What Every Martial Artist Should Know 01

Classical Pugilism – What Every Martial Artist Should Know An Electronic Book by Martin J Austwick

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Copyright

Martin J Austwick Classical Pugilism - What every Martial Artist Should know

© 2013 Martin J Austwick A pugilism.org publication http://www.pugilism.org

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under United Kingdom and International Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

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Contents Page 4

Introduction

6

What is Classical Pugilism?

8

Bare Fists vs Gloves

11

Punching

12

Fist Alignment

14

Straight vs Circular Punches

16

Power Generation

18

Targeting

21

Counter Punching

23

Staying on your Feet

25

Closing and In-fighting

28

Conclusion

3

Introduction

Over the last fifty years or so there has been a massive boom in people studying traditional martial arts of one form or another. From the Kung Fu inspired by Bruce Lee in the seventies to Daniel San's Karate through the eighties. However unlike most hobbies, Martial Arts is no passing fad. It is more popular now than it has ever been, and since the dawn of organisations like Pride in Japan and the UFC in America another player has joined the market: “Mixed Martial Arts”.

All of these systems have a number of things in common, as indeed does modern boxing at both amateur and professional levels. They sell themselves as being great for self defence, and in some ways it is hard to argue with them. They do indeed provide you with a lot of the skills you need to be able to defend yourself if you find yourself on the wrong end of a violent assault. But, and this is a very big but indeed, in some ways they are letting you down. They are letting you down in such a significant way that you could find yourself seriously injured.

This book will show you exactly how neither traditional martial arts, modern martial arts, nor indeed boxing actually prepare you to come away from a situation where you have had to defend yourself without injuring yourself. It will show you how you can take the skills of Classical Pugilism and adapt your training in such a way as to fix this deficit. It will show you how to strike your opponent in such a way as to cause maximum damage to them without running the risk of damaging your hands, it will show you how to generate power without telegraphing your attacks, it will teach you which targets to hit to maximise your chances of defeating 4

your opponent, it will teach you strategies for countering common attacks, how to stay on your feet, how to become skilled at “In-fighting” and how to take your opponent down to the ground whilst remaining on your feet in order to be able to escape a dangerous situation effectively.

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What is Classical Pugilism?

At its most basic level Classical Pugilism is what Boxing used to be, but that doesn't really come close to doing it justice. Over several hundreds of years boxing evolved massively into the sport it is today; if you could travel back in time to the 1740s and visited Jack Broughton's amphitheatre you'd hard pushed to recognise what you saw as boxing. Yes there would be two people in a ring hitting each other, but that's where the similarities would end.

There would be no time keepers and there would be no bell. The fighters would be punching, using back-fists and hammer-fist blows. They'd be kicking and they'd be closing to grapple. They would be using elbows and knees, and Daniel Mendoza vs Richard Humphries

they'd be throwing each other to the

floor. One other difference, and perhaps the most significant, is that they wouldn't be wearing gloves. Later on we'll see quite how significant a difference this is.

Before the Marquess of Queensbury spoiled everything with his rules there were three distinct eras of Pugilism, each one characterised by the fact that fighters did not wear gloves when competing. The early Era had no formal rules at all, in fact anything went in the ring. Fighters agreed their own rules before a fight, but there were no general rules that they all fought to. This changed when a man called Jack Broughton introduced the first set of rules. The second era, known as The 6

Broughton's Rules Era started after he killed a man in the ring. Filled with remorse and determined to ensure it never happened again, he used his influence as Champion of all England to introduce a set of rules for all major competitions. Whilst this sounds like a big change, most of his rules dealt with the size and layout of the arena, the behaviour of the seconds, and the introduction of a system of rounds. There were only two things fighters were no longer able to do. Firstly there was no taking hold of a man below the waist, and no striking a man who was down. What is most noticeable is what it did not ban. It didn't ban kicking, it didn't ban elbow strikes and other forms of striking that are no longer allowed, and it didn't ban grappling and throwing your opponent. The third era was brought about as more and more “Gentlemen of Quality” became involved in the fistic arts. Known as the London Prize Ring rules they were based heavily on Broughton's, but over a number of revisions gradually removed all of the aspects of pugilism that differentiated it from modern boxing. When The Marquess of Queensbury introduced his rules he made gloves compulsory for the first time and pugilism was no more.

