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Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture
Bare Knuckle Boxing Guard

Some of you may find this video on the evolution of the hand positions in boxing interesting. The “bare knuckle guard pose” is certainly one adopted by a few of the past masters for photos too (see Motobu and Chibana photos below).

All the best,

Iain

Les Bubka
Les Bubka's picture

Excellent clip Thank you Iain.

I always said that Karate and Boxing at some point in time must of been similar. All changed when Boxing started to specialise in sport, introducing the rules, safety features and money. With money there is more ability to specialise even more. On other hand Karate went more "traditional" way, where changes were not so welcome. Now days we can see that evolution in different branches of karate, Kyokushin have different guard (specialisation) Practical karate have other hand placement and sport karate have its own.

Rules or no rules dictate the changes within the art/sport, we see how things will evolve in the future.

Wastelander
Wastelander's picture

I've pointed this out to people numerous times, but it's always fun to see it explored. Since we're on the topic of that guard, Dan Djurdjevic has written a few things about it, specifically with regard to how the lead hand can be utilized in defense:

http://www.wayofleastresistance.net/2008/08/karate-kamae-or-guard.html

http://www.wayofleastresistance.net/2010/07/more-about-claytons-gap.html

Anf
Anf's picture

In tang soo do, our regular fighting stance uses a very similar guard, except that the lead hand is either knuckles up or knuckles facing out to the side.

We also have what is loosely and in my opinion misleadingly termed, reinforcing block, which looks pretty much identical to what we see in the pictures above. The reason I believe it's misleading is that if it's a block, I think the incoming strike must be coming in at such a speed that one might have a sit down with a cuppa and a cigarette while deciding how to deal with it. We practice it as a block but I think that's probably just to get us used to bringing that guard to bear rather than actually responding to immediate inbound.

Tau
Tau's picture

"Kept a grip on his hair whilst punching him repeatedly." Might we have seen that in Karate?

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Tau wrote:
"Kept a grip on his hair whilst punching him repeatedly." Might we have seen that in Karate?

We might! ;-) It’s one use for hiki-te; although it’s only effective against those who have not evolved past that particular biological weakness :-)

All the best,

Iain