How To Block a Punch in Kempo Karate

Video Transcript

"We're back in our training stance. An inward block also can be used as a strike. This one starts back here, for the basics. You want to twist your hand outward and you want it to come across your center line. Elbow down. You want to deflect it. You'll want to block with the meaty part of your arm. You never want to block with the lower part of your arm. You want to block down here close to the joint. As this one comes out and blocks, the other one goes straight back. That's the inward block. The outward block goes in the opposite direction. From here, you want to start low. Go across your center line then you want it to rotate outwards. You want the fist to be even with the shoulder. Starting down here, then you pull back. As you can see, as I'm blocking, don't think of it as a block, but think of it as a grab. I'm grabbing with the arm here and you can see what I may be doing to his arm. If you have your thumb out here, you can activate pressure points, which I will talk about in a later topic. That's an outward block. You also have a downward block. Now the downward blocks, they will tell you in the dojo, are good for blocking a kick. Not necessarily. If someone has combat boots on and my arms are real skinny, I'm going to hurt my arm. However, it can be used as a strike as well. From here you will want to start with your arm across the body once again crossing the center line. You'll want it to come straight down. You don't want it to stop here, you'll want it to go past the center line. You're sweeping. The Japanese name is gedan barai, which means low sweep. Bring it up. Pull the other hand back in the chamber as you come across. Bringing it up with both hands moving simultaneously. After years and years of training like this, your hands will start to move simultaneously when you are sparring and will help when you are trying to apply grappling or joint locks along with punching and kicking. That's the gedan barai, the downward block. You also have Shoto block or Shotokai, the sword-hand block. From here, the hand comes up like a karate chop. This hand points straight ahead because, once again, you are grabbing. The other hand is at the side of your neck. You can also block punches this way. This is a faster block. You can actually block punches using this block, but it is also a great strike for the side of the neck, which I'll talk about later when I go back to strikes."