Street-Fighting-Techniques.info

The third in my series of the deadliest fighting techniques is an internal force strike to the heart. I this context an ‘internal force strike’ basically means a strike which transmits the maximum amount of force inwards to the bodies internal organs, rather than dissipating it at the point of contact as you would want to if you were trying to break someone’s nose or cause some other superficial wound.

Looking at the heart strike is a good way to learn about this kind of attack, although as with all of these deadly techniques it is not something which I would advise you to go out and use. The basic principle is the same one which is used in CPR to restart a persons heart when it has stopped, only in this case it would have the opposite effect - stopping the heart. In order to achieve this you need to cause a compression of the chest which is best achieved by pushing rather than striking. All of these kind of internal force strikes, which can be used to knock the wind out of a person or attack the kidney’s (very painful and debilitating) as well as the heart, aim to cause this kind of compression. The trick is to do it quickly with a strike.

With an ordinary strike you would want to keep your arm relaxed up until the point of impact, when you would tense your whole arm and dissipate the force of the strike into the surface of their body, and you would want to be using all of your power when you hit. For this kind of attack you want to be using very little power when you make contact, but then increase to full power as you strike, and try to keep your arm relaxed as it makes contact.

This is difficult to describe adequately, as you really need to get a feel for it yourself to understand. The best way to do this is to find something to practice on which is capable of being compressed. An old car tyre standing up is good, but anything that allows for a decent amount of compression will do the job. To start off with just hit it in the normal way (wear gloves or use your palm, or you’ll hurt your hand) and you will see that there is very little give. Then use the first part of your strike just to make contact with your target as quickly as possible, without trying to put power into it until immediately after you have made contact. You should definitely use your palm for this, as it is much more effective than a fist. See how much more give there is, and you will begin to see how to do this strike. Keep practicing then to make sure that there is no pause at the point of contact and to learn how to transmit as much internal force as you can.