History Channel - "Conquest"

[Jaron Bernstein]

"Going from memory The leather hand wraps. Bare knuckle prize fighting was prevelent all the way up through the early 1900's. To state that bare knuckle fighting hurt the hands so badly that they had to resort to leather wraps to protect the hands seems a bit of a stretch. Wrapping the hands in anything other than a padded glove is going to result in a lot more damage on the recieving end- I know the cestus was used, but the comparison between the modern boxing glove and the cestus is, again, a bit of a stretch."

Bare knuckle isn't so dangerous to the hands. Especially if you do even minimal hand conditioning (perhaps some fist pushups on a driveway or the like). This very afternoon, I did some bare knuckle sparring in class and came away with bruises (from my opponent) on my body, but with quite intact hands. We usually do this every other week and I have had or seen no hand injuries. The main thing is a simple rule, hit soft with hard and hard with soft. So, you hit a belly or a nose with a clenched fist and a hard surface (a forehead) with an open palm. The wraps and gloves in modern boxing are meant to protect the person being punched from the full impact more than to protect the hand of the puncher. I have see many people punched (and injured) at work but not one hand injury from striking someone. Just a thought.

Good exchange of ideas on the wrestling thing. I am a big fan of Matt Furey. I would say that while he does heavily emphasize conditioning (the dreaded "F" word <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> ), the actual wrestling techniques he teaches are not limited by any sport rules. Much of the techniques he shows (his heel hooks and neck cranks come to mind) are AFAIK banned in sport competition. Not to say that sport training and competition isn't useful in many respects, including as a fighting art. I am just saying that if you trained just as intensively in a "combat" art as a "sport" athlete trains for their "sport", you would have an advantage. The problem is that many "combat" fighters are so confident of their "lethal" techniques that they don't train with the intensity of the "sport" athlete. Which gives the "sport" guy an advantage.

[Casper Bradak]

Interesting, all the boxers I've met have told me that the gloves are more for the puncher than the punchee. I personally know a few people who've cracked their knuckles on peoples faces.
Are your bare knuckle bouts really all out full contact?

[Jaron Bernstein]

Hi Casper,

"Interesting, all the boxers I've met have told me that the gloves are more for the puncher than the punchee."

I haven't spoken with many boxers. I have sparred with and without gloves and I find it far easier to punch without them and far easier to be hit when the opponent is wearing them <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

" I personally know a few people who've cracked their knuckles on peoples faces."

I have never seen that. Not saying that it doesn't happen or even that it isn't common, just that I haven't seen it and I have seen my fair share of black eyes and bloody noses.

"Are your bare knuckle bouts really all out full contact?"

For safety (once again that "sport" thing) while still allowing realistic intent we spar with the following rules: 1. no hits to the head, 2. full contact (as in full force and not "point" hitting) bare knuckle to the body and legs (this includes kicks knees and elbows), 3. no hits to the knees (common sense there). Grappling sometimes follows this with similar "sport" grappling safety rules you are probably familiar with. This allows for a "real time" training dynamic while also not getting your head bashed in. If we put the head in the target area, then we use headgear and gloves. One thing I really like about this sort of work is much like the ARMA free sparring is that it helps you over that psychological barrier to be comfortable "in the zone" and it also lets you find out that your pretty slow speed drills don't actually work in reality (which I found out with my beautiful slow meisterhau drills that never seem to work while actually sparring <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> ), so you must clean them up to make them work.

[Casper Bradak]

I see. I agree that boxing gloves do make it easier on the punchee, despite being more for the puncher. They do spread the impact out and make it a little softer. It's really only on head shots fists tend to get torn up, which is usually readily apparent in drawn out bare knuckle fights where that's allowed. With no head shots, you wouldn't need nearly the weight of gloves used in normal boxing, particularly for martial arts practice, as opposed to martial sport, as they're so limiting to technique.

[Shane Smith]

I have broken my knuckle on an opponents head.It does happen in real life as suggested above.

[Jake_Norwood]

Not to mention hands getting torn up on teeth, as I've seen happen a few times.

Jake

[Jaron Bernstein]

"I see. I agree that boxing gloves do make it easier on the punchee, despite being more for the puncher. They do spread the impact out and make it a little softer."

Better to be hit with a padded than unpadded hard object. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

" It's really only on head shots fists tend to get torn up, which is usually readily apparent in drawn out bare knuckle fights where that's allowed."

That may be part of it. I haven't seen any drawn out street fights. They are usually over (one way or another) fairly quickly.

" With no head shots, you wouldn't need nearly the weight of gloves used in normal boxing, particularly for martial arts practice, as opposed to martial sport, as they're so limiting to technique."

Admittedly, it is an artificial limitation to restrict head shots for this kind of sparring, but I do have to work after class and can't do that with a concussion. I also feel that the ability to do some "live" training outweighs the artificiality.

[JeffGentry]

well i would be willing to bet that wrestling/pugilism are the oldest martial art's in the world because you don't need to carry anything and it realy doesn't need much training you can do it virtualy anywhere with anyone for fun or defense. Yes there are certain technique's taught but if you play at it everyday you can learn alot and never realy be taught just figure it as you go and get stronger and faster to boot. If any one has ever watched the Ultimate fighting you go back and look at the first few year's and look at it now alot of the "true" martial artist, karate, kung fu, and such from the first few year's and most of the time they get taken down and they didn't know how to wrestle well and they usualy lost, but know they have alot of ground fighter's, wrestler's have learned to stand up and fight so it has be come much more interesting, but wrestling is still a big part of it. So IMHO wrestling is a very valuable skill whether it is collegiate,GR it is still a necessary part of western martial art's.

[Casper Bradak]

From what I hear, the oldest surviving fencing manual, so to speak, is egyptian. A wall full of heiroglyphs instructing a wrestling system.

[Matt Shields]

If you watch the first few Ultimate Fighting Championships you'll notice that many of the Boxers and Kickboxers, and even some Eastern Martial Artists decided to wear gloves many years before they became required (legal trouble.) The objective of these people was to punish their opponent for $60,000, they wouldn't go out of their way to wear something that takes away speed and their ability to grapple efficiently to do less damage to their opponent.
And it wasn't uncommon for people to break their fists punching or even pounding, even against the softest heads (615lb Sumo.)

[Jaron Bernstein]

Come think of it, I do recall a UFC match where a smaller guy defeated a Sumo fighter, but was unable to continue later since he had broken his hand on the sumo guy's head.

[Jake_Norwood]

That was the first UFC, and he fought two more matches (losing the third) with that same broken hand (no one dropped out for broken hands until later). Impressive stuff.

Jake

[Jay Vail]

From what I hear, the oldest surviving fencing manual, so to speak, is egyptian. A wall full of heiroglyphs instructing a wrestling system.

That would be the Beni Hasan carvings. THey depict a variety of wrestling and boxing moves. You can find them through a google search of "Beni Hasan."

[Mike Cartier]

I think you guys are talking about this pic

Got it from the guychase.com website.

[Jay Vail]

Yes, indeed, Mike. That's the one. <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" />