Wen Hsiu Quan

One of the first differences between Kung Fu forms and those of Karate that I have noticed when I got into Kung Fu was the use of the palm. In Karate we have a descending hammer fist strike, an inward knife hand, knife hand thrust and a straight punch and of course a palm thrust or teisho tsuki. Go through the Kung Fu styles derived from Shaolin and Wudang and you find that they have a straight forward palm strike, a downward palm strike and an inward palm strike. I guess the palm of the hand is about as central in Kung Fu, especially Wudang Kungfu, as the fist is in Karate. Interesting to note- while the traditional fighting styles of the Ryukyu are known to have the te (hand)-  suffix Chinese martial arts can be found to have the suffix quan(fist) or zhang(palm). The most well-known palm style is Baguazhang (Eight Trigram Palm) of Wudang. Yes, Naruto fans- such a style really exists.... Also- while in Karate we have known tameshiwari (breaking) demonstratio...

Hi! Thanks to the good response last week's post had I am happy to give you the follow-up on that. Since I got a suggestion to start with hands I decided to break that up into three parts, being one for knuckles, one for the other parts of the hand that we use to strike and then lastly, developing the type of grip that is an attack in itself. Those of you who do boxing most likely know that the reason boxers wear gloves have nothing to do with hurting the other guy less. I mean come on! Get serious! Why would a sport where you can win by knocking the other guy out care at all about making punches less painful...? :D The reason why boxers wear gloves is that a person's skull is actually very hard and can actually break the bones of the hand when you hit it with your fist. Besides that, fighters in the China and Okinawa of old knew very well what the value was of having one's bones harder than those of your adversary. Sure- a punch in the chest can wind a guy,...