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Bare Fists vs Gloves

Whether you're a boxer, an MMA fighter, a points fighter, or a traditional martial artist the chances are that when you know you're going to be fighting, either in competition of training, one of the first things you do is to put on some hand protection. Whether we're talking about 16oz boxing gloves, MMA grappling gloves, or the lightest of foam mitts, hand protection is a vital part of any martial artist's kit, and for very good reason.

Your hands are incredible things. They are strong enough to be used all day, every day without causing a problem, yet sensitive enough to detect tiny changes in temperature and texture. They allow you to carry out the finest of motor movements. Each hand has 29 bones, 30 arteries, 48 nerves and over 120 ligaments. The thumb alone is controlled by 9 muscles and can move in six clearly different directions. The hand is an amazing creation, yet we scrunch it up into a ball and use it as a rudimentary club in order to bludgeon other people with. It is no surprise that hand injuries are so common, that broken fingers, metacarpals and carpals account for such a large percentage of all physical trauma. It is no surprise that a break through the end of the 5th metacarpal A Hand X-Ray showing a Boxer's Fracture

is so common in combat arts that it is known in the medical profession as a “Boxer's Fracture”.

So if hands are so fragile, and so easily damaged surely we should be using more 8

hand protection, not looking to arts where none was ever used? Well yes, that is exactly what we should be doing. At least from the point of view of martial arts and boxing. If we know we are going to be using our hand as a weapon to punch people then we should ensure that we are using the very best hand protection that we can get.

But this is the problem, and it is where all the arguments for using boxing, traditional martial arts, or mixed martial arts as a basis for self defence fall down.

We don't get to pick when we are targeted by a violent criminal.

Let me say that again, because it is perhaps the most important thing I will say in this whole book.

We cannot choose when we are attacked.

In fact it goes further than that. The less prepared you are, the more likely to be targeted as a victim you will be.

When an attacker steps out in front of you you do not have the luxury of asking them to hang on a minute while you get your gloves on. In a world where assailants worked by appointment only, then perhaps Shotokan or Tae Kwon Do would be all we ever needed to know, but sadly that is not the case. When we actually need to use our self defence skills for real we are going to have to do it without the luxury of the equipment we normally have when we fight. 9

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you won't be fast enough to avoid getting hit, perhaps you will be, perhaps not. What I'm saying is that when you attempt to hit them you are extremely likely to damage yourself as much as you damage them if all your training has consisted in how to hit while wearing gloves.

Gloves change the way you fight. By its very nature hand protection protects your hands and in doing so allows you the luxury of being able to get away with techniques that you simply cannot use when you don't have that protection. You can contact with areas of your hands that are too fragile and likely to break, you can hit area of your opponent that would simply be ineffective. In short unless you train to protect your hands you won't know how to protect your hands. You will be placing your chances of surviving a violent attack squarely in the lap of lady luck. You could end up with a painful injury that takes weeks to heal and puts you out of action for months, and that is the best case scenario. You could be permanently disabled, at worst you could injure yourself in such a way that you lose the ability to defend yourself. You could end up dead, simply because you didn't utilise the basic theory of bare knuckle boxing that used to be common knowledge. Theory that developed over many decades of glove-less combat. Theory that allowed some of the best fighters the world has ever seen to dominate the ring for years at a time without significant injury. Theory that is described in detail in this book.

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Punching

In most martial arts we are taught to make contact with a horizontal fist when punching. We do this by means of a rotational force through the arm as the punch extends. The theory is that this is anatomically stronger, as well as being more powerful due to the torquing force of the fist exerting more energy on impact. In order to keep the wrist straight on impact we are taught that we should attempt to only contact with the first two knuckles as these form a surface that is roughly perpendicular to the arm. In some arts this is essentially the only form of punching that is practiced. In boxing a huge array of punches exist, but the common factor is that of fist alignment on impact. It should be horizontal.

In Classical Pugilism things are done a little differently. The fist should be vertical on impact, and the point of contact should be the middle two knuckles (some later sources such as Dempsey suggest the bottom three knuckles, but in most people this will not make a straight line unless they are wearing gloves, which Dempsey did through his entire career). Punches are only made in a straight line (there are other strikes but more on that later). So with these differences in mind lets take a moment to have a look at the reasoning.

