Watching a dancer perform, you can see every movement accentuated by the synchronized beat. Depending on the style, there might be fluid sweeps of the arm or beat heavy stomps on stage. But what really makes a dancer shine on stage? Of course, there’s the music, the lighting, and the choreography. However, those are nothing if the performer isn’t giving it their all and putting their whole body into their routine. Anyone can throw up a jazz hand or tap their foot to a beat, but a dancer takes all those moves and translates it to every part of their body to really sell the show.

Though this is another one of my artsy tangents, this “whole body” concept is a fundamental aspect of martial arts and self-defense.

Lesson #3: Use your whole body

Have you ever seen those ridiculous martial arts stunts where some guy just goes and breaks a few concrete blocks? Some of them are so outlandish that they probably belong in some action movie. However, what separates a normal punch from a concrete breaking punch?

Try watching this video on a martial arts student breaking concrete for a third-degree black belt test.

In this video, the instructor provides some helpful tips such as “keep your arm vertical” and “drop your whole body.” The reason behind this is because you want all of your force to be directly behind your fist. By keeping his arm vertical to the ground and dropping his body with the punch, this student is adding all of his body weight and muscle into one point of contact. For any physics nerds out there, you know that a lot of force over a small area creates a large pressure on the object it is applied to. Thus, this regular guy, albeit with years of training, was able to break all three concrete slabs.

Now, I know you probably won’t ever be breaking concrete or doing any crazy stunts, but these concepts can apply to any attack.

Remember all those SING lessons we went through last week? Aiming to hit the solar plexus, instep, nose, and groin? Though those are vulnerable areas that don’t take a lot of force to injure, a strong strike is always going to be better than a weaker one.

When punching someone, even if you have a strong arm, the impact will not be at its full potential if you just throw out a punch because your arm muscles can only do so much. If you are punching someone in the nose or solar plexus, you are going to want to shift your body weight into that arm. Now, a horizontal punch is a bit different from the vertical one in the video, as described below.

With this one, your power is going to come from the hips and lower body. Think of rotating from the hips and pushing from your legs all in one motion and aim that power all behind your arm. This added bodyweight will create a much stronger impact on the person.

Alternatively, if you are going to stomp on someone’s instep, don’t just do the pouty child stomp where it’s just your leg hitting the ground. I want you to pretend you’re the Hulk, and you’re going to pulverize this person’s foot with all your body weight. Pull that leg up and point your heel at the person’s foot. Shift all your weight to that one foot as it goes down and SMASH! That person’s holding their foot in pain and no longer holding onto you.

Now, should the occasion ever arise, I hope you can at least be confident that you can defend yourself in an emergency situation by using these self defense tips.

Sources:

“Boxing Punches – How to Throw and Get Power?” Heavy Bag Pro, 4 July 2022, https://heavybag.pro/boxing-punches/.