There is an old story about a fight that broke out on a street in Okinawa, and a passerby ran to a Karate Master’s home and asked him to go stop the fight. The Master asked if the fighters’ hands were open or closed, and when told they were fighting with closed fists, the Master reportedly went back into his home, saying that there was no need to worry because the fighters wouldn’t hurt each other too badly.
The moral of this story seems clear: open-hand techniques are more advanced and deadly than closed-hand techniques. This has been the mantra of many a martial arts school, and it is certainly a concept that practitioners of the “softer” arts (aikido, jujutsu, et cetera) have taken to heart and proven time and time again.
Though it would be foolish to think less of open-hand techniques, closed-hand techniques certainly have their value, or else they wouldn’t be taught. Mas Oyama made a name for himself by killing bulls with a single punch to the forehead. Before he did this, he would frequently chop off the bull’s horns with a shuto-uke (sword-hand strike), thus demonstrating his ability with both techniques. Yet, it was the closed-hand technique that killed the bull.
So, why are the open-hand techniques so advanced? Because of qi. Qi is the energy that flows through our bodies. It flows through channels, just like blood flows through arteries and veins, and electricity flows through nerves. Qi is energy; therefore it can be channeled through the body and transferred from one thing to another. The transference of energy into an opponent can be called kime, and is the heart of an effective technique. Open-hand techniques are the easiest way to transfer this energy into an opponent.
To demonstrate this, we could look at any open-hand technique, but the easiest to demonstrate is the shuto-uke, or sword-hand strike. To form the shuto, the hand is flattened, as if reaching into a pizza oven without touching the hot walls. The fingers have enough tension to keep them together, and the thumb is pulled back, tightening the muscles in the hand to form the weapon. The striking surface is the meaty part of the hand just below the smallest finger.
Ostensibly, that’s all there is to a good shuto-uke, and that limited view is partly to blame for it being most karate practitioner’s worst hand technique. There’s a lot more going on in the hand and body than just this. Since there is qi flowing through the body, it also flows through the hand. Qi does not flow very well through tight or tense muscles, and flows readily and easily through relaxed muscles. This means the flow of energy (qi) can be manipulated by the martial arts practitioner by the proper tensing and relaxing of certain muscles.
Done correctly, a shuto-uke should feel like energy is circling the hand, starting at the thumb, flowing around the palm, down the side of the hand (striking surface), and out the little finger. This energy cycle will add strength to the structure of the hand (as air adds to the structure of a tire), and increase the effectiveness of the technique.
This same concept can be applied to every technique to enhance the stability, performance, and effectiveness of that technique. Proper qi flow through a technique will do the following:
Make the weapon stronger: The weapon will be stronger because the qi is present, filling the gaps between cells and energizing them.
Increase the speed and accuracy of the strike: When the proper muscles are used, not only does qi flow through the weapon more readily and easily, but also the muscles used to deliver the weapon to the target are not unnecessarily constricted. The rest of the body is more relaxed; therefore the weapon is delivered to the target without hindrance by opposing muscles that serve to slow or draw the technique off target. (For example, if the bicep is too tight, then a punch is slowed because the triceps are the muscles used to extend the arm.)
Increase the effectiveness of the strike: The kime at the end of a technique is mostly the transference of qi from the attacker to the recipient. When qi enters the opponent’s body, delivered by a properly formed weapon, then the amount of damage to the opponent’s body is increased. When a sealed, water-filled paint can is shot, depending on the bullet, it either gets two holes in it or it explodes. The bullets that simply put holes in it are traveling so fast or are shaped in a way so their energy does not transfer to either water or container, so the bullet punches through both sides of the container and is gone. The bullets that make the container explode are hollow-points, which expand upon impact with the container, transferring most of their energy into the target. The water and container are suddenly filled with too much energy, and the container explodes. This same concept applies to hand techniques: the more energy (qi) transferred into the target, the more damage done to that target.
Decrease the opponent’s ability/will to continue fighting: When a weapon arrives at its intended target with proper qi flow, then it is faster, more fluid, and more powerful than any other technique. This means the weapon cannot be blocked or avoided, and the thought “that hurts more than it should” races through the target’s mind and body (this concept is one frequently and expertly taught by Masami Tsuruoka). This breaks down the opponent’s body, mind, and defenses, dramatically reducing any desire or ability to counterattack.
Increases the available energy to the attacker: When the flow of qi is not inhibited by improper weapon formation and/or execution, then there is more energy available to the martial artist. This means stronger or multiple opponents are more readily and easily managed.
The listed benefits of proper weapon formation and delivery (defined as the formation and delivery method that takes best advantage of available energy) could fill an encyclopedia, but the above list is a few highlights of the most obvious and important benefits of proper weapon formation.