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Fist Alignment

We'll start by looking at the relative positions of the fist. When punching with a horizontal fist you supposedly gain power from the torsional forces you apply to the arm as it extends.

There are a number of problems with this concept.

Firstly it isn't true to any meaningful degree. Power in punching is created by utilising the bodyweight. Big guys hit harder as a general rule, and it isn't just because they have bigger muscles, it is because they are bigger. But there must be other reasons right? Yes, indeed there are.

It is often claimed that the bones of the forearm are more structurally sound when the hand is placed in a pronated position (palm down) as is the case when a horizontal fist is used. However there is no real evidence for this either. The fact is that the two bones of the forearm have vastly different roles to play. The radius forms the wrist joint in which the ulna plays no part, and the ulna forms the elbow in which the radius plays no part. The bones themselves are held tightly together by a series of ligaments and a very strong membrane. It is this that gives the forearm it's compressive strength, not the relative positions of the bones in relation to each other.

So you can see that it isn't actually more powerful, and it isn't structurally stronger, so what are the advantages of the vertical fist? 12

The significant reduction in rotation during the action of the punch allows you to be markedly more precise. And it is precision in striking that will ensure that we maximise the damage to the target and minimise the damage to our own hands.

When striking with a vertical fist the plane in which the elbow bends is also vertical. Or to use simple terminology the arm bends up and down, not out to the side. In a sport like boxing this is not of any real relevance, but as soon as grappling becomes a viable option then this is a major issue.

One of the first things you will be taught if you learn to wrestle is to keep your elbows tucked in. A loose arm is an open invitation to a skilled grappler, an invitation you really don't want to send. And it is worth noting that it is almost impossible to throw a straight punch with a vertical fist without tucking your elbow in. This doesn't just help prevent an opponent from successfully grappling with us, but as we will see later it enables us to combine offence and defence into one move.

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Straight vs Circular Punches

In modern boxing the lead hand jab is often used in order to set up the “power punch” - a hook from the rear hand. When done well in the ring this is a fearful combination. The jab is sharp, fast and dangerous in its own right, but the second punch is devastating. It comes to the side of the head and has all the bodyweight behind it. Unless you are a southpaw then it will be from your stronger arm as well. However if you do this without wearing boxing gloves you will very quickly find out why it is that the successful pugilists from long ago considered round blows the domain of the untrained, the natural blow of those lacking in science.

Without the glove the fist contacts the side of the head at an angle, in such a way as to put all the force of the blow though one single metacarpal, and not even through it in a straight line. It is highly likely that a blow like this would significantly damage the hand of the person throwing it unless they were wearing some sort of protection. Relying on a technique such as this is essentially putting all of your defence into one strike. If it succeeds you may well be fine, but you may have a broken hand requiring surgery. If it doesn't then you have a broken hand, an angry assailant, and you have thrown away the only chance you had to defend yourself. Not a clever option I'm sure you'll agree.

Again what this comes down to is gloves vs no gloves. If you have gloves on, then this is by far your best option. If you don't then it is a terrible option. One that is almost guaranteed to hurt 14 A straight punch with a falling step

you. If you feel the need to include some sort of circular strike in your repertoire, then take a leaf out of Jack Slack or Daniel Mendoza's books. Use a back fist. It isn't as powerful as a good boxing hook, but in these circumstances that is a good thing. Also it hits with a significantly larger surface area thereby reducing the impact to any one single bone in the hand. As a technique it works well, it allowed Slack to hand the great Broughton his one and only career defeat,and it allowed Mendoza, a middleweight at best, to dominate fight after fight against heavyweights. But be aware it takes some practice to do well. If you have neither the time or the inclination to put that practice in then you're always going to be better off sticking to straight punches. They are fast, they are accurate, and most importantly they allow you to contact with the bit of your hand that is most likely to stand up to the forces being put through it. The centre two knuckles of a vertical fist.

However this is not the only advantage of the pugilist's straight punch. Because it travels in a direct line with no rotation or circular movement at all, it is extremely hard to see. Our eyes are designed in such a way as to be able to pick up on movement rapidly. And so if you minimise the movement, you minimise the chance that your opponent will be able to avoid or block the punch.

