I once did a palm strike on a cow. I thought it was tipping over but it was putting me in an arm lock :/

A good spinning back elbow can be devastating. Any elbow actually...

My father studied in Japan in the 60's received his shodan before coming back to the U.S. the edge of his hands were like iron. Getting hit with it was the real deal.

Congratulations on passing 10k! Well deserved. I think there's benefit to sparring with open hand slaps to the face, works well when you mix with bare knuckles to the body. The emotional control needed out ways the risks and it gives you greater versatility in using your hands. Keep up the good work. Love your videos.

"Spinning attacks only work if you do it with a jumping uppercut while yelling, 'Shoryuken!' Remember, dragon punch them THROUGH the esophagus."

Some of the ancient master used a technique called "Aggressive Tickling" and if you think that's some kind of joke... then you've already fell prey to it's power.

The ridge hand was one of the favourite hand techniques use during the 80's in karate tournaments in America. Lots of guys get knockout by it, when they connected the ears temple.

Boom I use a lot of karate chops Check out MMA vs Systema Real Sparring kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m69phppqucCzfIU.html , MMA vs Systema 2 Harder Sparring even better kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q56HfbGUqZPDomg.html & Ultimate Systema & Combatives Highlights kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNaCjLGEr6fNfHk.html

Bas Rutten has also made usage of spinning attacks, especially in works to recover from a botched move or a dodging opposition.

Master Wong is my favorite anime. I really hope they add him on Mortal Kombat as a guest character.

I'm pretty sure the deadly palm strike to the nose thing came from the movie Billy Jack. There's a scene where he's supposed to hit a guy in the nose so hard the guy dies on the spot. The story goes that they film it and watch the dailies, and nobody in the room gets what happened. So they decided to add the dialog "He just pushed his nose bone into his brain" or something like that to make the scene play better. So now, 30-40 years later, everybody knows for a fact that an open palm strike to the nose can be fatal because of a throwaway scene in an old chop-sockey exploitation film.

"If your avatar on facebook is an anime character, you can't fight." - truth.😭

Every once in a while I'll still hear full grown adults that legitimately believe you can palm strike someones nose into there brain...and they'll argue back when you tell them its bullshit! "Nah dude it could totally happen"

have never sparred someone with palm strikes because the legit danger of rupturing someones eye ball with a finger poke. For this same reason I think its a great idea for self defense situations, especially of your doing a long guard and your lead hand is open at their eye level. So many mma fights get eyepokes from this. A man can't see, he can't fight. Cobra Kai!

Love the video! My thoughts on the “praying mantis strike”. I learned it in Wing Chun as sort of a backup method of striking that is only applicable under specific circumstances. We were taught that it can be used if your hand is injured/broke/cut as it may be in a self defense. It’s used in close clinching range to the neck or under the jaw and the power comes from the elbow. It is not ideal when you can close-hand punch instead but it is another tool you can pull out when you need it. I would wager that it is actually better for self defense than sport fighting, but again, never as a primary means of attack. Essentially, it was taught to me as a legit strike but there is a specific way to execute it and is only appropriate at the right moment. Closed hand punches are always better.

One of my main move is a judo chop, I learned that from inspector cluso pink panther movies .

The best thing about palm strikes is that they come with the patented Jon Jones' eye pokes.

You wouldn't survive my Spear Hand Oil Check of the Ancient Sleeping Dragon technique though.

Why are you boys always in a car park with concerned people looking on ?

