Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Traditional straight punch

I've done thousands of the traditional straight punch since I started learning it about 34 years ago from different stand up styles and different gurus, instructors and masters. I can only remember two of them teaching me the punch with a proper breathing technique - Master Mintarja Seongkono who taught me Tae Kwon Do (ITF) when I was in Canada, and Master Mal Tae Kim who I am still training with until now. Breathing is very important because if you don't have the 'air' in your lungs all your punches are useless. When I first started to do multiple straight punches, I used to hold my breath and realease it during the last on. What happened normally was that I would be out of breath. My face would turn blue ..so to speak. Everything changed when I trainned under these two masters. What they asked me to do is to take a deep breath before you execute the multiple punches and exhale a bit with each execution of the punch. So it is like one punch is accompanied by a little exhaling of breath. So if you do five punches ... you are going to exhale five times through the mouth. I found it helped me with breathing and power. I could easily do fifty punches without feeling dizzy. Try the technique yourself. .... But one more thing ...when you execute the punch please ensure your whole body is 100% relax. Do not thghten you fist and forearm.

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