Regarding striking with a stick

[v8einstein]

i was directed here by tuhon bill from youtube and was wondering... while striking with the stick, should one make the tighter grip on the lower part of the hand (the pinky and ring fingers) or the higher part (the middle and fore fingers)? and when rotating the stick in a jump rope fashion, what is the proper way to grip the stick as well as flex your wrist/elbow/arm during the movement?

i'm new at this and we don't really have any arnis/eskrima/kali here in San Diego... at least none that i know... so any help for a self learner would be great! thanks!

[blindside]

i'm new at this and we don't really have any arnis/eskrima/kali here in San Diego... at least none that i know... so any help for a self learner would be great! thanks!

Don't self learn, from: http://www.pt-go.com/training_instructors.asp (http://www.pt-go.com/training_instructors.asp)

A PTK instructor in your area:
San Diego
Russ Nagtalon
619-245-8721
rbn021@yahoo.com (rbn021@yahoo.com)

For other alternatives:
http://www.fmatalk.com/showthread.php?t=2425

[equilibrium]

Whole hand, but if you had to choose the lower three fingers more.

not sure about the jumping rope part..

[lhommedieu]

i was directed here by tuhon bill from youtube and was wondering... while striking with the stick, should one make the tighter grip on the lower part of the hand (the pinky and ring fingers) or the higher part (the middle and fore fingers)? and when rotating the stick in a jump rope fashion, what is the proper way to grip the stick as well as flex your wrist/elbow/arm during the movement?

i'm new at this and we don't really have any arnis/eskrima/kali here in San Diego... at least none that i know... so any help for a self learner would be great! thanks!

Gripping the stick more tightly with the pinky and ring fingers is generally recommended. When rotating the stick the hand should remain closed and the wrist/elbow/arm should remain relaxed; try to aim for the feeling that the movement of the stick is an end-product that begins from the core of the body. I have found that cocking the wrist and aiming for the target with the puno of the weapon works well for me.

You should have no problem finding quality eskrima instruction in San Diego; another fine organization besides the one given above would be Albert Mendoza's San Diego Doce Pares organization.

Best,

Steve

[TuhonBill]

i was directed here by tuhon bill from youtube and was wondering... while striking with the stick, should one make the tighter grip on the lower part of the hand (the pinky and ring fingers) or the higher part (the middle and fore fingers)? and when rotating the stick in a jump rope fashion, what is the proper way to grip the stick as well as flex your wrist/elbow/arm during the movement?

i'm new at this and we don't really have any arnis/eskrima/kali here in San Diego... at least none that i know... so any help for a self learner would be great! thanks!

Steve gave a very good post on the subject, but just to clarify for those who haven't seen the video, I think the movement V8einstein in referring to is the double vertical cuts seen in number 10 of my Dirty Dozen video on YouTube. It does look a bit like someone jumping rope, save that the movement uses the whole arm rather than just the wrists. You want to stretch the shoulders here, so make sure you rotate the arms down and back as far as you can safely. This usually means about 3/4 of a circle as you pull the sticks in when they get behind your shoulders. Much of the focus of the dirty dozen is to warm up and strengthen the rotator cuff area of the shoulders. By the time you get to number 10 in the set, your shoulders should be pretty well warmed up, but still go slow when first practicing a technique. If the point of the warm up is to help prevent injury during the work out, then it's pretty foolish to push the warm up so hard that you get injured doing it.

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

[Jason Jones]

Definitely tighten your grip with the last two or three fingers of the hand. Gripping with the whole hand will help also but the last three fingers are really key anatomically. Your last three fingers are tied into the ulna (bone on the underside of your arm) and pull in a straightline. In a bladed application this helps to keep the edge of the blade in a straight path. The index finger and thumb are tied to upper bone in your forearm and are subject to rotation. So if your intention is to really blast or cut thru a target make sure the bottom fingers are tight. If your strike are tire you will find this out quickly.

[silat1]

Guro Narrie Babao (sp) is located in the san diego area..You should be able to find him in the local area.. Also, there is a few Kajukenbo guys there who have contacts within the martial arts community there along with train and teach eskrima.. You should be able to contact any of them by looking in the Phone book,



i was directed here by tuhon bill from youtube and was wondering... while striking with the stick, should one make the tighter grip on the lower part of the hand (the pinky and ring fingers) or the higher part (the middle and fore fingers)? and when rotating the stick in a jump rope fashion, what is the proper way to grip the stick as well as flex your wrist/elbow/arm during the movement?

i'm new at this and we don't really have any arnis/eskrima/kali here in San Diego... at least none that i know... so any help for a self learner would be great! thanks!

