Anyone else have (had) this problem?

[Water Dragon]

I'm afraid to hit someone hard. I really don't know why. I have no problem throwing you as hard as I can (not very hard) or cranking a sub out. But when it comes to striking, I hold back and can't figure out why.

[Royal Dragon]

Me never, I get too competitve at times. I have actually had to force myself to hold back. I think the biggest issue is is working with those who hate to be hit. It sort of ruines it for you. Personally, I'd rather be hit hard, than thrown hard because of my back.

I fought several of Saviano's guys once, and did good against the green belt, but got beat so bad by their Black belt my face was swollen for days. Me, I wanted more (LOL:D ) didn't bother me one bit.

I've sparred others that were like "Dude, you need to learn CONTROLL" over and over again. personally, I want to spar with guys who don't really care that you just knocked them out tree times in a row than the one allways trying to make you take it easy.

WD, bring some gear nexttime were at Myung's together, we can play a bit if you like. I haven't really sparred in a long time and I need the practice.

[Wilson]

Because in society we're taught not to go around hitting people. A lot of martial arts out there don't train to hit either. You've seen the stop 1" from the face in training.....what's going to happen in a fight? Hmmmm. To get over it, put the gloves on and hit. The other person will be trying to hit you! As long as you're not injuring each other, its good to get hit in class. Gets your body used to the shock.

[Water Dragon]

I hear ya Wilson, but that's not my problem. I was blessed by having teachers who taught me to punch by punching. It's some kinda mental thing, and I think if I can figure out WHY I can probably fix it. I'm just not sure why.

R.D. Yeah, of course, but let's check w/ M.J. first. I know he has a lot of material he wants to give us and I want to concentrate on that as much as possible.

[crumble]

I know what you mean. For me it happens for both physical hitting and philosophical hitting (pointing out a weak/blind spot in a person's assertion).

What seems to work is (if it just training, not a real fight or conflict) ask the person what they want. If they say, "I want you to try and hit me, as hard as you can, if you can." Well, you'll find it's easy to hit with force all of a sudden! The moral aspect is taken out. They asked for it.

If you are talking about a real fight... well you just gotta take some time and really get what war is.

-crumble

[Wilson]

I read an article once that talked about mentally practicing when to "flip the switch" in your mind. It said to think about how and when it was appropriate for you to turn it all on. Like when you are reading or watching TV and a fight scene happens, think about how you would handle it. I like what Crumble said, if the person gives you the go ahead, you don't have anything to worry about. On the street, however, you need to make sure you've done your mental homework and are prepared.

[Former castleva]

You don´t actually say in your post if you mean hitting in sparring match,in class in some other way or some sort of a confrontation.Maybe I´m going too much in detail as I guess you´re talking about sparring.
Thinking about this problem in general,I think it´s only think it is wise to know when to hold back for actually to hit someone hard may cause permanent problems,probably even worse than the previous one.
A situation where it would be needed,could arise,but is probably rare.If it´s the case of sparring,then it would,as previously told,needed to do in a safe manner,if possible,or forget about it.Fear may fade away if one catches the guts to face it.

[Water Dragon]

Another odd thing. I've fought boxers before, and I WILL go all out on them. Probably 'cause they hit friggin' hard and have knocked my @ss out. But anyone else, I just can't do it.

[Royal Dragon]

Maybe you don't want to be percived as a brutal A S S H O L E?

[Royal Dragon]

Hey, if MJ has other things planned, I have a secret clearing in the woods that would work!!!

[fa_jing]

I can fix that, WD. I just need to push you to your limits (exhaustion), then come at you hard, you'll have no choice but to let the punches fly. At least that's what my sifu did to me. We can go just boxing rounds too. Now please don't break my big nose ;).


-FJ

[babooon87]

I have the exact same problem, when I get in a fight, wich is rare,I just cant hit hard, I hold my hits without wating it, If someone knows how to cure that, tell me

[Water Dragon]

Dam.mit!!!!
I was trying to fix the problem before we played again. Oh well. Anyhoo, per my teachers, that is most likely what's stopping me from getting my position to throw, It's also why I ate that da.mn knee to the solar plexus.