In kungfu, I was taught to actually strike with the outer edge of the palm (from pinky to wrist joint) instead of the full on palm. It concentrates the power into a smaller area, and is pretty nice for striking targets on the neck. I throw them out like jabs, and it's pretty fast. With the smaller impact area, it's almost like a knife hand, but faster. The spear hand, after some experimenting, I find to be interestingly suited for a quick jab or swipe to the eye after guarding from a hook. I didn't throw it straight out, but really just a quick poke with the fingers. The mantis hand I find to be a good followup to an inside...ward, I guess you'd call it, or redirect, against a straight or a jab. For me, it's like the equivalent to a jab. Completely different body mechanics, but the speed I can throw it is somewhat similar. Not something I'd use in a combo, but as a counter and set up for grapple. Actually, the way I'd use it is similar to your straight-hammerfist combo if I were to use it offensively. I also use it as replacement for an uppercut. Doesn't have as much power, but I can throw it faster with less movement and commitment to the motion. It's supposedly good for a strike to the armpit, and I can kinda see that. It's a nice gotcha strike for me. Well, those are my thoughts from my experimentation. Hope it helps.

You did iiiiit! :D

I stopped teaching the soo do chop. I still teach the ridge hand, but towards softer parts of the bidy. Its true. In a sparring match friend of mine broke his hand, aiming towards a neck and the guy moved and he hit his skull..crack. mind you he broke bricks with that..legit bricks..but he broke his hand exactly the way you said

Love this guy. A lot of old school techniques in his videos, plus, the instruction is crisp, refreshing, and no-bullshit. Also, he seems like the kind of guy I'd have a beer with

Anything that works, period, works for self defense. You just have to be more discerning with the risk assessment, especially if you are not justifiably confident in your ability to pull it off.

I asked the man in the shop "Have you got any Bulldog clips?" He replied "No, but I've got a nice video of a Jack Russell"

When talking about palm strikes, I was always imaging something like Fairbairn's Chin Jab which is a little bit like an uppercut, with full body...

Love your videos! Disagree a bit on knife hand. Fighting in a point tournament in the 80's, I had a guy open his fist into a knife hand for reach and hit me high in stomach with it. I dropped to my knees. My combat sports experience is pretty deep - I've cornered at the UFC a few times and judged at a UFC in 2017. Great work again on your channel.

Shuto strikes are legit.

EDIT: [CONTEST CLOSED] Question for Viewers: Can you guess what's in the package? First person to get it right gets a free t-shirt! [CONTEST CLOSED]

"Yea come see me on tekken" 🤣🤣

1:55 "Nah I'm goin home" 😂 love it

I love your sense of humour. Your videos are very technical. Well done

Great post. It reminds me that Im old , decrepit and require a revolver.

I've used "shuto" or Karate-chop twice as a bouncer and it worked just fine. I guess my opponents didn't know that that's the technique which doesn't work if you duck.

This was amusingly informative and helpful, I'm a beginner boxer and let's just say I suck at foot work... I'm glad I found your channel. Thanks for sharing this and Yah Bless you to know him in Yashua's name keep up the great work.

My favorite part of this video is when you jump back from that little bug just like a little girl!!! at about the 6:oo mark LOL! Love your videos.

An acquaintance was fighting in competition, his opponent (who had massive mittens) punch the forehead and broke his hand good despite hand wraps and boxing gloves.

2k subscribers more in over a week few weeks good job man

I always though palm strikes were great but as soon as sparring begins I find I go right back to regular punches. The one place I really saw them work well was a coworker who had a hand issue and once I took her to a gym with a heavy bag and let her see palm strikes at work she was much more confident in her ability to use her training and defend herself because she could put power into the palm strikes that she couldn't into her punches.

we practice palm strikes sometimes while wearing a helmet with visors in sparring, that works but you cant go 100% with it either because you definitely feel it

7:40 "High, low, BOOM, fake step, BING! right? BING! Yknow?"

