The Straight Right Hand

[Sharla]

I have been told not to bring your bodyweight up with punches as it's supposed to take part of the power away

Is your coach instructing you to not use body weight in your punches? If the concept of punching is that of accelerated weight then how can what he is instructing possibly be correct? Do you agree that the goal of punching is to accelerate weight?

Also if you're left leg is locked straight wouldn't it be harder to mover after the punch? I've been told never to allow my legs to lock straight but to always have a little 'give' in my knees.

Well the central idea to having the weight end up over the left leg is pretty simple. As the body turns during the right hand what you are ultimately doing is moving weight. Specifically your moving it forward. So it *must* end over your left leg. It has no where else to go. The right hand gets all of its power from the weight being moved forward over to the left leg. This is because the weight is being carried within the right hand as the body turns. The right hand itself is doing nothing more than juts catching a ride on this weight as its being moved. As the body is turning, weight is being accelerated, and thus anything which gets hit by that weight as its being accelerated is going to absorb a lot of force.


If your stance is too wide or too bent at the knee then your front leg (which is your left leg) will not be able to fully catch the weight which you were moving forward; reducing power.

Also wouldn't having all the weight on the left leg mean you're taking the weight off of the rear leg - which goes against the idea of driving off of it?

Remember that the central idea in the right hand is to move weight forward. The arm is there to capture the essence of this acceleration of weight. The weight ends up over your left leg *after* you move the weight forward. The majority of your body weight should be over your left leg upon completing the right hand. This actually is in keeping with your idea that one should drive off of there rear foot i.e weight is being moved forward from the rear foot to the front foot.

In regards to having the left leg locked I agree I don't think the leg must be locked at the knee. I find that straight but some slight bend at the knee is good enough.

I'm not sure I explained myself very clearly here so I'll try to elaborate. I've been taught to put my power into the punches. I've been taught not to straighten my knees at the end of a punch.

I've been taught to shift my weight in the direction of the punch which in my mind wouldn't be directly to the left but towards my opponent without breaking at the hips and facing the ground. For this to work well my distancing would need to be right not too far away.

I guess what I didn't complete agree with was the idea that to shift the weight was step number one. I think the weight needs to move in the direction of the punch with the punch.

I guess I'd also prefer to describe the weight shift in terms of a direction rather than over x leg because people with different types of stances (more or less square) will get different results that way.