The effects of qi flowing through open-hand techniques are obvious the first time a martial artist makes a proper shuto, haito, nukite or any other open-hand technique. From then on, if open-hand techniques are not a large part of a practitioner’s repertoire, then the individual is seriously lacking in his study of the Way.
But … what about the bulls? If open-hand techniques have so many benefits over closed-hand techniques because of their ready use of qi, then why didn’t Mas Oyama kill a bull with a nukite?
The answer is two-fold. First, a bull’s forehead is an incredibly hard surface that must be penetrated to cause any damage to the beast. Second, there are those that have done similar things: Gogin “the Cat” Yamaguchi is reported to have choked out a lion after kicking it in the nose, and David (a shepherd in the Old Testament of the Bible) is reported to have killed both a lion and a bear with his hands. Now, what techniques David used were lost, and it could be argued that Yamaguchi’s choke is not an open-hand technique, but the point is not which technique was used, but rather that these accomplishments, though few and far between, were not those of a single man, nor a single technique.
It also means that open or closed-hand techniques have equal use and validity. Further, the first technique anyone ever learns—a simple tsuki (punch)—is both the most basic technique, and the most advanced.
The punch is basic because it’s readily understood by the general population. Knuckles are hard, and when they are rapidly and forcefully placed on weaker things, those weaker things tend to break. This is a simple concept to understand and actuate. What is not so simple is the utilization of qi in a karate punch.
In open-hand techniques—once one knows what to look and feel for—the appearance and manipulation of qi is rather simple. This makes them wonderful techniques for the average Green Belt through early Black Belt ranks, providing power, fluidity, relaxation, and options that were previously unavailable to the martial arts practitioner. But then, as with everything, the focus returns to that first technique—the punch.
A properly formed fist (tsuken) is more difficult than first understood. The fingers are curled to touch the pad above the palm, then tightly rolled in, then held in place by a thumb that covers the first two fingers and points towards the little finger. The striking surface is the first two knuckles, and there should be no air gaps in the fist: it should be tight and feel heavy, like a brick.
As with the shuto, this is all well and good for the beginner. But the more advanced martial artist will notice that the last two fingers and the thumb should be tight, while the first two fingers should be relaxed. This is for several reasons:
Tightening the last two fingers and the thumb can be accomplished by tightening muscles in the hand, and do not require the use of any muscles in the forearm. This creates a more solid fist without bringing other—larger and slower—muscles into play.
In order for the first two fingers to be tightened, the muscles along the top of the forearm (extensor carpi radialis longus and brachioradialis) must also tighten. This not only slows the technique and prohibits proper rotation of the fist, but also draws the knuckles back and up, bending the wrist. When the wrist is bent like this, it blocks proper qi flow, creates a “shock absorber” out of the wrist, and places the weapon in a precarious situation wherein it will be damaged when it meets resistance. Further, tight forearms cause the elbows to float away from the body during the technique, which slows the punch and creates a non-linear line of attack, which causes even further loss of power.
When the first two fingers are relaxed and the other fingers tight, qi flows from the body and forearms through a channel formed in the hand to the first two knuckles and into the target. The tighter the last two fingers and thumb, and the more relaxed the first two fingers, the more qi will go into the target.
A tight fist and relaxed forearm will create a faster punch, allow quicker rotation, and promote proper qi flow through the weapon and into the target. This applies the exact same benefits to the closed-hand techniques that were present in the open-hand techniques discussed earlier. But, it is more difficult to experience the qi in a punch than it is an open-hand technique, so this makes the punch (though initially a “basic” technique) arguably the most advanced technique in the martial arts repertoire.
So, does that mean that the Master was wrong when he said that the street fighters wouldn’t hurt each other if they weren’t fighting with open hands?
He understood that, by their actions, the fighter’s character was less than enviable, and that they obviously knew very little about proper technique or its application. That meant that he could rest easily, knowing that the worst they would do to each other was cause a couple of black eyes and maybe a broken nose. If one of the fighters had understood and been able to apply the “hidden” concepts of proper technique formation and qi manipulation described above, then the fight would have been over before the passerby could’ve even thought to go find help.
His understanding was of the mentality and ability—or lack thereof—of the fighters, and his words spoke of them, not of the individual techniques. I have trained with masters that tell me, after fifty or more years of practicing their martial art, they are still working on getting a punch right. Are they foolish or unintelligent? No, far from it. They understand the things I have highlighted here, and things that I have yet to discover about our most basic—and most advanced—techniques.
Open or closed handed, the martial artist is a formidable foe if he or she takes the time to understand not just the “basic” technique, but all the depths and facets that make that technique effective.
As Kinjo Hiroshi said, “The performance of technique reveals one’s understanding of it.”
© MES, 2002
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