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Power Generation

I mentioned earlier that power isn't generated from the movement of the arm, but from utilising the bodyweight. If this is something you want to spend time studying then I recommend you get hold of a copy of Jack Dempsey's fantastic book “Championship Fighting”. There is no better description of the mechanics involved. But Dempsey is quite clear that this is not something he invented, it is simply a method of generating power that was used by the great fighters of the past that had fallen out of favour at the time of writing. If you look at earlier works you can see that he is exactly right. Allanson-Winn describes a very similar method some 40 years earlier; other, even earlier writers allude to the same method, but it is Dempsey that describes it best.

The drop step, or falling step is a simple method of allowing the weight of the body to power a straight punch, and even a complete beginner can use it to devastating effect.

Stand in a relaxed manner with one foot slightly in front of the other. Make sure your weight is evenly split between your feet and then lift the front foot about 15cm off the ground. If you do this without first shifting your weight backwards you will fall forwards a little until your foot hits the floor.

This is the basis for punching power.

It is this falling step that turns your jab from an irritation used to set up a proper 16

punch, to a knock out blow in its own right. Practice this a few times and then start to add in a punch as you fall. You should aim to get the fist to land at the same moment the foot hits the floor. With a little practice you will be able to minimise the movement without losing any of the explosive power of the punch. Once you can feel your bodyweight moving you have essentially cracked it. You now have the power to knock out any assailant with a punch fast enough that he won't see it coming, and safe enough that it is unlikely to cause you any harm at all.

The method for generating power for the rear hand punch is slightly different, but has the exactly the same effect. From a position where the lead hand is extended in a punch throw out the rear hand in a straight line as you pull back the front hand to cover the ribs and solar plexus (known as barring). As you do so rotate your hips a little and allow your knee to drop a few centimetres. This gets the bodyweight falling, and so if you time the punch correctly to land as the weight of the body lands on the now more bent knee you get an extremely powerful punch. Together these two punches are more than enough to cause serious harm to any assailant.

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Targeting

In Classical Pugilism strikes were usually aimed at the torso. There is a lot more margin for error when hitting someone on the body whilst still having the potential to cause serious harm. In fact if we are to believe the accounts of the great fighters more knock outs were caused by accurate, powerful body shots than head shots. The floating ribs are a favourite, but by far the best place to hit someone was the solar plexus, or “Mark” as it was known.

The solar plexus is properly known as the Celiac plexus and is a complex interconnected bundle of nerves that control the internal organs. It is located behind the base of the sternum, though the plexus itself is significantly deeper than most people would expect. A solid strike here will cause the diaphragm to spasm The Celiac Plexus or "Mark"

which leads to difficulty breathing, known

as having the wind knocked out of you, and if the strike is solid enough to affect the plexus itself it causes incredible pain from throughout the abdomen.

If you manage to land a straight punch directly on the mark using a vertical fist and a falling step the chances are very high that your assailant would be instantly incapacitated. If you miss and hit the lower ribs (known as floating ribs as they do not join the sternum directly) it can cause serious pain and problems breathing. 18

However pugilists did not avoid the head completely as a target area. If you were to draw a circle roughly the size of your fist around the mouth and nose you would have the area known as the “button”. In an ideal world you would strike here from a slight angle, when powered by a falling step this would likely be a knock out blow. However it is a much harder area to connect with a punch. It only takes a small movement of the head to defeat it, and not much more to cause the punch to land on the tougher, bonier sections of the skull. A common tactic in Classical Pugilism was to duck the head in order to take the blow on the top of the head whist simultaneously counter-punching to the mark.

Professional boxing, with its heavy gloves and focus on knock outs as the best way to win a fights has caused fighters to head-hunt when punching, this is a big mistake, and is certainly not the way pugilists of old fought. If the opportunity arose they would strike to the button, but invariably they would be aiming for the mark, the ribs, or the kidneys with their strikes. The head only becomes a viable target when you have managed to somehow immobilise it, much as John “The Gentleman” Jackson did to Daniel Mendoza by taking hold of his hair and holding him against the ropes whilst repeatedly bludgeoning him around the face to take the championship from him. You can see that Classical Pugilism was a world away from modern boxing.