A friend hit me with a ridge hand ..... I couldn't chew for a week ..... it felt like my face was on fire after he hit me ... very strange sensation

Hey - my school spars, full contact, with open-palm strikes. However, we're an Arnis school, so... 1. We're all wearing full Arnis/Kendo/Stickfighitng (hard metal cage) headgear. So when you do it, it really just knocks their cage up and back, and sorta blinds them for a moment. (It also pushes them back onto their heels.) We also (for safety) restrict the strikes to straight strikes (ie, no haymakers or whatnot) - just straight out from the chest. 2. We also wear hand protection (street hockey gloves, mainly) - so while there's a bit of padding involved, although not a lot on the palm/inside of the glove. 3. Because it's stickfighitng, you almost never do it, unless you're specifically practicing your corto (short-range) - it's mainly a distraction technique to knock someone's head up and back while you're ramming a stick into their gut and hitting them over the head. And yeah - our school mainly uses standard punches, with the occasional hammer strike (as it's a near-copy of a stick swing).

fkn fell of the couch...' how do you sop hopping?'..."just dont" hahahahaha jeeez you are so real. would love to train with you. great energy and authentic knowhow aka grips

Dude, karate chop to the neck together with the forearm can be devastating... remember the karate instructor vs pimp video?

They are 100% legit, but the secret lies in conditioning. If you conditioned your palms to be as hard as steel , one palm strike to the face is as lethal as a punch A palm strike to the head is even better than punching. While punching the head , there's a risk of Injuring your fists , but not with palm strikes ,if you conditioned them well

20k already! Good stuff in here. I like the hammerfist instead of backfist suggestion; arm is stronger that way, no risk to back of hand, and protects head a bit better. My spin backfist is replaced with hammerfist as of now! Also pleased that your take on spinning techniques in the street echoes what I've always said: Don't set out to do it, but it's handy if you're already turned.

I noticed that wasp thing nearly kicked your arse there. Lol Love the video

Spear hand works man, in ufc some fighters hit the eyes of the opponents, many times they said it was an accident, but it works. But you have to be merciless to do that.

Agree with most, just two things that I find to be BS 1) open palm strikes leave you very vulnerable to sprained wrists (I'll say from experience, not good in a fight) 2) not using spinning kicks in a fight, while I agree for the most part, the spinning side/back kick to the body is great for maintaining distance and can really hurt your opponent (see Barboza vs Hooker if you don't believe me). This said, only throw the kick if you have proper training, else you might botch it and end up in trouble

Dang Mike, you're totally right that the hammerfist is a more effective version of the backfist! You don't lose any range and the tradeoff is a huge increase in power. I've never actually implemented my style's backfists as power strikes because I instinctively knew from my time on the bag that I'd break my knuckles pulling that nonsense. I'll give the hammerfist a try next time though, thanks.

I get where you're coming from with the backfist. Might just be my perception, but the backfist feels a little bit quicker to me. I usually don't use it to inflict a lot of damage, but to either just lightly hit and set up another punch (a short uppercut with the same hand for example) or to simply punch my opponents guard away. So yes, it's not a power punch, but it's cool for set ups.

You said someone could easier duck or move from a chop and you have to be more accurate, but couldn't the same be said for a punch?

I have some questions , 1 while punching bareknuckle whats better top 2 or bottom 3 knuckles? 2 should you strike with a relaxed or tight fist? 3 whats the best vertical or horizontal knuckles?

Well said. Too many people have trouble differentiating between street fighting and tournament fighting. Hammer fists are great and generate a tremendous amount of power. I have to incorporate an open palm due to a fused knuckle. I hammer the bag but haven't sparred as you mentioned.

Good info! I think what people don't realize about chops and "pokes" is that you have to spend some time training your hands to actually do them. If you see somebody who can actually legit do them against hard surfaces....check out their hands. They are usually massive, large, effed up looking hands! Regular bare knuckle punching can also hurt if you have not trained your knuckles. The palm strike is probably the least painful strike to do with lesser trained hands.

06:02 - That thing that lept from from the sky was like 20 feet tall at least!!

You're like a mean version of al kavadlo 🤣🤣

The karate chop to the neck definitely works!🤣 I've never done it, but I have seen someone knocked out cold by it. Your entire body works well, as you have always said, you just have to make sure that your comfortable using your body that way before you need to.

