Try this test. Extend your reverse punch with your shoulder down and feel your lat muscle just below and to the outside of your armpit. With your shoulder down, your lat muscle is flexed because it’s contributing to the punch. Now, with your hand still on your flexed lat, raise your shoulder. It’s no longer flexed, is it? When your shoulder is hunched it becomes the weak link in your power chain because it eliminates the involvement of your major back muscle.
An Exception to the Rule
But are there occasions when you can raise your shoulders when punching? Mike Ferguson, a Muay Thai fighter based in Canada, says there are some techniques that require it.
“While I shadowbox,” Ferguson says, “I try to stretch and loosen my shoulders by throwing hooks and uppercuts, allowing my shoulders so much room to move. My shoulders generally pop up and slap my jaw a little. This ‘jaw slapping’ happens when you get enough rotation and you are really relaxed. It’s a good sign that you are loose.”
As a Muay Thai fighter, Ferguson uses a stance similar to boxer’s. “My stance is a little high and I lift my shoulders so my hands can cover my face better. As far as the delivery of straight punches, I don’t change the position of my shoulders. When I have my guard up by my temples, my shoulders are up, and when I throw a punch, my shoulder slaps my face. My fist comes right from my jaw. If my shoulders are down all the way, and I’m relaxed, I throw the punch from my chest, but still my shoulder touches my chin a little.”
While Muay Thai fighters raise their shoulders for a few of their punches and therefore negate some involvement of their upper back muscles, they make up for the loss by rotating their shoulders and waist further than do most karate styles (more in a moment why you should incorporate this rotation).
Mike Ferguson says that having relaxed shoulders is important for speed and power. “You want to keep your shoulders relaxed because you want to be really loose. If your shoulders are all tight, chances are you will be using your arms to punch instead of your whole body. When doing a lot of punches, tight shoulders will actually slow you down, while relaxed shoulders improve your snap. Most importantly, you want to keep your shoulders relaxed so you don’t lose power.
2. ROTATING YOUR BODY
I can still remember my first instructor telling the class of the importance of snapping the hips forward when throwing a reverse punch. “You will increase your power by 80 percent,” he told us. I don’t know if he just grabbed that percentage out of the air to make his statement sound more official, but for sure, rotating the hips adds tremendous power to some hand techniques.
Rotating While Exercising in Horse Stance
Let’s consider the reverse punch. Hopefully, you understand that sitting in a deep horse stance and punching straight ahead from the hip is just an exercise. You would never - heavens forbid - ever do that in a real fight. As an exercise, it serves as a pretty good way to simultaneously strengthen the legs while working the involved punching muscles in the arm, chest, back and shoulders. However, many styles, especially the more rigid traditionalists, don’t rotate their hips or turn their shoulders when punching in horse stance. In fact, many traditionalists consider it blasphemy.
I still remember my kong su instructor shouting at the class, as we sat low and pounded out rep after rep, “Stop turning your shoulders! Keep them square to the front! Don’t turn your hips! Keep them motionless!” I never questioned this back then when I was a young neophyte, though I wish now I would have.
Today in my school, we occasionally do the classic-horse stance punching exercise, but with a twist (pun intended). We get low in the stance, hold our arms high, fists just below the jaw line, and thrust our punch forward as we snap the other fist back to our ear. The big difference is that we rotate our upper body as we punch, including the shoulders. You can turn the hip with the punch just a tad, but the emphasis is on rotating the upper body.
Punching in this fashion while exercising in horse stance keeps the concept of rotation alive in your mind. Why ingrain in your subconscious a rigid way of punching in horse stance, but then use hip snap and shoulder rotation when punching in your fighting stance? Always remember that how you train is how you perform for real. Secondly, when you punch rigidly in horse stance, you don’t stimulate the muscles that rotate your shoulders and waist. Every supplemental exercise you do should work the same muscles you are going to use when throwing a technique from your fighting stance.
Incorrect
While a good exercise, one problem with rigid horse-stance punching is that it conditions the mind not to sink the punch.
Correct
However, slightly rotating the waist and shoulders trains the mind to sink the punch deeper, and exercises the muscles involved in the extension.
Incorrect
Rigid punching in your forward stance limits your power potential and your reach.
Correct
Without stepping, rotate your hips, waist & shoulders to increase impact and reach.
Rotating in your Fighting Stance
The classic reverse punch is usually done by extending the arm in conjunction or slightly before the rotation of the hips. This is fine. But many styles stop the rotation when both shoulders form a straight line, a position sometimes referred to as “flush to the front.” This is okay if that is where your target mandates that you stop your rotation, but too many karate students always stop at this point. This is unfortunate, because when you have the option of rotating your hips and shoulders further, but don’t take it, you greatly reduce your power and penetration capability.
How far should you twist? As much as 45 degrees beyond flush to the front. When throwing a right reverse punch, continue twisting your shoulders until your chest is angled to your left at a 45-degree angle.
Try this experiment. Face a wall and extend your right punching arm until your chest and shoulders are parallel to it and your fist is touching. Keep your arm up as you scoot your feet back until your fist is about 12-15 inches away from the wall. This is where a fighter’s punch would stop who does not rotate his shoulders and hips. Now, without moving your feet, rotate your shoulders, waist and hips about 45 degrees to the left. Hey! Your fist is now resting against the wall and you didn’t take a step. This simple illustration proves the reach potential gained when rotating the body in the reverse punch.
To test the dramatic penetration power of the rotation, try it on the heavy bag. First hit it with a punch with your shoulders flush to the front and then again with a hip, waist and shoulder rotation 45 degrees to the side.
3. TRICKY-KNEE PUNCH
No, this doesn’t have anything to do with a bad knee or punching at the knee; it’s just my way of being linguistically clever. It does, however, involve doing a quick bend of your lead knee to get a little closer to your opponent and hitting him just a little harder. This is a great trick to create an illusion that you are further away from your opponent than he thinks you are. Assume your fighting stance but position your feet a couple inches closer together than you normally do. To make him think you need glasses, throw a reverse punch that misses him by several inches. Throw another and twist your upper body just a little to show him that you are really trying. Ideally, he becomes lulled into a comfort zone because he thinks you are too far away to be dangerous (hee, hee, snicker).
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