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What Every Martial Artist Should Know 01
What Every Martial Artist Should Know 01
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Copyright
Martin J Austwick
A pugilism.org publication
http://www.pugilism.org
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under United
Kingdom and International Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint
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Contents
Page
4 Introduction
11 Punching
12 Fist Alignment
16 Power Generation
18 Targeting
21 Counter Punching
28 Conclusion
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Introduction
Over the last fifty years or so there has been a massive boom in people studying
traditional martial arts of one form or another. From the Kung Fu inspired by
Bruce Lee in the seventies to Daniel San's Karate through the eighties. However
unlike most hobbies, Martial Arts is no passing fad. It is more popular now than it
has ever been, and since the dawn of organisations like Pride in Japan and the UFC
in America another player has joined the market: “Mixed Martial Arts”.
All of these systems have a number of things in common, as indeed does modern
boxing at both amateur and professional levels. They sell themselves as being great
for self defence, and in some ways it is hard to argue with them. They do indeed
provide you with a lot of the skills you need to be able to defend yourself if you find
yourself on the wrong end of a violent assault. But, and this is a very big but
indeed, in some ways they are letting you down. They are letting you down in such
This book will show you exactly how neither traditional martial arts, modern
martial arts, nor indeed boxing actually prepare you to come away from a situation
where you have had to defend yourself without injuring yourself. It will show you
how you can take the skills of Classical Pugilism and adapt your training in such a
way as to fix this deficit. It will show you how to strike your opponent in such a
way as to cause maximum damage to them without running the risk of damaging
your hands, it will show you how to generate power without telegraphing your
attacks, it will teach you which targets to hit to maximise your chances of defeating
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your opponent, it will teach you strategies for countering common attacks, how to
stay on your feet, how to become skilled at “In-fighting” and how to take your
opponent down to the ground whilst remaining on your feet in order to be able to
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What is Classical Pugilism?
At its most basic level Classical Pugilism is what Boxing used to be, but that doesn't
really come close to doing it justice. Over several hundreds of years boxing evolved
massively into the sport it is today; if you could travel back in time to the 1740s and
visited Jack Broughton's amphitheatre you'd hard pushed to recognise what you
saw as boxing. Yes there would be two people in a ring hitting each other, but that's
floor. One other difference, and perhaps the most significant, is that they wouldn't
be wearing gloves. Later on we'll see quite how significant a difference this is.
Before the Marquess of Queensbury spoiled everything with his rules there were
three distinct eras of Pugilism, each one characterised by the fact that fighters did
not wear gloves when competing. The early Era had no formal rules at all, in fact
anything went in the ring. Fighters agreed their own rules before a fight, but there
were no general rules that they all fought to. This changed when a man called Jack
Broughton introduced the first set of rules. The second era, known as The
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Broughton's Rules Era started after he killed a man in the ring. Filled with remorse
Champion of all England to introduce a set of rules for all major competitions.
Whilst this sounds like a big change, most of his rules dealt with the size and layout
of the arena, the behaviour of the seconds, and the introduction of a system of
rounds. There were only two things fighters were no longer able to do. Firstly
there was no taking hold of a man below the waist, and no striking a man who was
down. What is most noticeable is what it did not ban. It didn't ban kicking, it didn't
ban elbow strikes and other forms of striking that are no longer allowed, and it
didn't ban grappling and throwing your opponent. The third era was brought about
as more and more “Gentlemen of Quality” became involved in the fistic arts.
Known as the London Prize Ring rules they were based heavily on Broughton's, but
over a number of revisions gradually removed all of the aspects of pugilism that
introduced his rules he made gloves compulsory for the first time and pugilism was
no more.
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Bare Fists vs Gloves
artist the chances are that when you know you're going to be fighting, either in
competition of training, one of the first things you do is to put on some hand
protection. Whether we're talking about 16oz boxing gloves, MMA grappling gloves,
or the lightest of foam mitts, hand protection is a vital part of any martial artist's kit,
Your hands are incredible things. They are strong enough to be used all day, every
day without causing a problem, yet sensitive enough to detect tiny changes in
temperature and texture. They allow you to carry out the finest of motor
movements. Each hand has 29 bones, 30 arteries, 48 nerves and over 120 ligaments.