I agree with most of this although the ridgehands and chops dont just go to the neck. Imagine either one to the nose, or ear or jaw, thats gonna do some damage. Also alot of these techiques are very effective and strong against hard targets assuming you had good makiwara type training, like the old masters used to do, used also for demonstrating breaking techniques., plenty of footage on YT of this. Also the ridgehand can come round and over the top like a bowling type punch, not just straight out.

4:48 - imagine a guy who spends years doing hand conditioning to have a hope of making it work without a major risk of hand injury... only to realize he has trouble typing on keyboard/touchscreen because his fingers are too thick and not responsive enough. If martial arts are a way to defend your life from death or life-altering injuries, then it's a failure a priori.

If anyone else gets those 'Modern Barbarian" ADs do not fall for that crap please.

Your videos are the best !! excellent content !! best channel of all ... straight to the point, cutting the myths by the roots!

Mike, ive gotta give you credit man your stance switch without hopping is super clean. That's stressed big time in traditional karate.

"if your avatar it's an anime character you can't fight" I mean as far as I know he is not wrong XD

How do you deal with fighters much more powerful than you? See max Holloway vs Dustin poirier

Great video. Love me some hammer fists, tricky to train though without really hurting your partner - but if you land one they're good. I like to throw a jab to distract and set up the hammer. For palm strike training I have used helmet/ head protectors, to get used to hitting a moving target with them, but you still can't hit too hard, because there's quite a jolt. I train palms on a body opponent bag ( because it has a face) one small problem with palm strikes is that you lose at least an inch or two of reach - so slightly harder to gauge distance if you're used to punching- also my fists tend to close, punching feels a lot more natural, so under fight conditions much more likely to throw a punch ( or run away). Would probably revert to palms or hammer fists if I broke my hand during a fight ( like Keith Hackney vs Emmanuel Yarborough, UFC 2). Anyway, enough about me, enjoyed the video - going to look and see if you've got any clips on head-butting. Cheers.

I think a hammerfist is better than a ridge hand for a similar kind of strike, but I have knocked an opponent across the room with a ridgehand to the temple (accidentally...too much force in sparring...about 3/4).

You are right that you cannot practice palm strikes safely against a partner, not against the face anyways. You would be permanently injuring your training partners... but that is why they are so effective in a real fight. I had a petite student whose brother thought Kung Fu was a joke... She felt horrible because she really hurt him even though they were just horsing around. That classic World War Two Chin Jab ain't no joke. But you are wrong about a hand sword strike. It is a power chop with a sweet spot from your hand to mid forearm. It is perfect as a power shot, entire body mass behind it. And the target is ONLY the neck, that big V between the head and shoulder... It is a much easier target to hit than the head. (Neck punches used to be very common in old school bare knuckle boxing for a reason) Yes, against guys with seriously beefy necks, it will be more difficult, but then, beefy guys are why we invented weapons in the first place... I also K.O.d a dude with a spinning hammer fist. He slipped my haymaker and ended up behind me, so as I turned to face him, I swung for the fences, rabbit punched him, and he ended up with a concussion... just sayin'... If it is stupid and it works, then it ain't stupid. ;)

I thought cow tipping was real. Wtf

Only 6 months later and you're near 100.000 subs, amazing!

As of 8/2/2021, at 1703 hours: you're at 360 thousand subscribers: 350 thousand more from where you were at 4/21/2019. You got 350 thousand more subscribers in the span of JUST TWO YEARS. Keep up the good work, Icy Mike!

This topic is something like fancy strikes vs practical strikes

Slapbox!!!

His change of stance was so smooth.

I have to give you and everybody that is willing to be your training partner in these videos hella respect for actually calling out Bull trap practices that hasn't worked for things everybody else would dismiss as nonsense or just stupid rhetoric

"if your pic is anime you cant fight" tell that to israel odesanya, joking tho fully agree with ur video and what ur saying

As a martial arts expert with 43 year experience I've notice that guys who love to talk down about other martial arts isn't good fighters in real life. I love to challenge those guys to a bare knuckle anything goes and signing a waiver to fight and record it so that I can show everybody else how fast they can get beaten in a real street combat fighting.