So by focussing on the mark as your primary target, you drastically reduce the likelihood of injury to yourself without significantly reducing the chances of incapacitating your opponent. By targeting the button only when it has a high 19

chance of landing not only do you dramatically reduce the chance of fracturing the small bones of your hand, but you also effectively rule out the possibility of damaging your hand on your opponent's teeth. It is often said that the human bite (intentional or otherwise) is the second most deadly bite in the world, and whilst that may be an exaggeration the chances of secondary infection after a human bite are extremely high.

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Counter-punching

In 1719 something unprecedented happened in the world of prize fighting. A phenomenal swordsman by the name of James Figg proclaimed himself bare knuckle boxing champion of all England, and by default the world. Now this wasn't in and of itself that unusual, prizefighters made their money from their audiences Figg's Card

and so outrageous claims were commonplace. What was unusual about Figg's claim however was that no-one

disagreed, and so he became the first ever undisputed champion. He was tall, strong, and powerful, he was fearless and experienced, but on top of this he did something completely new. He took the scientific theory of swordsmanship, of which he was a master, and applied it to the noble art of pugilism. He took a concept that was common to swordsmanship and adapted it to work within pugilism. That of the single time counter. In simple terminology a single time counter is an defensive move that is also an offensive move, a block that is also an attack. Captain John Godfrey, a student of Figg's said this of him:

“he knew his Arm and its just time of moving, put a firm Faith in that, and never let his Adversary escape his Parry”.

For example if your opponent throws a straight jab with their left hand towards your face, you should duck your chin and throw a straight with your right to the button, rolling your shoulder up slightly and slipping a little to your left. This 21

combination of movements, if done properly, will deflect their punch upwards and away from your head whilst driving your fist directly into their face. In one simple move.

The benefits of using this system of single time counter-punches are many and varied.

1) It allows you to strike using the most accurate form of punch (straight line, horizontal fist, contacting with the middle two knuckles). 2) It combines offence and defence into one move limiting the number of techniques you need to perform in order to win. 3) It ensures your punch is as fast as possible as your opponent is the one closing distance 4) It allows you to strike at an undefended target

This technique can be applied to strikes from any range and at any target. The basic principles are to avoid or deflect any incoming blow, whilst simultaneously striking at whichever vulnerable point your opponent has left uncovered by attacking.

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Staying on your Feet

On the 16th August in 1743 Jack Broughton published the first ever set of rules for the bare knuckle prize ring and they introduced something revolutionary. The concept of rounds.

Whilst modern boxing is also separated into rounds there are very little in the way of similarities between the two. Broughton's rules introduced no time limits on either the fight as a whole, or the rounds individually. A round was considered to be over when one of the combatants was “down”. The rules specify “a man on his knees to be considered down.” From the end of the round each man had thirty seconds to get to his feet and back to the chalk line or “scratch” in the centre of the ring. The fight continued until one or other of the fighters was unable to come up to scratch.

What this meant in reality was that fights had a tendency to either finish very quickly, or go on for a very long time indeed. It also meant that forcing someone to their knees was unlikely to stop them getting back up to scratch, but making them hit the ground hard might. This is a tactic that works just as well in a self defence situation as it did in the pugilism ring. If your assailant is incapacitated for half a minute or more you have every chance in the world to escape the situation, or deal with a second attacker, or whatever else the situation may dictate.

Of course it is easy to say, and much harder to put into practice. We would always choose every punch we throw to be a knock out blow if we could, but they rarely 23

are, especially when we aren't wearing gloves and so have to be careful how we hit, where we hit, and when we hit. So there must be another option. An option that gets our opponent to hit the ground hard, an option that leaves you on your feet.

There is, it is called grappling.

I am not advising the use of Brazilian Ju Jitsu, or Catch as Catch Can in a self defence situation regardless of the scenario, often fighting on the ground is a bad idea in the street. However grappling and ground fighting are not necessarily the same thing, and it is grappling we are looking for to aid us in dealing with our assailant.