The thumb alone is controlled by 9 muscles and can move in six clearly different
directions. The hand is an amazing creation, yet we scrunch it up into a ball and
So if hands are so fragile, and so easily damaged surely we should be using more
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hand protection, not looking to arts where none was ever used? Well yes, that is
exactly what we should be doing. At least from the point of view of martial arts and
boxing. If we know we are going to be using our hand as a weapon to punch people
then we should ensure that we are using the very best hand protection that we can
get.
But this is the problem, and it is where all the arguments for using boxing,
traditional martial arts, or mixed martial arts as a basis for self defence fall down.
Let me say that again, because it is perhaps the most important thing I will say in
In fact it goes further than that. The less prepared you are, the more likely to be
When an attacker steps out in front of you you do not have the luxury of asking
them to hang on a minute while you get your gloves on. In a world where assailants
worked by appointment only, then perhaps Shotokan or Tae Kwon Do would be all
we ever needed to know, but sadly that is not the case. When we actually need to
use our self defence skills for real we are going to have to do it without the luxury of
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Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you won't be fast enough to avoid getting
hit, perhaps you will be, perhaps not. What I'm saying is that when you attempt to
hit them you are extremely likely to damage yourself as much as you damage them
if all your training has consisted in how to hit while wearing gloves.
Gloves change the way you fight. By its very nature hand protection protects your
hands and in doing so allows you the luxury of being able to get away with
techniques that you simply cannot use when you don't have that protection. You
can contact with areas of your hands that are too fragile and likely to break, you can
hit area of your opponent that would simply be ineffective. In short unless you
train to protect your hands you won't know how to protect your hands. You will be
placing your chances of surviving a violent attack squarely in the lap of lady luck.
You could end up with a painful injury that takes weeks to heal and puts you out of
action for months, and that is the best case scenario. You could be permanently
disabled, at worst you could injure yourself in such a way that you lose the ability to
defend yourself. You could end up dead, simply because you didn't utilise the basic
theory of bare knuckle boxing that used to be common knowledge. Theory that
developed over many decades of glove-less combat. Theory that allowed some of
the best fighters the world has ever seen to dominate the ring for years at a time
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Punching
In most martial arts we are taught to make contact with a horizontal fist when
punching. We do this by means of a rotational force through the arm as the punch
extends. The theory is that this is anatomically stronger, as well as being more
powerful due to the torquing force of the fist exerting more energy on impact. In
order to keep the wrist straight on impact we are taught that we should attempt to
only contact with the first two knuckles as these form a surface that is roughly
perpendicular to the arm. In some arts this is essentially the only form of punching
that is practiced. In boxing a huge array of punches exist, but the common factor is
In Classical Pugilism things are done a little differently. The fist should be vertical
on impact, and the point of contact should be the middle two knuckles (some later
sources such as Dempsey suggest the bottom three knuckles, but in most people this
will not make a straight line unless they are wearing gloves, which Dempsey did
through his entire career). Punches are only made in a straight line (there are other
strikes but more on that later). So with these differences in mind lets take a
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Fist Alignment
We'll start by looking at the relative positions of the fist. When punching with a
horizontal fist you supposedly gain power from the torsional forces you apply to the
arm as it extends.
utilising the bodyweight. Big guys hit harder as a general rule, and it isn't just
because they have bigger muscles, it is because they are bigger. But there must be
It is often claimed that the bones of the forearm are more structurally sound when
the hand is placed in a pronated position (palm down) as is the case when a
horizontal fist is used. However there is no real evidence for this either. The fact is
that the two bones of the forearm have vastly different roles to play. The radius
forms the wrist joint in which the ulna plays no part, and the ulna forms the elbow
in which the radius plays no part. The bones themselves are held tightly together
by a series of ligaments and a very strong membrane. It is this that gives the
forearm it's compressive strength, not the relative positions of the bones in relation
to each other.
So you can see that it isn't actually more powerful, and it isn't structurally stronger,
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The significant reduction in rotation during the action of the punch allows you to be
markedly more precise. And it is precision in striking that will ensure that we
maximise the damage to the target and minimise the damage to our own hands.