[Shaolindynasty]

The level of contact depends on what you are doing. I used to workout with RD last summer and he would demonstrait a technique with you as a dummy and try to hit pretty hard(being the dummy you don't really get to defend). So we would say "dude, control yourself". Once you learn the drill or are sparring then it is ok to get ruff. There should be no competition amongst each other though this will hinder the learning process.

[Water Dragon]

We're doing both S.D. we're sparring non-cooperatively to discover our weakness and then doing cooperative drill-work to fix it.

[Shaolindynasty]

Is that the order you do it in? It would make sense to start cooperative and gradualy increast the resistance to the technique. Just curious about how you do it. Do you train with RD often? Are you guys talking about the Shuai Jiao?

[fa_jing]

I think he's talking about me, but we've only met once so far for this training. We sparred kind of early on to make sure we did it while we still had energy, plus we were anxious to get going. In the future, we could do either order, the important thing is to do both. I think really, what you want to have the most focus on, you do first. It isn't always going to be sparring.


-FJ

[ewallace]

Maybe it's not important WD, but when is the last time YOU were hit really hard? Could that possibly have an effect on anything?

[Water Dragon]

S.D. I generally like to spar to figure out where I'm weak and fix it. Of course now I have a few things I know I need to work on, so drills and cooperative stuff is going to help me a lot now. Yeah, R.D. started coming to the Shuai Chiao class about 2-3 months ago.

Fa Jing, yup it's you I'm referring to. fukking knee slamming ba$tard!

ewallace. Last time I got hit really hard was in a toughman against (which i find out after the fight) an amateur pro boxer who trains with Angel Manfreddy. February of 2000 was the time. **** I miss glove work. For the record, I got knocked the Fug out in the 3rd round.

[Stacey]

I'm with ya WD. I almost never hit full force, unless we are all padded up, even then one of my biggest flaws is not being ruthless enough.


also my knuckles won't stand up to the amount of power I can develop from the waist.

[SevenStar]

WD, I got the answer, when I come back up there, let me hit you with that roundhouse - no yielding this time. I'll do it repeatedly until you can no longer stand it - then you turn and unleash a full power punch on fa_jing. Sound good? :D

[Royal Dragon]

As a beginner, it is best to start with pre arranged drills, and SLOWLY move to harder stuff, but for me, i've been doing this stuf for 13 years.

I have also had some severe health problems that have drastically effected my abilitys to even do this stuff at all, infact last spring it looked like I would NEVER do ANY martial arts at all ever again. Now I can take some throws even. So for me sparring full contact (with in reason) would be better at first to find out what I need to work on and rebuild.

Also, Shaolin Dynasty, when we were working last summer and drilling the SAME technique for 30-40 minutes straight, it only stands to reason that speed and power be increased with the drills. We seemed to do good with that, except for your Akido freind, who never seemed to "Get it". I mean punching slow is fine to start, but it is really limiting especially when you already know the attack and defense ahead of time. What we were doing gave us more benifit by speeding things up every couple of sets, much more so than just slowly roboting through the moves.

[Water Dragon]

Originally posted by SevenStar
WD, I got the answer, when I come back up there, let me hit you with that roundhouse - no yielding this time. I'll do it repeatedly until you can no longer stand it - then you turn and unleash a full power punch on fa_jing. Sound good? :D

Oh yeah, THAT was actually the last time I got hit hard. I guess that memory was a little too painful to remember at first. Anyhoo, the groin ripper has a few goodies he's sending my way to help me fix this problem. I'm terrified already :eek:

[Shaolindynasty]

RD- I agree speeding up and adding resistance is the way to go. WD's discription was the other way around, just different points of view.


I hope you aren't insulting my "akido freind" because he had no problem tapping you out after he failed to get that drill right did he?

[Royal Dragon]

No insult intended, infact he sprained my Elbow, remember the loud popping sound?? I was sore for days!!! (shhh, don't tell, too much ego to admit it though) Although, to save me some embarassment, you have to admit I did escape the first one with a small joint Chin Na. I should have stopped wile I was ahead!!!

[Shaolindynasty]

Yeah i remeber that! Everybody was like oooooo! You shouldn't be embarased everybody gets beat every once in a while. If you don't, then you need better opponents.