[lhommedieu]

I think the movement V8einstein in referring to is the double vertical cuts seen in number 10 of my Dirty Dozen video on YouTube. It does look a bit like someone jumping rope, save that the movement uses the whole arm rather than just the wrists. You want to stretch the shoulders here, so make sure you rotate the arms down and back as far as you can safely. This usually means about 3/4 of a circle as you pull the sticks in when they get behind your shoulders. Much of the focus of the dirty dozen is to warm up and strengthen the rotator cuff area of the shoulders. By the time you get to number 10 in the set, your shoulders should be pretty well warmed up, but still go slow when first practicing a technique. If the point of the warm up is to help prevent injury during the work out, then it's pretty foolish to push the warm up so hard that you get injured doing it.


I think that Tuhon McGrath has given you a more precise answer to your question.

Tuhon's advice to go slowly is also very good. In my case, as I approach 50 I'm learning more and more that the proper body mechanic, practiced slowly, is more important than even an only slightly less proper body mechanic practiced quickly. (Perhaps the oft-quoted story from Colors about old bulls and cows is a propos here.) At any rate, I currently nursing a badly wrenched back due to a pretty good imitation of a YouTube "man flies off of treadmill" incident a couple weeks ago (what kind of person goes to tell a person who's sprinting on a treadmill that his time is up?! And it wasn't.) - but I can still manage to practice side-steps for form if I do them s-l-o-w-l-y.

The advice given above and explanation of how the 5th and 4th carpals line up with ulna is also spot-on. If you cant your wrist and imagine that you are pulling through the target with the edge of the last 3 inches of your stick it also helps.

Best,

Steve

[v8einstein]

thank you all very much for the feedback! I'll look into the suggested schools and instructors, thank you all for that.

And the "jump roping" bit i was mentioning was the exercise #6 in Tuhon Bill's Dirty Dozen warm-up drills. the warm-up consisted of bringing the stick from the shoulders down while, as tuhon states in the video, you twirl it. What i didn't understand from it was how he would twirled the sticks (ie. the finger positioning, etc.)... honestly.... i've hit myself in the back of the head a couple (several) times with my left trying it... and i'm not using rattan sticks either... i'm using a dowel i got from home depot i cut in half. I figured, if i can get fast swinging with dowels, then rattan sticks should be easier to handle :D.

Anyways, I appreciate the help and to Ihommedieu, i hope your back heals quickly!

[lhommedieu]

thank you all very much for the feedback! I'll look into the suggested schools and instructors, thank you all for that.

And the "jump roping" bit i was mentioning was the exercise #6 in Tuhon Bill's Dirty Dozen warm-up drills. the warm-up consisted of bringing the stick from the shoulders down while, as tuhon states in the video, you twirl it. What i didn't understand from it was how he would twirled the sticks (ie. the finger positioning, etc.)... honestly.... i've hit myself in the back of the head a couple (several) times with my left trying it... and i'm not using rattan sticks either... i'm using a dowel i got from home depot i cut in half. I figured, if i can get fast swinging with dowels, then rattan sticks should be easier to handle :D.

Anyways, I appreciate the help and to Ihommedieu, i hope your back heals quickly!

Got it. It's important to learn not to open your hands since if your stick is struck while your hand is open then you could lose it. Gripping with the last three fingers of your hand is also important since the carpals next to your ulna function as a kind of fulcrum for the twirl.

Hitting yourself in the back of the head will stop soon after you start using 3 foot razors to practice your twirls. Just kidding.

Best,

Steve

[arnisador]

Get Along Without a Pinkie? It’s Tougher Than You Might Think (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/health/16pink.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=pinkie%20Glickel&st=cse)



The pinkie, the humble fifth finger, has long been viewed as a decorative accessory, something to extend daintily from a wine glass. So what would you lose if you didn’t have one?

“You’d lose 50 percent of your hand strength, easily,” said Laurie Rogers, an occupational therapist who is a certified hand therapist at National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington. She explained that while the index and middle fingers function, with the thumb, in pinching and grabbing — zipping zippers, buttoning buttons — the pinkie teams up with the ring finger to provide power.

[TuhonBill]

thank you all very much for the feedback! I'll look into the suggested schools and instructors, thank you all for that.

And the "jump roping" bit i was mentioning was the exercise #6 in Tuhon Bill's Dirty Dozen warm-up drills. the warm-up consisted of bringing the stick from the shoulders down while, as tuhon states in the video, you twirl it. What i didn't understand from it was how he would twirled the sticks (ie. the finger positioning, etc.)... honestly.... i've hit myself in the back of the head a couple (several) times with my left trying it... and i'm not using rattan sticks either... i'm using a dowel i got from home depot i cut in half. I figured, if i can get fast swinging with dowels, then rattan sticks should be easier to handle :D.