When striking with a vertical fist the plane in which the elbow bends is also
vertical. Or to use simple terminology the arm bends up and down, not out to the
side. In a sport like boxing this is not of any real relevance, but as soon as grappling
One of the first things you will be taught if you learn to wrestle is to keep your
invitation you really don't want to send. And it is worth noting that it is almost
impossible to throw a straight punch with a vertical fist without tucking your
elbow in. This doesn't just help prevent an opponent from successfully grappling
with us, but as we will see later it enables us to combine offence and defence into
one move.
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Straight vs Circular Punches
In modern boxing the lead hand jab is often used in order to set up the “power
punch” - a hook from the rear hand. When done well in the ring this is a fearful
combination. The jab is sharp, fast and dangerous in its own right, but the second
punch is devastating. It comes to the side of the head and has all the bodyweight
behind it. Unless you are a southpaw then it will be from your stronger arm as
well. However if you do this without wearing boxing gloves you will very quickly
find out why it is that the successful pugilists from long ago considered round blows
the domain of the untrained, the natural blow of those lacking in science.
Without the glove the fist contacts the side of the head at an angle, in such a way as
to put all the force of the blow though one single metacarpal, and not even through
it in a straight line. It is highly likely that a blow like this would significantly
damage the hand of the person throwing it unless they were wearing some sort of
defence into one strike. If it succeeds you may well be fine, but you may have a
broken hand requiring surgery. If it doesn't then you have a broken hand, an angry
assailant, and you have thrown away the only chance you had to defend yourself.
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A straight punch with a falling step
you. If you feel the need to include some sort of circular strike in your repertoire,
then take a leaf out of Jack Slack or Daniel Mendoza's books. Use a back fist. It isn't
as powerful as a good boxing hook, but in these circumstances that is a good thing.
Also it hits with a significantly larger surface area thereby reducing the impact to
any one single bone in the hand. As a technique it works well, it allowed Slack to
hand the great Broughton his one and only career defeat,and it allowed Mendoza, a
aware it takes some practice to do well. If you have neither the time or the
inclination to put that practice in then you're always going to be better off sticking
to straight punches. They are fast, they are accurate, and most importantly they
allow you to contact with the bit of your hand that is most likely to stand up to the
forces being put through it. The centre two knuckles of a vertical fist.
However this is not the only advantage of the pugilist's straight punch. Because it
hard to see. Our eyes are designed in such a way as to be able to pick up on
movement rapidly. And so if you minimise the movement, you minimise the
chance that your opponent will be able to avoid or block the punch.
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Power Generation
I mentioned earlier that power isn't generated from the movement of the arm, but
from utilising the bodyweight. If this is something you want to spend time studying
then I recommend you get hold of a copy of Jack Dempsey's fantastic book
But Dempsey is quite clear that this is not something he invented, it is simply a
method of generating power that was used by the great fighters of the past that had
fallen out of favour at the time of writing. If you look at earlier works you can see
years earlier; other, even earlier writers allude to the same method, but it is
The drop step, or falling step is a simple method of allowing the weight of the body
to power a straight punch, and even a complete beginner can use it to devastating
effect.
Stand in a relaxed manner with one foot slightly in front of the other. Make sure
your weight is evenly split between your feet and then lift the front foot about 15cm
off the ground. If you do this without first shifting your weight backwards you will
It is this falling step that turns your jab from an irritation used to set up a proper
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punch, to a knock out blow in its own right. Practice this a few times and then start
to add in a punch as you fall. You should aim to get the fist to land at the same
moment the foot hits the floor. With a little practice you will be able to minimise
the movement without losing any of the explosive power of the punch. Once you
can feel your bodyweight moving you have essentially cracked it. You now have the
power to knock out any assailant with a punch fast enough that he won't see it
coming, and safe enough that it is unlikely to cause you any harm at all.
The method for generating power for the rear hand punch is slightly different, but
has the exactly the same effect. From a position where the lead hand is extended in
a punch throw out the rear hand in a straight line as you pull back the front hand to
cover the ribs and solar plexus (known as barring). As you do so rotate your hips a
little and allow your knee to drop a few centimetres. This gets the bodyweight
falling, and so if you time the punch correctly to land as the weight of the body
lands on the now more bent knee you get an extremely powerful punch. Together
these two punches are more than enough to cause serious harm to any assailant.