[Royal Dragon]

Heck, at THAT point, I was looking at never doing MA again due to my back, yet there I was doing what I love. Granted I'm no where near what I once was, but I'm getting there. Right now I've recovered about 2/3's of my physical abilitys, except hard cardio stuff, I'm still sucking air after only small exertions. If I go slower, I'm usually ok so long as my back isn't acting up.

I really don't know how my fighting is though as I have not had the oppertunity to test myself in hard fighting yet, but I expect I suck at the moment based on my timming with simpler stuff, and lack of practice with it for over a year. I'm hoping Water Dragon will go a few rounds with me nextime I see him just to get a feel for where I'm at.

The funny thing with the elbow that day, is I didn't feel anything at all till the next morning. I was fine and to me it was no different than cracking my knuckles. Also, "I" didn't hear it as loud as you guys did because my ears were buried under my arms and my opponents body. (Keep forgetting his name, sorry). I really didn't understand the reaction you guys were haveing untill later when I reviewed the tape and HEARD the cracking sound. :eek:

[yu shan]

IMO having your bell rung makes you think...thinking is good. We of course take it very easy on newbies, ease them into the contact. While the elder`s pound the cr*p out of each other. As a teacher, you know how far to take it , with who. This being said, we practice pugilism, MA, it goes with the flow ... don`t be disturbed with hitting, better to hit than be hit. Have fun.

[Water Dragon]

Originally posted by yu shan
While the elder`s pound the cr*p out of each other.

I think this sentance is important. This is the level I am trying to push myself to achieve. I need to be dealing at fight level intensity at this point in my training. Right now I am thinking I just need to keep pushing and I'll get there. I'm pretty much convinced this is a mental block.

It's not that I wasn't going hard now. Fa Jing and I both have enough experience to where a clean blow would clean either of our clocks. But it's time to make it to that next level.

I have no idea if that made sense to anyone else or not :confused:

[Royal Dragon]

Yeah, I undersatnd it. You just gotta do that sometimes.

Fajing's been asking me for a get together, maybe all 3 of us could hook up that way one could ref wile the other two could test skills.

[Water Dragon]

Can you get to Grant Park from 5-7 any day during the week?

[Dark Knight]

It's not that I wasn't going hard now. Fa Jing and I both have enough experience to where a clean blow would clean either of our clocks. But it's time to make it to that next level.

Its a painful lesson but we all have to go through it. Its what lets you know you can handle yourself, when you can get hit by top fighters and still stand there, you lose your fear of fighting other people.


One of the top NHB fighters once said that his best lessons came from getting a good a$$ beating.

[Royal Dragon]

How about a Saturday?

[wooha]

I reckon I'm a bit strange when it comes to hitting people. I'm talking about in an actual confrontation, not sparring.

I feel perfectly comfortable with the idea of hitting someone full force just about anywhere. In the stomach, even a full force boot to the groin, and I have done so in the past.

But for some reason I've always had this phsycological aversion to hitting people hard in the face. I just hate the idea of it.

What's up with that? :confused:

Yet when I'm light-sparring, the head is my favourite target.

[Royal Dragon]

I can blast someine right in the face as hard as I can, but have trouble kicking someone in the groin at all.

[fa_jing]

I just want to say that working out with WaterDragon, a Tai-Chi/Shaui Jiao/BJJ stylist, improved my Wing Chun. I gained particular insight into two techniques: Fuk Sao and Lan Sao. Lan Sao is looking like my new favorite move, that's the one where I cover your arm(s) with a bar arm, moving in and jamming as I strike. Fuk being that crane-looking hand shape where I just lay my wrist on top of your bridge (forearm/wrist) and "listen" for your movement. I still haven't consciously used Fuk in sparring - I got a theoretical understanding of the Fuk, and a practical understanding of the Lan.
The training was also great as far as having to deal with someone who employed completely different tactics than those I'm used to. I'm primarily a striker, WaterDragon focuses more on throws and grappling. We were both trying to move "in" on each other - my definition of "in" being short-punching range, for WD it is body-to-body.

I'm laid up right now, but feeling better...patience guys, I'll be back soon enough. If WD and I spar 10 times this summer, I think we'll meet our goals. Personally, I think our Kung Fu is going to go through the roof. :D

-FJ