I believe it. And it sure as hell works - a well-thrown elbow is a show-stopper. And it’s a lot easier than a good punch - when you do it right, it just feels like you’re doing it right, and there’s not a lot of ways you can do it wrong. And even if you do, you’re not hitting them with a bundle of thin, fragile bones, joints and cartilage, so chances are you’ll at least not injure yourself if you do mess it up somehow.
I mean, you can even feel the difference right now - well, not that you need to, Luke, but everyone else can - tap your fist against your other palm, nice and firm. Then doing like I outlined above(well, except swinging with your torso, you don’t need to use force), tap your elbow against your palm. The difference should be pretty obvious.
I’m a damned sight from being the smartest or cleverest person around here, but when it comes to brawling it out, I know what I’m about.
Swinging with the torso is key. Power comes from the hips and pelvic girdle rotating the torso. The arm is simply the delivery vehicle. Core muscles are huge for this.
If folks are serious about punching people, you should straight-up practice punching. Effective hand strikes are not entirely intuitive.
If I could do over, I’d prefer not to have been in that fight. Going to the hospital to check out my nose and to the police station (for the second time in two days) to file a report was all a pain in the ass. Also my brother, who was also involved in the fight (we were both trying not to be punched by a pair of guys wanting to rob us) suffered from PTSD from the whole thing, mainly from being woken up from sleeping by being kicked in the head. It was all a bad situation.
That said:
Oh my goodness, I know what you mean by this.
Also, feeling someone’s face break when hitting them with my elbow is one of the most satisfying events in my life, in a purely animalistic, alpha male, macho whatever, largely negative way.
Knowing that I, and everyone else, probably has some similar animal lizard brain reaction to such power (“he started the fight, I ended the fight”) is kinda worrying, but I can’t deny there was that low-level feeling.
That’s understandable. Fighting isn’t really a pleasant thing, it’s messy, brutal, mentally and physically hard to do. There’s nothing wrong with not putting yourself through that, and wanting to avoid it if at all possible. And, as you say, the aftermath is usually a real pain in the arse.
There’s a lot of fights I’ve been in, that I…well, if I could do it again, I would try harder to avoid them. I wouldn’t necessarily take them back, or say I regret them - after all, I tried to avoid it, couldn’t, I won(or at least, didn’t lose) and in the end everybody survived, which is the most you can ask if it kicks off. But given the opportunity to do it again, I’d try harder not to get into them in the first place.
I certainly don’t blame you, though. If someone went in on my brother like that, I’d go in on them hard and fast as I could, reluctance to fight be damned.
Absolutely. It’s not civilized, it’s not sensible, it’s not a positive impulse, but it’s sure as hell there. It’s hard to describe it, there’s no intelligence involved, it’s something you feel in your chest and your gut, with no other element to it in the moment. You went head to head, on the most physical, animalistic level, and came out on top, we’re hard-wired to find that rewarding. The combination of adrenaline, satisfaction, and that feeling of power is pretty unique, and regrettably, far from unpleasant. I’d love to soften it with something like “You always feel bad afterwards, though” but I’ll be honest, I’d be lying, when push comes to literal shove and things kick off, I don’t. I’m not that good of a person.
Yeah, as a small person, I have relied heavily on elbow strikes for defense. It means being close, but usually situations where I strike overlap with excessively close proximity.
I brace the fist of my bent arm with my other hand, in my chest. You can strike horizontally (more powerful), or vertically, aiming for the solar plexus, (edit: I forgot tall people. Hitting brain case or brain pipe should not be done without caution, though). Additionally, it’s important to aim through the point of contact, so that you don’t subconsciously pull your strike.
I don’t want to make it seem like I hit people on a whim though. I do try to exhaust non physical options, but that is a personal decision.
Let me tell ya. I do grappling at my gym, but a buddy of mine who’s actually trying to do MMA, is in my jiu jitsu class and convinced me to come to a boxing class with him.
IN THE WARMUPS I realized I had no idea how to throw a punch proper. Like I hit that bag expecting to push through and my wrist just crumbled. The secret: tape, lots of tape. Wrap those wrists up good.
Tape makes those punches happen the way you think they’re gonna go. At least until you have technique and can make do without it (though even then it’s still quite nice to have)
I had a thought, a moral quandary. We all want net neutrality, and it is good, but the best way to ensure it would be for it to be regulated like a utility. But that means cases could be made for violating first amendment rights. Right now the ‘free market’ is working like a lot of conservatives want, but with the opposite results from what they wanted. The Daily Stormer has been taken off two DNS hosts as of now because those companies don’t want to be associated with that (and bravo to them). But if the internet is considered a utility, would they then have a case of their rights being violated by hosts not providing them services?
“To many casual observers, there seems to be a tendency to view condemnations of white supremacy as Satanism as a triumph of progressive thought among prominent U.S. Christians. But such language is not harmless. It lets mainstream religions off the hook for some of the darker periods of American history, despite the deep connections between slavery and Christian theology. These leaders’ invocation of the eternal adversary as a scapegoat comes with darker implicit assumptions that should be confronted and rejected outright.”
While I honestly don’t know much about Satanism, dude has a point…
The satanic temple is actually an awesome activist group, so in this case I can’t say I’m really surprised.
They’re usual game is getting towns to comply with with no religion is given treatment above another in a roundabout way.
When they have the 10 commandments on the courthouse doors or a statue of mary in a public park they use whatever method the city used to get the statue/sign there to get one from their temple there as well.
The usual result is the city realizes their mistake, takes down their thing, and they withdraw their request. It’s a flavor of activism I really get behind.
While there are a few different camps of Satanists, they almost all fall under the umbrella of anti-religion liberal activists. They use the guise of “religion” to show how stupid exceptions and special treatment for “mainstream” religions are. There’s no argument for excluding the Satanists in a benediction or celebration (or tax exempt status) that doesn’t also exclude literally every religion.
Yeah, I was aware of a lot of their Separation of Church and State activism and I think it’s great.
I forget where, but I vaguely recall some state government having to let the Satanists give the invocation prayer, because the state refused to stop having a prayer before their legislative sessions.