Classical Pugilism is full of wonderfully named techniques that were designed to put your opponent down whilst allowing you to keep your feet, techniques that were designed to inflict as much damage as possible in as fast and direct a manner as A Cross Buttock Throw

possible. The Cross Buttock and the Mare

are familiar to most fighters today, however the Pinion, the Hanging Trippet and the Flying Horse less so. Yet all of these techniques form part of the pugilist's armoury. All of them, when carried out properly put your opponent down hard. On top of that we have Hanks, Clamps, and Grips are the bread and butter of bare knuckle boxing. However knowing how to throw your opponent is only half of the battle, it isn't enough to be able to put them down hard. You also have to know how to be able to keep your feet when they are trying to do the same to you. 24

Closing and In-fighting

It is a truism that the majority of fights end up at close range. You only have to watch a professional boxing weigh in, or pre fight press conference to see two people, who make their living from striking at distance, lose their tempers and instantly start rolling around on the floor. It is at this distance that the most damage is done by those who are able to deal with In-fighting, and it is at this range that Classical Pugilism excels the most.

We mentioned earlier that the “button”, or head shot was not something that was often targeted unless the head had been secured somehow, and so rather than forgetting about this target area and concentrating exclusively on others a system of securing the head in order to be able to cause the most damage in the shortest time was developed. Within Classical Pugilism securing the head is known as Chancery and can be divided into three separate forms. Standing Chancery, Side Chancery and Reverse Chancery.

The simplest form is Standing Chancery, and it is possible to secure this position from both an offensive and defensive technique. It forms the basis of a number of different closes and wrestling moves, as well as providing a clear Standing Chancery

opportunity for striking your opponent pretty much at will. 25

Side Chancery is familiar to most people as the classic head lock used in every school playground the world over. It is the perfect position from which to perform a cross buttock throw, a crossface, or simply to dish out a lot of punishment to the face.

Reverse Chancery is similar to side Chancery, however instead of both combatants facing the same direction they are facing each other. It is much harder to strike effectively at the face from a rear Chancery, but it opens up a vast array of chokes, strangles, neck cranks and the infamous Grovvit.

In-fighting also offers us the opportunity to break all of the rules of punching we discussed early by the use of the “contracted arm” strike. This is a short range technique in which a punch is delivered along a curved line, and the alignment of the fist varies as to target area. The arm remains bent throughout and the elbow is kept tight against the body to protect your ribs and mark. Force is generated in this punch by rotation of the torso for hooking strikes, and level changes from the legs for uppercuts. Contracted arm strikes can be used to create enough space to set up throws such as Mares and Cross Buttocks, or simply to cause damage while in close.

The contracted arm strike is not something that should be utilised unless Infighting, as soon as the distance is such that your elbow must leave your side then not only does your arm become vulnerable to all the grips, closes, and wrestles that a loose arm sets up, but also you can no longer be entirely certain which part of the fist your blow will land with, and so you risk damaging the small bones in your 26

hand. However when in close any other form of strike is lacking in power and thus can be considered wasted energy.

Repeated contracted arm strikes against the floating ribs and mark can be used as an excellent defence against a standing Chancery. It is worth bearing in mind that they can also be used as a defence against other forms of Chancery as Broughton's Contracted arm strikes as a counter to Standing Chancery

rules did not prevent striking below the

waist, simply taking hold. Repeated solid strikes to the groin are enough to put off all but the most determined of attackers. If you are not confident in your ability to utilise throws to put your opponent to the floor you should concentrate on utilising contracted arm strikes in order to create enough distance between you and your assailant to allow you to use the more powerful and damaging falling step strike.

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Conclusion

Classical Pugilism is a phenomenally complex art that evolved over centuries of competitive fighting in order to deliver the most damaging of strikes without the associated damage to the striker. There is much we can learn from the great fighters of old who made their livings, and in some cases massive fortunes from their fists. Whether we look at the specific techniques they used and integrate them into our general repertoire, or we look at the core concepts and underpinning philosophies of the system and use that knowledge to safeguard ourself both in the ring and on the street. Pugilism is growing in popularity in the UK and abroad, and it is easy to see why when you look at how effective it is as a system of combat. Whichever of the three eras of pugilism you focus on there is one thing that is safe to say. By including pugilistic techniques and principles in your personal training you will become more accurate, faster, more dangerous, and most of all, safer.

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