle tension on the forearm, which felt like it was slowing me down a lot.

uhhh, maybe you need to stretch your wrist or something.

Second, keeping the hands loose until point of impact seemed to remedy the tension/speed problem, but then there is a huge HUGE risk of not getting your hand set properly on impact, if your fingures, hand, w/e isnt cleared out of the way in time or lands funny, you very well could hurt your hand and make you even more unable to defend yourself.

==Just my thoughts==

The threat of REALLY hurting your hand or wrist when punching is much more prevalent.

[Jim_Jude]

This guy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv9R60X87VM - has the idea, although in a short course I'd recommend teaching the technique from extreme close-quarters, rather than stepping in to generate power. As an upward attack it relies more on the strength of the legs and alignment of the elbow and hips, than on a drop-step type falling weight.

In general, RBSD/WW II combatives instructors have a good, realistic application of this weapon.

Good point at about 2:20-2:30, "if you want to learn how to do it properly, you have to actually hit something, you can't do it in the air..."

Great vid. I liked his "Power Slap" vid too.

[Jim_Jude]

The ancient answer to this question is as always "What would Bas Rutten do?"
He obviously knocked people retarded in Pancrase with open handed strikes however many times since he has said he would use a punch given the choice. So if you train enough to hit like Bas, punch. If not run away.

I agree with this. Bas Rutten spent years doing various forms of karate, mostly punching. OF COURSE he's giong to be more comfortable punching & would prefer to punch.
However, whether he was comfortable with palm/palm-heel strike or not, it didn't stop him for taking guys the hell out with open hands.

[TheMightyMcClaw]

I agree with this. Bas Rutten spent years doing various forms of karate, mostly punching. OF COURSE he's giong to be more comfortable punching & would prefer to punch.
However, whether he was comfortable with palm/palm-heel strike or not, it didn't stop him for taking guys the hell out with open hands.

Yes, but were any of those with Palm heel thrusts? The only palm strikes I can recall ever seeing in Pancrase were of the power slap variety, coming around from the side, not the palm heel thrust straight down the z-axis.
I'd like to clarify that I'm not talking about palm strikes in general - I'm talking about the palm heel thrust in specific, wherein the the blow is thrown similarly to a straight right or left, but with the hand open and flexed back rather than curled into a fist. See the photo of ol' Phil below for reference:

The notion that this is going to safer on the hand than a strike thrown with the fist in the same tragectory seems highly suspicious to me. Disregarding the loss of power and reach, it seems like throwing your fleshy palm straight into someone's face is likely to lead to a teeth-versus-palm scenario in which the meat of your hand does not fair well. Furthermore, throwing one's hand straight forward with the fingers/wrist bent back and up is both leaving them in the ideal position to be bent back unnaturally, and supplying the force in the necessary vector to bend them back. All it would take is in an object - say, your opponents hands or head - intercepting your hand at the fingers or the top the palm to violently bend the hand back whilst throwing the palm heel thrust.
Now, the power slap, by virtue of it's different tragectory and targeting, seems less prone to the above mentioned problems.
For a strike advocated as being safer on your hands, the palm heel thrust seems to hold an awful lot of dangers.

Also, I thoroughly object to the gitmo'ing of this thread. If I had simply posted "HAI GUYZ IS PALM STRIKE GOOD FOR STREET FIGHT", then it would be proper to have it detained. But so far, it's been a reasonably well thought out discussion of a weapon which gets a lot of play up by RBSD bullshido but is rarely actually tested.

[mike321]

the black guy is guarding his center with his right hand and controlling brown's right elbow. Browns ribs are a good target in this situation.

You can't "control" an elbow without grabbing it. The bicep just needs to contract and the back muscle contract and the arm is back. (Especially from a jab that is practiced with a quick recoil.) Controlling the center will not protect a wide open head. In any case, why use a palm instead of a fist on the ribs?

[maofas]

McClaw, you're over-thinking this.

Also, if the palm heel strike could speak, it would object to you using Phil Elmore as a reference.