Terry Brown's bare-fist techniques

[Leonardo Santos]

Hello, people.

I just got a few books for solo practice, among them Terry Brown's English Martial Arts. Well, I got the book for the quarterstaff techniques, but since I've trained a little bit in kickboxing, the bare-fist section caught my attention first. I have found that the book recommends some techniques that my kickboxing instructors would not agree with.

The book uses a fighting stance with the elbows high (at shoulder height). It also shows blocks to low punches and kicks being done with the hand (lowering the hand to meet a blow). These techniques are in pages 219 (basic stance, lower block) and 220 (defence against a stomach punch).

This is all very different from what I've learned, and from my (limited, I admit) experience, I would say that these techniques are unsound. My understanding is that:

- You should fight with your hands high, but elbows low, unlike what Terry Brown shows.
- You should NEVER lower your hand to defend, because this leaves your face wide open to a counterattack. Instead you should defend as follows:
- Low kicks (leg/waist height) are defended by raising your leg.
- Kicks and punches to the ribs or stomach height should be defended with your elbow. This is easy to do, if you bend your back a little bit, your elbow should reach down almost to the height of your navel.

I would really like to know about the effectiveness of Terry Brown's stuff. Does anyone with more experience care to comment on this?

BTW, first post.

[Leonardo Santos]

By the way, is it appropriate to post scanned pictures of the book (only these specific pages), so that people who don't have the book will know what I'm talking about? I know the book is copyrighted, but this is definitely Fair Use.

[PeteWalsh]

Hi Leonardo

Unfortunately Terry Brown does not directly source or footnote much of the material in his book (though there is a good bibliography) so it's impossible to know where these stances and blocks came from. They may have been described/depicted in some of the old fightbooks

However, I very much doubt any bareknuckle boxer of the 18th and 19th centuries would have used them. Anyone who has ever had a boxing match or fistfight will know how useless upper and lower forearms blocks are - they are probably the single greatest weakness of karate as a realistic combat system.

The best ways to avoid a punch are to dodge it or to slap it away with your open palm. The old-timers would have known this better than anyone.

Pete

[Jon Pellett]

Leo:

I've never read Brown's book, but the guard does sound rather strange. You may already know about these, but here are some online BKB texts:

Godfrey - mostly fencing, but some stuff on boxing.
Fewtrell - this one has some pictures of guards
Extracts from Mendoza
Price - some pics, grappling information
Dempsey - more modern style (I found it somewhere else before, and I don't know anything about this site.)

On forearm blocks - I am not sure exactly what you mean, but I think this technique was commonly used - Fewtrell calls it barring, and argues that parrying by beating down the opponent's punches is better.

Cheers

[JeffGentry]

Hey Pete

Anyone who has ever had a boxing match or fistfight will know how useless upper and lower forearms blocks are - they are probably the single greatest weakness of karate as a realistic combat system.

Actualy the upper forearm block's do work against hammerfist which is what i think they were designed to do, Boxing as we know it is fairly new heck the jab with the leed hand didn't come about until the 19th century IIRC, so i would not say they are useless they are only useless in the modern context, there was a time when Bareknuckle boxing included throw's and headbutt's and was more akin to a modern NHB fight.

Loenardo

I am a big fan of Mark Hatmaker, he does an e-mail newsletter every friday, and he has a similar philosophy to ARMA.

Mark Hatmaker, extreme self protection


Jeff

[Jeffrey Hull]

By the way, for more about "hammerfist", see nice article that our fellow Mike Cartier did about ancient Greek Pankration way of doing it and pertinent tactics, etc:

Pankration Hammerfist

Enjoy!

[Derek Gulas]

I was taught to keep my elbows high - shoulder level, in my Krav Maga class...

[JeffGentry]

JLH

Thank's for adding that link, i must be losing my mind, I meant to put that link in also and forgot.

It is definately a Monday.


Jeff

[PeteWalsh]

Hi Jeff

Must admit, I hadn't thought of hammerfists! You are quite right, a high forearm block would be the obvious defence.

If we are discussing this in a no-holds-barred combat context, then I'm sure your view is a correct and such a block would work, especially if the blocker was on the ground and about to be hit in the face.

However, if we are talking English bareknuckle fighting from the time of Broughton onwards, I think both these guards and hammerfist blows would be redundant. Straight punches are so much quicker to execute and more damaging, and also don't leave the thrower so open - raising the arm for a hammerfist leaves an awfully inviting gap.

I've also never seen a hammerfist thrown in a fist fight, by either a trained or untrained fighter. Since we obviously have exactly the same body mechanics as people 200 (and 2000) years ago, it makes me wonder if they really were used, despite what old pictures and text might indicate.

I guess we'll never know - but it's interesting to speculate.