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Targeting
In Classical Pugilism strikes were usually aimed at the torso. There is a lot more
margin for error when hitting someone on the body whilst still having the potential
to cause serious harm. In fact if we are to believe the accounts of the great fighters
more knock outs were caused by accurate, powerful body shots than head shots.
The floating ribs are a favourite, but by far the best place to hit someone was the
as having the wind knocked out of you, and if the strike is solid enough to affect the
If you manage to land a straight punch directly on the mark using a vertical fist and
a falling step the chances are very high that your assailant would be instantly
incapacitated. If you miss and hit the lower ribs (known as floating ribs as they do
not join the sternum directly) it can cause serious pain and problems breathing.
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However pugilists did not avoid the head completely as a target area. If you were to
draw a circle roughly the size of your fist around the mouth and nose you would
have the area known as the “button”. In an ideal world you would strike here from
a slight angle, when powered by a falling step this would likely be a knock out blow.
However it is a much harder area to connect with a punch. It only takes a small
movement of the head to defeat it, and not much more to cause the punch to land
on the tougher, bonier sections of the skull. A common tactic in Classical Pugilism
was to duck the head in order to take the blow on the top of the head whist
Professional boxing, with its heavy gloves and focus on knock outs as the best way
to win a fights has caused fighters to head-hunt when punching, this is a big
mistake, and is certainly not the way pugilists of old fought. If the opportunity
arose they would strike to the button, but invariably they would be aiming for the
mark, the ribs, or the kidneys with their strikes. The head only becomes a viable
target when you have managed to somehow immobilise it, much as John “The
Gentleman” Jackson did to Daniel Mendoza by taking hold of his hair and holding
him against the ropes whilst repeatedly bludgeoning him around the face to take
the championship from him. You can see that Classical Pugilism was a world away
So by focussing on the mark as your primary target, you drastically reduce the
incapacitating your opponent. By targeting the button only when it has a high
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chance of landing not only do you dramatically reduce the chance of fracturing the
small bones of your hand, but you also effectively rule out the possibility of
damaging your hand on your opponent's teeth. It is often said that the human bite
(intentional or otherwise) is the second most deadly bite in the world, and whilst
that may be an exaggeration the chances of secondary infection after a human bite
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Counter-punching
disagreed, and so he became the first ever undisputed champion. He was tall,
strong, and powerful, he was fearless and experienced, but on top of this he did
which he was a master, and applied it to the noble art of pugilism. He took a
pugilism. That of the single time counter. In simple terminology a single time
counter is an defensive move that is also an offensive move, a block that is also an
“he knew his Arm and its just time of moving, put a firm Faith in that, and
For example if your opponent throws a straight jab with their left hand towards
your face, you should duck your chin and throw a straight with your right to the
button, rolling your shoulder up slightly and slipping a little to your left. This
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combination of movements, if done properly, will deflect their punch upwards and
away from your head whilst driving your fist directly into their face. In one simple
move.
The benefits of using this system of single time counter-punches are many and
varied.
1) It allows you to strike using the most accurate form of punch (straight line,
2) It combines offence and defence into one move limiting the number of
closing distance
This technique can be applied to strikes from any range and at any target. The
basic principles are to avoid or deflect any incoming blow, whilst simultaneously
attacking.
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Staying on your Feet
On the 16th August in 1743 Jack Broughton published the first ever set of rules for
the bare knuckle prize ring and they introduced something revolutionary. The
concept of rounds.
Whilst modern boxing is also separated into rounds there are very little in the way
either the fight as a whole, or the rounds individually. A round was considered to
be over when one of the combatants was “down”. The rules specify “a man on his
knees to be considered down.” From the end of the round each man had thirty
seconds to get to his feet and back to the chalk line or “scratch” in the centre of the
ring. The fight continued until one or other of the fighters was unable to come up to
scratch.