Anyways, I appreciate the help and to Ihommedieu, i hope your back heals quickly!


Ah, now I understand your question better. The technique V8 refers to can be seen beginning at the 6:00 mark on the DD1 YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mzW1qy6ZSU

This is a spin of the sticks vertically down and up. Beginners start with both sticks going the same direction and more advanced students practice this with the sticks going in opposite directions. While you will see this sometimes done with the hand opening during the downward rotation of the stick in some systems, in Pekiti-Tirsia this movement is taught with the hand closed. While more difficult, this does give you a far better hold on the stick. If you start your training young (as did Grand Tuhon Gaje at age 6), then your wrist will grow into the technique and have enough flexibility that you can keep a good grip throughout the full rotation, while still keeping your forearm in a nearly vertical position-despite your stick being nearly parallel to your forearm. If you started a bit older (like I did at 14), then your wrist will not flex that far. Since keeping a firm grip is more important than keeping your forearm vertical, you may need to "cheat" a bit by allowing your elbows to move towards each other as the stick comes down. (watch carefully and you will see me do this on the video). This allows you to bring your sticks vertically downward without opening some of your fingers.
You should change the emphasis in your grip during the movement, (going from pinkie side to forefinger or the reverse) but you shouldn't allow your hand to open at any point.

As for hitting yourself in the back of the head. Please slow down. My guess is that you are bending your elbow too soon and redirecting the motion of the stick into the back of your head. Make sure your sticks are pointing towards the floor at the bottom of the movement and stretch your shoulders back as you raise the sticks. That should help.
Take your time and remember that there are worse places to hit yourself than in the head (such as the first time I tried using nunchucks as a kid-though I guess I didn’t hit myself too hard because I now have a kid :-)

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

[wes tasker]

Take your time and remember that there are worse places to hit yourself than in the head (such as the first time I tried using nunchucks as a kid-though I guess I didn’t hit myself too hard because I now have a kid :-)

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

You and me both Tuhon....

-wes tasker

[lhommedieu]

X 3. Of course, there are times when kids may make you want to hit yourself in the back of the head with a stick - but that's another story.

Best,

Steve

[wes tasker]

X 3. Of course, there are times when kids may make you want to hit yourself in the back of the head with a stick - but that's another story.

Best,

Steve

Not to stray too far off FMA's - but I guess that's one difference between Xian Tian and Hou Tian in one's life...

-wes

[lhommedieu]

That's why your son is walking circles around you: he appears solid and corpulent as a mountain, but in his core he's as wild and green as thunder...

Best,

Steve

[v8einstein]

Ah, now I understand your question better. The technique V8 refers to can be seen beginning at the 6:00 mark on the DD1 YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mzW1qy6ZSU

This is a spin of the sticks vertically down and up. Beginners start with both sticks going the same direction and more advanced students practice this with the sticks going in opposite directions. While you will see this sometimes done with the hand opening during the downward rotation of the stick in some systems, in Pekiti-Tirsia this movement is taught with the hand closed. While more difficult, this does give you a far better hold on the stick. If you start your training young (as did Grand Tuhon Gaje at age 6), then your wrist will grow into the technique and have enough flexibility that you can keep a good grip throughout the full rotation, while still keeping your forearm in a nearly vertical position-despite your stick being nearly parallel to your forearm. If you started a bit older (like I did at 14), then your wrist will not flex that far. Since keeping a firm grip is more important than keeping your forearm vertical, you may need to "cheat" a bit by allowing your elbows to move towards each other as the stick comes down. (watch carefully and you will see me do this on the video). This allows you to bring your sticks vertically downward without opening some of your fingers.
You should change the emphasis in your grip during the movement, (going from pinkie side to forefinger or the reverse) but you shouldn't allow your hand to open at any point.

As for hitting yourself in the back of the head. Please slow down. My guess is that you are bending your elbow too soon and redirecting the motion of the stick into the back of your head. Make sure your sticks are pointing towards the floor at the bottom of the movement and stretch your shoulders back as you raise the sticks. That should help.
Take your time and remember that there are worse places to hit yourself than in the head (such as the first time I tried using nunchucks as a kid-though I guess I didn’t hit myself too hard because I now have a kid :-)

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

Thank you for the clarification Tuhon Bill! And the hitting in the back of the head was only with my left hand... i'm not so bad with my right tho... :D
I'll keep up with practicing the dirty dozen for now till i have the means and time to go to a professional PTK instructor!