Pete

[KatherineJohnson]

I hammerfisted an opponent in my last kickboxing match. It didnt land paticularly well due to me misjudging the distance and her not keeping still. I think had I caught her with it she wouldnt have been paticularly happy. I intend to use more of them in future matches, I am trying to figure out how to integrate them into my primarily modern boxing style of fighting without them being to telegraphed.

I think they'll work great once I get more practice doing them to resisting opponents.

[Jaron Bernstein]

"I've also never seen a hammerfist thrown in a fist fight, by either a trained or untrained fighter."

I wonder how much of that is muscle memory, or lack thereof. There is a saying that you do as you train and train as you want to do. A western boxer in an actual fight will use western boxing techniques under stress. A BJJ fighter will naturally seek to grapple on the ground by muscle memory. Both because that is what they train to do. If you make a hammerfist (or any other thing for that matter) an integral part of your regular training until if becomes instinctive, only then will you actually use it under stress. See what I mean?

[PeteWalsh]

I do see what you mean Jacob.

But I would like to posit the contrary view, based I admit largely on watching NHB fighters (and therefore by extension original pankrationists and realistic fighters of all eras), that realsitc fights don't see hammerfists much, if at all, because they are ineffective in combat, or at least much less effective than other blows. Same reason they rarely use high kicks, though if someone took their martial arts instruction from the movies, they'd think that high kicks were the most effective strikes off all.

Of course you can KO someone with a high kick, as I'm sure you can with a hammerfist, but boy you have to be good, and you leave yourself very exposed if you miss.

Maybe there is a case for considering that some of the old fighbooks/engravings/paintings etc were the Bruce Lee films of their day?

Maybe not
That doesn;t

[JeffGentry]

Hey Pete

From what i understand Broughton was the "first" to codify the rule's of "boxing" trying to make it safer and fairer his rule's did allow throw's, it is/was rumored he had actualy killed an opponent in a fight, after his rule's we have the Marqee of Queensbnerry rule's about 1850/60 were throws were taken out of the game of "boxing" and the jab as we know it was still non existant, Prior to this there are not to many record's of fight's that are not personnel account's, I think because there was no real type of organization to keep them.

I've also never seen a hammerfist thrown in a fist fight, by either a trained or untrained fighter

Well i doubt almost every "Martial art" in the world would have a defense aginst the hammer fist and it would be pictured in as many painting's or drawing's if it wasn't used, and if it was used it must have been effective other wise why use it or defend against it.

Don't misunderstand me, the hammer fist has it's place in a fight it is not the end all be all though.

Jeff

[Jaron Bernstein]

Hmmm...off into speculation land I go <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

One of the problems in trying to reconstruct ringen (or any historical art) is that we don't know what it really looked like in actual usage. We can watch good modern boxing in action and learn all about the hook punch. Until we get a time machine or can raise the dead from their essential saltes (hopefully without ye livieliest awefullness <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) we have to cipher it out from the manuals. I would argue that our efforts at understanding the longsword are currently farthest along, with ringen far behind. Yet even in the longsword, we have more questions than answers (how exactly do you do the krumphau or shielhau?) at times.

So, "Maybe there is a case for considering that some of the old fighbooks/engravings/paintings etc were the Bruce Lee films of their day?"

That may be right, or it may not be. IMO there is evidence that points both ways. A lot of the fechtuch techniques are not flashy at all (Meyer has a brutally easy foot stomp in the dagger chapter in which if the fellow stands still for too long, you stomp on his foot). But there are some that do seem to be "gee whiz, that sure would look cool" things (the prelhau comes to mind here).

But for the hammerfist, I agree with Jeff that the hammerfist likely had a lot of usage in the day (especially with a rondel). Otherwise why would there be so many counters to it described and why would you have dagger guards that make its use a natural body movement in ways that some modern unarmed guards don't.

I would throw in the final caveat that each master was different, so we really need to have a holistic understanding of as much as possible to pick out common threads. If one guy writes about something, but it appears nowhere else....who knows (the prelhau again). If 10 manuals over a 300 year period describe the same thing (amazing how the hip throw and zwerch keep showing up) a much stronger case can be made that a technique was commonly used and known.

[Ray_McCullough]

You do see the hammerfist in MMA fights. It has its place. the modern world sees no hammerfist becouse of boxing. Kids will throw a hammerfist until about 4 yrs old. By then they have seen some boxing on TV. I know this by whatching my girls. My 2 year old does it every time. My 4 and 9 year old try straiter punches. They have seen alot of fighting on TV. You have to teach a straight punch. you dont have to teach a hammerfist it is very natural. A hook is a very powreful strike but it is just as telegraghed as the hammerfist. The hook is not seen as ineffective and the hammerfist is. They all have there place or they would not have been used. IMO it goes back to application.

Hammerfist dissapeared from boxing when rules were added to make the fights last longer. It must be effective or it wouldnot have been outlawed.