It’s Good to be Board!

DISCLAIMER: This article describes an advanced training technique that should be approached with caution.

Toughen Up!

As martial artists, one of the most important things we need to do is to “toughen up” or “condition” our hands. This can be accomplished in many ways and must be done progressively. One must not go directly from punching a soft-packed heavy bag directly to limestone blocks!

However, through progressively inuring our hands to striking ever harder surfaces, we can build up hands of stone!

A New Technique

Through my own trial and error, I have come up with a technique that works well for me. I’m sure that I am not the first to think of this, but I have not come across it anywhere else. So, I will share it with you.

I began, like most practitioners, with striking regular focus mitts and a heavy bag. I then moved up to the hard and flat focus mitt, the venerable ProForce. Sadly, these mitts are no longer made and can only occasionally be found for sale.

What was the next step up from the ProForce mitts? There did not seem to be an obvious choice. Certainly, there was nothing commercially available. Then I hit upon an idea.

What if I strapped a board to my heavy bag? I would have a flat, hard surface for striking and still have a bit of cushion from the heavy bag. Perhaps I should pause here and explain why I would want a flat hard surface to practice striking.

In the art that I mainly train in, Jeet Kune Do, our core technique is the straight-lead or front-hand lead. In this technique, the power comes from the ground through the rear foot up through the lead arm and to the fist. The person doing the strike moves forward with a push step. The fist begins moving just before the lead foot leaves the ground, with the fist making contact just before the lead foot comes back to the ground, thus maximizing the force behind the strike. The actual strike is done with a vertical fist with the bottom three knuckles making contact with the target.

Making proper contact with the target is essential when executing a straight-lead strike. Failure to do so reduces the effectiveness of the strike and can even cause injury. When practicing on soft targets or wearing padded gloves one might be able to get away with a bit of sloppiness in their technique. When striking a hard surface, one’s technique must be spot on.

How It Works

This is how the board on the bag works: Find a board about 6in wide X 18-24in long and 1in thick. Secure it to your heavy bag (using ratchet straps, rope, etc) so that your normal striking spot is about 1/3 of the length down from the top of the board. Now you are ready!

Start slow! Judge your distance to about where you make contact but not much more. Do a few slow stationary strikes. If your contact is clean, it will be nearly painless. Conversely, it will be immediately (and painfully) obvious if you are not making clean contact. You will feel it and know exactly where you were off.

Take that feedback and adjust your strikes accordingly. Remember, the bottom three fingers, first knuckle to second knuckle, should form a flat surface. That surface should make contact with the board all at once.

Continue with the slow strikes until you are able to consistently make solid, pain-free contact. From there, slowly add speed and power until you are able to execute a full power front-hand lead without discomfort.

Then, adjust your distance and add in the push step. Again, begin with slow movements and build up speed and power. Eventually, you will be able to execute a full-on straight-lead strike to the board with no pain. At first, this may seem like an impossible goal. Trust me, you can get there; and faster than you think. Consistent practice is the key. Giving your hands a rub down with dit da jow after each session will assist with your recovery.

So, if you are looking to progress with conditioning your hands, give this simple and effective technique a try. Moving up to stone blocks, that is up to you…

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Tim Roettiger

Tim (T.G.) Roettiger is a writer, biologist,martial arts enthusiast and Big Cat at Red Tiger Martial Arts & Meditation. He has a M.S. in Fishery Science and worked in that field for nearly 20 years.He has also published two fiction works: Founding of a Coven and Ex Libris Merlini. Though he takes a somewhat eclectic approach to the martial arts, the core of his training has been in Jeet Kune Do, Ted Wong lineage.

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