How to Block with Your Hands

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Tres Tew. I'm an instructor at Yeshua's Ryu Martial Arts and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to be talking to you a little bit about hand to hand combat. Okay now we are going to be talking about blocking. It's the most important part of open hand combat. If you can't keep yourself safe, you're not able to counter or punch back. So, again, take time with your blocks. Nick, we are going to start off with an overhead block as if someone is coming overhead with a strike. Okay, go. You are just going to block up. This is direct and to the point. Now, another way we can do this is to push it out of the way, away from our body. There's direct; a direct block is more painful to yourself and possibly to the opponent. In an indirect block we are striking and either letting it fall away or pushing, pairing and pressing. That's called "using the path of least resistance." That's going to be the one you want to take. So, we've got high block, direct and indirect. Second, we've got a jab. Now, everybody likes to work off of a jab. We are going to keep it simple. Our fingers are open, our hands are open and we are just blocking it down; every time, just blocking it down. Now, we can follow through with this to a push pair and press. I've grabbed; this leads into Jujitsu techniques, wrist locks and things like that. Now, everybody likes to throw a big old hay maker right off the bat. Everybody; so Nick, give me a big old hay maker. This right here, I'm just pushing up and pulling down. And you notice how close I am to him. Okay, go again. He's throwing a big old hay maker. I'm stopping it using direct force and then pulling it down. This leaves his entire body open. I can do whatever I need to with him. Now, indirectly, what I want to do with that hay maker: I'm moving out of the way and under and redirecting it. I can either follow up with a knee or whatever I want to. So there's indirect and direct with all of your blocks. Uppercut, go. Now, the problem with blocking an uppercut with direct force is often what we call a Chinese hook punch (where you catch the elbow and it comes up anyway and catches you on the chin). So with these, what you want to do is catch it just like this, pull through here, and that usually opens up ribs you can go to. So with upper cuts, you don't want to use direct force. That's a couple of the blocks you want to work on, especially in self defense. Again, blocks are extremely important. "