5 posts / 0 new
Last post
Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture
Lead hook woes

I expanded my understanding of throwing a hook in Boxing, prior to that I did a kind of looping overhand that I learned as furi-uchi, it'sa  good punch but longer range and with different mechanics than the lead hook uses, more like the longer range Muay Thai hook i've seen.

First, I find that training the lead hook is just generally tough. I am working on mine and it is slowly improving, but I've run into a conundrum:

I think in practice that the mechanics of the typical vertical Boxing hook bunch are maybe not so good outside of Boxing. If you throw it really "classically" you will hit with the actual knuckles, but once you start working on a  moving target, you end up often "slapping" with the inside of the hand, and the perfect form classical version hits less often. This is maybe less of a problem if you throw a "european" hook with the palm down, but the same problem exists the second a person moves their head.

You can watch lots of boxers and see this. If you're wearing gloves this is still pretty effective, in fact I've had it inadvertently  turn into a kind of rabbit punch and wobble me pretty good once, so I know it "works" in a boxing context. The problem is, without wraps and gloves you will absolutely demolish your hand hitting anything very hard with this. I actually know someone who was a boxer, got into an altercation, ended up "hooking" an attackers head like this multiple times in a self-defense situation, and ended up with pins in both arms for half a year or something due to the injury. I imagine that's an extreme example, and to the techniques credit my friend survived and repelled the attacker.

So, in a practical sense I am wondering if one is better off just training a shuto or outside-inside hammerfist, which is a similar motion to the "slapping" hook without hitting with the most vulnerable part of the hand.

The combination of these things makes me thing I need to seek out a more practical hook punch, and I am curious what other people's default hook punch is, if anything.

Frazatto
Frazatto's picture

Oh man! I actully know that one!!!

He goes true everything you just said and i saw some other videos of people showing REALLY old school drawings of bare knuckle boxers doing that on fights.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

Ahhh, I'd totally forgotten about this guy, I really like his channel, thanks! That swinging punch he does with the hand turned downwards is exactly how I learned to throw a Furi-uchi.

Heath White
Heath White's picture

I totally agree here.  The left hook is an extremely useful punch if you have gloves and wraps on, but I think there is a reason karate never developed it.  In addition to breaking your hand on his skull, you are likely to tweak your wrist if you land slightly wrong.

When I throw this strike without gloves on, I do it open hand and hit with the palm heel.  This protects my hand and still can hit very hard.  It also works at any range from short to long.  I think I recall Peter Consterdine saying that a heavy slap was his go-to method when working doors, and I take it he meant something like an open-hand hook.  At long range it's basically a "Stockton slap".  

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi All,

Zach Zinn wrote:
If you throw it really "classically" you will hit with the actual knuckles, but once you start working on a  moving target, you end up often "slapping" with the inside of the hand, and the perfect form classical version hits less often. This is maybe less of a problem if you throw a "european" hook with the palm down, but the same problem exists the second a person moves their head.

Withing the boxing framework, you are subject to boxing rules. One of these rules is:

“You cannot hit with an open glove, the inside of the glove, the wrist, the backhand, or the side of the hand.”

Therefore, the option of throwing the hook with the thumb down / little finger up is not available (classed as “backhand” contact). However, outside of the boxing rule set, striking with the large two knuckles in this way works really well, particularly when there is a little more distance between you and the enemy (you can do a similar thing with uppercuts too). This stops the inside of the fist contact when the range is a little larger because you efffectively replace the inside of the fist with the outside of the fist. This if forbidden in boxing through which is why the method is often overlooked. Simple and works well though.

Zach Zinn wrote:
The combination of these things makes me thing I need to seek out a more practical hook punch, and I am curious what other people's default hook punch is, if anything.

I personally don’t have a “default”. The hand position will vary depending on the context. Sometimes I throw a hook with the thumb down / little finger up (typically longer range), thumb in (typically very close range), fist horizontal (normally to the side and when gripping in some way), etc.

Whenever students ask how I want the hand to be positioned, my standard answer is, “if you are hitting hard and not hurting your knuckles or wrist, then you have the hand in the right position.” It’s one of those “it depends” things for us.

We also work the same combinations with open hands too (using slaps and palm heels) as I again don’t think there is a universal right / wrong in regards to whether it should be a fist or an open hand as I think a convincing case can be made for both; so we train both.

Heath White wrote:
The left hook is an extremely useful punch if you have gloves and wraps on, but I think there is a reason karate never developed it.

I think karate did develop it, but it’s fell out of favour because it’s not allowed in modern points competition. You see loads of hooks in kata. Old two-person drills such as Choki Motobu’s show the continued use of hooks too (with a variety of hand positions).

Heath White wrote:
In addition to breaking your hand on his skull, you are likely to tweak your wrist if you land slightly wrong.

I would say the same “risks” belong to all punches. If any punch is delivered badly, you could hurt your hand or wrist. I don’t see anything specifically inherent to the hook that makes that more likely than on any other punch. I also think this fear of “breaking hands” comes from boxing where it can become an issue over a 12-round fight because people start pulling punches because of the pain. In the fast, chaotic, high-risk world of self-protection is anyone going to quit because their hand hurts? Besides, the adrenaline will keep the pain at bay until well after the situation ends. If we leave a true self-protection situation with no harm other than broken knuckles, then it’s been a good day.

Some make the case that open hands are inherently better because this cracking of knuckles is less likely, and while that is true, you have a greater risk of injuring the fingers because they are not safely curled away inside the fist, forming fists is instinctual and it takes a lot of training to override that, and you can’t chain open hand strikes as easily because there are fewer effective striking surfaces when compared to a fist.

I’m not saying fists are better, nor am I saying open hands are better. What I am saying is both have strengths and weaknesses and therefore I personally want to be as competent as possible with both.

Heath White wrote:
I think I recall Peter Consterdine saying that a heavy slap was his go-to method when working doors, and I take it he meant something like an open-hand hook.

As pre-emption, one of Peter’s favourite methods was the “Power Slap”: does not require the closing of the fist so less chance of telegraphing, lower “third party perceptions”, large number of nerves in the face stimulated, so you have neural overload in addition to the impact, etc. However, as a long-time student of Peter’s I can confirm that closed fist hooks are also a big part of his teaching.

Geoff Thompson really liked the closed-first hook for pre-emption, so technically there was a difference in their teaching there (tactically it was identical). However, in-fight, both were sold on the effectiveness of closed fist hooks, and both varied the hand positions in line with what was described above.

All the best,

Iain