Spinning techniques are also great for getting out of arm locks. A spinning back fist is better than a hammer fist in that you are less likely to break the ulna bone in your forearm. The Spear hand is not usually a strike in itself, but in kata is usually used as part of a throwing technique. Though it can be used as a carotid blip (like they do in judo) or an eye gouge, it is not effective as a finger tip strike. It can also be used as an anti choke defence.

Seriously great videos as usual. I won't pretend I fight, but I like to use the movements for cardio exercises and why not add a little knowledge to it! Great content my man.

Chops don’t work for you because your not doing it correctly 🙄

I switch to palm strikes when my hands get bruised. Allows me to train longer. Then i switch to other strikes if the palm starts to hurt. The knife edge same.

I don't know if my wrists are different to most people but when i try out palm strikes against a heavy bag or a wall i can only do them at a rising angle or it fucks up my wrist. Like I can't do a 90 degree horizontal palm strike without breaking my wrist

I enjoy your content, always very informative. Thank you so much.

CONGRATS ON 10K

I know I'm a little late to the party here, guys, recent fan once I came back to the scene. I've been doing combat sports and self-defence for about 17-18 years, my memory is a little hazy as I near 30 and I apologize. Palm and ridge hands are an important part of the original style I studied, IN COMBOS. It's more of a deterent for non commitment from an opponent. However, a ridge hand to the throat or a palm strike to the sternum done with serious intent can lead to some pretty serious conclusive damage. I would recommend and personally lead those or set up with distraction and misdirection. It makes them especially drop their guard around their chest. That's my TED talk, thanks for reading!

Back when I was competing in Pancrase style fighting we used to spar with palm strikes all the time - no problems. Surprisingly there weren't any eye pokes either. It did mess my wrists up a bit though.

Hey just putting this out there. Me and friends I have been not only used open hand sparring (palm strike, spear hand, chops etc.) Even learn to use palm strikes to other parts of body, but I used my open hand style techniques during a REAL self defense situation.

I have heard the nose thing. My favorite is "if you break someone's nose it could kill them." 😂 I guess I have defied death 3 times more than I thought. Not only without even going to the hospital, but keeping working through it.

What is the best single strike or kick to do the most damage or ko an attacker enough to get a 5-10 second head start on running away? For reference a 5ft 8 inch male 170 lbs around 14 percent body fat. Please and thankyou.

Really enjoyed watching this keep them coming 👍

I like knife hands and ridge hands under very specific circumstances. I have one thing with the ridge hand I like for sparring. With the knife hand, I strike with anywhere from just in front of my elbow to about just shy of the edge of my hand. I love the hammer fist. Probably my go to strike for a beginner if I don't have a lot of time

Thank you for sharing your knowledge/experience. It is practical and real, PERIOD. No BS.

Uechi teacher: ""NO OPEN HANDED TECHNIC! TOO DANGEROUS!"

I appreciate your 'that's stupid' vibe in these older videos, but I also equally appreciate your more recent vibe.

I used to train in a dojo where we did open hand "slap boxing" type training. It leads to many multiple accidental eye gouges.

A little late on this, but we go semi contact with palm grappling all that stuff and we wear mma gloves for that and it's just sparing. We wear headgear for that to protect face.

Great channel. No bs, assertive critical analysis and a lot of fun phuckery 😁. Keep'em coming

Thanks for the tip about the hammer fist video. I will try it too.

I do open hand sparing. I made pads for the palm for that porous (yes they do look silly). We do everything the way you would in normal sparing but if you tend to go for the head you aim at the higher chest area and the shoulder. First a couple of light rounds and at the end we go full force (if you have any gas left). Its good fun...