Combat Kempo

Breaking practice (Tameshiwari) allows one to measure the destructive power of your natural weapons and tune them to their maximum potential. Many people have dismissed the need to do breaking techniques at all, with even Bruce Lee saying his bit by pronouncing something to the effect of: “Boards don’t hit back”. The reality is that there are many “Black Belts” running around with what is really the equivalent to a combat “cream bun” for a fist.It is impossible to be a good fighter and beat your way through a number of tough opponents in a wild street altercation if you have a soft little hand and a wrist like a pretzel. Self delusion is an amazing thing when people can convince themselves that they have a killer punch with a hand that looks like a Lily flower and a wrist that looks like a bamboo shoot.

This applies equally to women and they also need to develop good bone density and strong muscle and ligament in their hands in order to deliver blows that the recipient will take seriously. A conditioned hand has a greater weight to it than an unconditioned hand and will invariably leave a greater impression on an opponent particularly when a blow is accurately placed on a sensitive or vital spot. Modern martial arts businesses probably feel that this is an unnecessary aspect of training as they provide many other things besides fighting itself, with the social, fitness and companionship ( and business ) elements of the club taking precedence over other activities that may be viewed as extreme in an environment where fifty percent of the students are children. That’s fine, but as our group is not really motivated by money, we are just trying to keep a bit of good old toughness in our training. It is just common sense to understand that a hard and heavy hammer, is far more likely to produce damage to your head than an object with the density and structural integrity of a Jellyfish.

I also believe that if conditioning is approached correctly along traditional lines and done with regularity that it will NOT result in the person getting the permanent negative conditions like Osteoarthritis, something that detractors of body condition immediately trumpet as a reason for not doing it.

I want to point out two things to these people:

1)   After many years of  conditioning our groups hands are Arthritis free and highly functional. (Knees and ankles are a bit creaky though)

2)   Breaking your little powder puff hand or celery stick wrist on someone’s mutton head will definitely have a permanent negative effect on your hand or wrist.

We will be covering this topic in much greater detail in the Member's area with specific instructional content in the near future so stay tuned....