What this meant in reality was that fights had a tendency to either finish very
quickly, or go on for a very long time indeed. It also meant that forcing someone to
their knees was unlikely to stop them getting back up to scratch, but making them
hit the ground hard might. This is a tactic that works just as well in a self defence
situation as it did in the pugilism ring. If your assailant is incapacitated for half a
minute or more you have every chance in the world to escape the situation, or deal
Of course it is easy to say, and much harder to put into practice. We would always
choose every punch we throw to be a knock out blow if we could, but they rarely
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are, especially when we aren't wearing gloves and so have to be careful how we hit,
where we hit, and when we hit. So there must be another option. An option that
gets our opponent to hit the ground hard, an option that leaves you on your feet.
I am not advising the use of Brazilian Ju Jitsu, or Catch as Catch Can in a self defence
situation regardless of the scenario, often fighting on the ground is a bad idea in the
street. However grappling and ground fighting are not necessarily the same thing,
and it is grappling we are looking for to aid us in dealing with our assailant.
are familiar to most fighters today, however the Pinion, the Hanging Trippet and
the Flying Horse less so. Yet all of these techniques form part of the pugilist's
armoury. All of them, when carried out properly put your opponent down hard.
On top of that we have Hanks, Clamps, and Grips are the bread and butter of bare
knuckle boxing. However knowing how to throw your opponent is only half of the
battle, it isn't enough to be able to put them down hard. You also have to know how
to be able to keep your feet when they are trying to do the same to you.
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Closing and In-fighting
It is a truism that the majority of fights end up at close range. You only have to
watch a professional boxing weigh in, or pre fight press conference to see two
people, who make their living from striking at distance, lose their tempers and
instantly start rolling around on the floor. It is at this distance that the most
damage is done by those who are able to deal with In-fighting, and it is at this range
We mentioned earlier that the “button”, or head shot was not something that was
often targeted unless the head had been secured somehow, and so rather than
forgetting about this target area and concentrating exclusively on others a system of
securing the head in order to be able to cause the most damage in the shortest time
was developed. Within Classical Pugilism securing the head is known as Chancery
and can be divided into three separate forms. Standing Chancery, Side Chancery
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Side Chancery is familiar to most people as the classic head lock used in every
school playground the world over. It is the perfect position from which to perform
a cross buttock throw, a crossface, or simply to dish out a lot of punishment to the
face.
facing the same direction they are facing each other. It is much harder to strike
effectively at the face from a rear Chancery, but it opens up a vast array of chokes,
In-fighting also offers us the opportunity to break all of the rules of punching we
discussed early by the use of the “contracted arm” strike. This is a short range
technique in which a punch is delivered along a curved line, and the alignment of
the fist varies as to target area. The arm remains bent throughout and the elbow is
kept tight against the body to protect your ribs and mark. Force is generated in this
punch by rotation of the torso for hooking strikes, and level changes from the legs
for uppercuts. Contracted arm strikes can be used to create enough space to set up
throws such as Mares and Cross Buttocks, or simply to cause damage while in close.
The contracted arm strike is not something that should be utilised unless In-
fighting, as soon as the distance is such that your elbow must leave your side then
not only does your arm become vulnerable to all the grips, closes, and wrestles that
a loose arm sets up, but also you can no longer be entirely certain which part of the
fist your blow will land with, and so you risk damaging the small bones in your
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hand. However when in close any other form of strike is lacking in power and thus
all but the most determined of attackers. If you are not confident in your ability to
utilise throws to put your opponent to the floor you should concentrate on utilising
contracted arm strikes in order to create enough distance between you and your
assailant to allow you to use the more powerful and damaging falling step strike.
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Conclusion
competitive fighting in order to deliver the most damaging of strikes without the
associated damage to the striker. There is much we can learn from the great
fighters of old who made their livings, and in some cases massive fortunes from
their fists. Whether we look at the specific techniques they used and integrate them
into our general repertoire, or we look at the core concepts and underpinning
philosophies of the system and use that knowledge to safeguard ourself both in the
ring and on the street. Pugilism is growing in popularity in the UK and abroad, and
it is easy to see why when you look at how effective it is as a system of combat.
Whichever of the three eras of pugilism you focus on there is one thing that is safe
you will become more accurate, faster, more dangerous, and most of all, safer.
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