Mmmm, crunchy

[Toby]

I had a solid hour on the WC wooden dummy at training last night. I suck at it, so I use a lot more force than necessary. I end up with what I like to think of as "bone" bruises, like on the knuckles, forearm, knife edge of the hand, the outside bone on my bony wrist, etc.

Anyway, I often get a funny sensation in my bruised bones. Like yesterday I heavily bruised my middle finger knuckle (the main knuckle where the finger meets the hand) punching this knobbly old dummy. Today when I push on it and around it, it moves with a "crunchy" sensation. Like somewhere inside it there's coarse sandpaper rubbing against coarse sandpaper. Any ideas what's happening? It goes after a couple of days as the bruising subsides.

[IronFist]

Have you seen my sig?

[Toby]

Iron?

I'm about to make my own. My old man's getting me a whitegum tree trunk from near his property at Gidgegannup. I've got some ideas for the making of the rest of it.

[Toby]

BTW, it's extra crunchy today. With a bit of soreness when I clench. I'll see how forearm night goes tonight.

[Toby]

I was up 4wding at Mundaring last weekend. They're clearing for a new route for the Gt Eastern Hwy. They'd cleared about 100m x 5km of nice wood. Lots of jarrah, including nice trunks. Then they were chipping it :mad:.

If you went for a drive on a weekend up in the foothills with a decent saw or even better a chainsaw, I'm sure you'd find a dead tree or two on the side of a road. Nothing illegal about cutting "firewood" either AFAIK. Lots of people do it, with trailers and utes. My trunk's coming from a dead tree that's still standing so nice and clean. Still got the bark on it. Otherwise there's a guy who advertises in the Sunday Times with something like "Timber - bush poles". I rang him once and left a message but he never got back to me. Dunno how expensive. Sometimes others advertise poles too, but he does every week.

You're up late :D.

[PLCrane]

Originally posted by Toby
...when I push on it and around it, it moves with a "crunchy" sensation.


I hope you mean that the skin over the knuckle moves, and not that the knuckle moves when you push on it. Swelling over the knuckle might feel kind of crunchy. Either way, it means you're doing damage. (bone bruise or fracture, and probably some muscle and tendon damage, depending on the location)

It might be worth your while to spend some time working with the dummy without hitting it. Go through the moves to position yourself on the dummy, and then just push, working on proper alignment. Proceed to low impact hitting, again, paying attention to alignment.

Don't try to beat the dummy - it'll always win.

[Toby]

Originally posted by PLCrane
Don't try to beat the dummy - it'll always win. So I keep finding. Yet I always respond, like I do to the trolls around here :p.

Yeah, it's the skin/swelling that moves. Not the bone itself. I thought it might be getting fractures (esp. the base of the 5th metacarpal) but the pain isn't bad and I can manipulate the area without fainting. I think it's probably bone bruises but I was concerned about the "crunchiness".

My problem is really my ego and the dummy. I hit it. I've been told many times recently that I need to develop "feeling" on the dummy instead of trying to bash it. After I started this thread, the next training session we spent ~45min on the dummy again and with my pain from before I had to take it easy. It was probably good for me.

[PLCrane]

Cool. Nothing like some good bruises to get you to go from bashing the dummy to playing sticky hands with it. The feeling that you want to get is that when you push against the dummy, it pushes your heel into the ground instead of pushing your body away from the dummy. If you need to feed your ego, then think of it as not giving ground (or think of it as a way to learn to be a fence post upon which your opponent will impail himself.)

Some kind of hit medicine might help with the bruises. I like zheng gu shui for bone bruises. Um, if it's your 5th metacarpal that's hurting, you might consider getting an x-ray just to be safe. Hand fractures are not necessarily incapacitating. And don't hit with that bone anymore.


PLC

[Toby]

I use zheng gu shui too. Re the 5th metacarpal - it's pretty lumpy in one spot (on each hand). There may be a fracture. It's the same spot I hit each time on the 2nd section of the dummy in our form. I might get around to x-raying it eventually. I probably should. But I can really manipulate it strongly without much pain, especially today as it's healing.