Hook Strikes


Technique Review 

This week’s technique review is about hooks. The roundhouse strikes. We talk about the rear hand, the right, the left….

Video transcript

This week’s technique review is about hooks. The roundhouse strikes. We talk about the rear hand, the right, the left. We talk about different variations, we talk naturally about common mistakes. But, we start with some strikes, some pad work, okay? Let’s do four strikes.

Let’s do left, left, right. Okay. Let’s do slowly a bit. Front hand can be with or without turning the heel, depending on the range. When we are talking about the hook, open hand, closed fist. Krav Maga, our basic is, thumbs up. Little bit like the sending of the straight strikes, only turning in the hand. Here the elbow is still bent, with our fist, more or less vertical.

When you look at the boxers, especially the amateurs, most of them are hitting with the horizontal fist. One of the main reasons, is they don’t want these boxers to strike with the heel of the hand. For us, it’s great of course. Imi, by the way, one time he had a situation, huge crowd that 17 of them were fighting, protecting the Jewish quarters. He said there was no time to hit a person twice. And in this case, he was a boxer, and he hit like he used to and he broke his hand, his fist in the area of the small knuckles. The knuckles of the pinky finger. So, in this case, we are saying our basic is thumbs up, hitting with the two large knuckles. Normally this one is a mistake, but for us, this is not reasonable because in most cases, in the street, you may hit with the knuckles. So we are saying that is not our way, this is the one.

Striking, especially with the left, two ranges. This is the long range, where I’m shifting the weight forward and turning the body. Shifting the weight, turning the body. This is extremely important, not the strongest strike, please remember, because the weight is moving a little bit away from the direction of the attack. So I’m attacking inwards, towards the right, but my weight is going forward, and a little bit to the left. So it’s not the strongest one, but it covers the distance, the range, when I’m closer, that’s something else.

If I’m close to the target, definitely I can do this type of strike with the moving of the, turning of the front foot. When I turn the front foot, look at it, where’s my weight going? Towards my right. Where’s my strike going? Towards my right? Where’s my shin directed? Towards the right. That becomes, look at the direction of the shin, look at the direction of the forearm. I show it from here. Direction of shin, direction of forearm. This is the direction of the strike, so the power will move correctly. So close range, more further away. The right strike, practically closer, or further away, same strike. Let’s do the right a few times.

This is the idea. So, thank you Brock. So, when we are dealing with this type of strikes, we understand that we need to have turn of body in the strike. But, this is not the only thing, and sometimes you can see trainees or instructors in this direction. The idea is not this, the idea is shifting the weight, and the crunch in the abdominal area, which automatically puts the back shoulder a little bit down. As you remember, we were talking about this in previous discussion with a straight strike. Also, here, how the shoulder goes to the center of the silhouette, here the shoulder is passing the center. Usually consider the shoulder in the back hand strike is above the front knee.

If we talk about the left, when we talk about the close range, again more or less, the shoulder is about … Above the knee, yes. About this time, above the back knee. So we are dealing with the following, the arm moving, please remember. The longest you will do, the more exposed you’ll have. Exposure, you’ll expose yourself and show more intentions. However, you have more momentum, more speed. So there’s always a balance, a trade off here. That’s the basic, yes. So we do not want to open too much.

Now, the arm, the turning of the body, the sending of the shoulder, important, and now the crunch in the abdominal, which puts everything this direction, or horizontal shoulder, a little bit tilted. And now the core muscles can resist the impact, which is very, very important. Remember if I’m like this, and there’s impact, have to have very strong core muscles to resist that impact. This one. The impact from the target, the bouncing power, the reaction. Action, reaction, yes? So this, I need to be very powerful.

If I’m striking like this way, I’m already using the muscles, and they are in the position that they are very strong, here they are weaker. Here the balance is a little bit off, here is everything is stronger. So, of course, do not over commit, but the idea is that. The glutes the same. It has to contract, again, if you do not contract the glutes, of course you have to push with the leg, but if you don’t contract the glutes there’s a sponge absorbs your energy. Which energy? The impact back from the target. The reaction, and the pressure from the leg. Imagine, impact from target, reaction, action from the leg. What happens? Instead of being, pushing the energy back to the target, it’s being absorbed by the abdominal, or by the glutes. Idea is, press as hard as you can.

And then we have … Brock please. We have very basic power exercises. So if my target is here, I need to have resistance from the target. So, Brock put yourself here, exactly. We’ll change your name in a moment. And now, I’m pressing him. Let’s come here. So, again, my target is more or less here, I strike the target, past the target, let me pass the target. Now here I’m contracting, that is the power exercise. Few seconds of contracting, pressing, and relaxing. Pressing, and relaxing. What I’m pressing? What I’m paying attention to? Remember, abdominal and glutes. Remember the moment there is lack of pressure from the ground, I’ll simulate this by raising the leg. The moment I do like this, where am I falling? This direction, away from the target. So any impact, that means pressing me away, yes.

Any impact, my impact is that action. The reaction is pressing me away. So here this moment, if the reaction, you press me. He’s pressing me away, now I can resist. If I collapse my abdominal, oops, I couldn’t resist. If I relax my glutes, I could not resists. If I collapse, or lift my leg, you saw what happens. This is exactly the same. Lifting the leg, soft abdominal, soft glutes, everything is practically the same, yes. So you need to press everything towards the target. That’s the essence of the strike that is a strong strike. Of course, in reality, maybe you don’t need to all the time attack maximum, commit a lot. Sometimes you need to return very fast. You then shift maximum, the weight and the tilt of the body, but you definitely did them. And that’s important to remember.

So when I’m striking like this, heel of the hand, or fist. I’m striking a little bit, so the target is here. Yes. From here, this is the idea of the strike. Look how the shifting of the weight is included in the strike. And this is creating much more impact on the person. I also suggest that you do these things sometimes with the heel of the hand. When the fingers are away. Heel of the hand will be able to absorb reasonable amount of impact, not absorb it on the fist, especially if you’re not wrapped, and you don’t have good protection of the hand. To strike hard, no problem to strike with the heel of the hands, it’s extremely efficient.

With the fist, clench fist, those are very good, but remember most subject to damage to your own hand. So, take care of these and wrap the hand, use the appropriate, in the beginning definitely, very light techniques to get used to the strikes, to get the fact in your brain. Thank you so much.

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