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Jack Chen
2nd October 2010, 13:37
Gripping your weapon

Different styles of weaponry martial arts probably might have different preferences and theories about how to grip a weapon, whether it's a simple stick or a forged blade.

Regardless of the stylistic differences, the muscles that we have are the same. Here, we shall take a look at the muscles that we use for gripping, to provide more insights to the weapon-gripping methods that are being taught.

Our fourth and fifth fingers (little-finger) are linked to our shoulder-blade and spine, by the muscles on the underside of our arm, making them important in generating power. On the other-hand (metaphorically), our thumb, 2nd and 3rd fingers are connected to the muscles in our forearm that leads to rotation at our elbow joint, making them more suitable for manipulation and directional control.

Try a simple experiment.
Grip your weapon only with your last 2 fingers, and you should feel some muscle-activity under your scapulas, which is the triangular "wing-bone" at the back of your shoulder.Then try gripping your weapon with your first 3 fingers, and you should feel muscle-activity around your neck and collarbones.

When the last 2 fingers are not engaged, we lose some stablization that our upper-back offers. When we compensate for that with the our upper-trapezius, we create strain and tension around our neck and upper-shoulder areas.

Thumb and forefingers offers directional-control.
Our last 2 fingers offers power and stablization.

What does your style teaches?



Article from: http://www.chineselongsword.com/training/grip.shtml

Ken-Hawaii
2nd October 2010, 19:34
Jack, take a look at these two articles well-written & -illustrated by Kim Taylor about 10 years ago:

http://ejmas.com/tin/tinart_taylor2_0100.htm
http://ejmas.com/tin/tinart_taylor1_0300.htm

I've referred many kohai (& a few sempai) to these articles, which illustrate what you are saying.

bushikan
3rd October 2010, 01:30
While there maybe some minor differences between styles (in terms of grip); for the most part they are the same. The only exception I am aware of is Kanemaki Ryu Battojutsu, which (while cutting) slides the right hand down the tsuka until the right hand connects with the top of left hand (looking like a choked up baseball grip). They are the only ryu-ha that to my knowledge does this and while they lost their kumitachi a long-time ago (so you couldn't really see how it was applied in a combative form) when used for tameshigiri the effect is said to be rather dynamic (though I am not exactly sure what the end effect is as I have not tried it myself).

cheers

Chris Hellman
3rd October 2010, 04:51
In this case (i.e. what Jack was talking about) the distinction is particularly relevant because Chinese swordsmanship grips the sword with the thumb and first two fingers. This use of the grip is yet another pointer to the style's origins.

I don't know whether contemporary miao dao (which partly descends from the the document Jack is working with) uses the Japanese or Chinese grip, but I have seen several online discussions on its use that have skated over or ignored this distinction.



Chris

My blog: http://ichijoji.blogspot.com/

rottunpunk
3rd October 2010, 21:16
The only exception I am aware of is Kanemaki Ryu Battojutsu, which (while cutting) slides the right hand down the tsuka until the right hand connects with the top of left hand (looking like a choked up baseball grip).
cheers

we do this as part of a kihon excersise.
It allows a bigger smoother cut and emphasises the looseness of the grip as well as the hand movement which would normally be much smaller

interesting that a school does it for tameshigiri

from doing so much of the kihon i now have it as a bad habit, perhaps i should switch styles-haha

interesting articles.

looking just at jikiden there are different views on how to grip
but lightness and the smaller fingers seem to be a basic theme

as tim can comment, too often we look at iai from the front, not from behind which is more important sometimes
having the muscles connecting to the back aids this view

hyaku
4th October 2010, 02:34
Not so much the grip as te no uchi. Regardless of grip one begins to sqeeze the muscles and joints lock up. That's why we see nandan iadoka stuff up tameshigiri.

Also a main differnce between Kobudo and more modern Dojo kata/waza is that all the joints are slightly bent to allow further extension. This has an effect on the way we hold our weapons too.

Chidokan
5th October 2010, 22:54
how to grip the sword is the very first lesson...
I teach little finger only, as I find most people will subconciously grip with the full hand,(maybe they think they will drop it). As debz says above, the kihon is the sliding hand, but this is a guide to help you understand how the body works, rather than the grip.
The body's muscles interconnect in certain ways as stated in the first post, and it is important we cut with the whole body contributing, not just using arms and hands, which is typical of guys with big arms and shoulders.(ie grip the floor with your toes is a good example.)

Maro
6th October 2010, 01:55
not just using arms and hands, which is typical of guys with big arms and shoulders.(ie grip the floor with your toes is a good example.)

It's good to vary it up as well. I train outside on grass with a slight dip in gradient to the left.

It makes you realise how much your feet grip when you are inside. Wearing sandals makes it harder outside. I find it good for working on your weight distribution.

Brian Owens
7th October 2010, 13:59
"Our fourth and fifth fingers (little-finger) are linked to our shoulder-blade and spine, by the muscles on the underside of our arm..."

Well, all of our digits are "linked to our shoulder-blade and spine" using that definition. So are our toes, for that matter. From an anatomical and kinesiological standpoint, though, the statement is not particularly accurate.

gendzwil
7th October 2010, 16:55
One experiment you can try is to grip tightly with your thumb and forefinger with an empty hand, and try moving your hand up and down in the plane of your palm/wrist, ie the way you would manipulate the sword up and down. Now do the same exercise gripping tightly with pinky and ring finger. You will see that you have better range of motion with the pinky grip. Because in kendo we advocate that wrist flexibility and softness of motion, we recommend the pinky/ring finger grip.

hyaku
11th October 2010, 04:37
From Japanese budo standpoint I suppose the grip is important but if the waza is not generated with kahanshin with a hip movement that provides the power the whole thing is not going to work anyway. Took me seven years to get that right with just one waza.

Chidokan
11th October 2010, 18:22
you must have taken a short cut to do it that quick...:laugh:

Andy Watson
16th October 2010, 09:52
Just done a blog article about this very subject...


http://iaidojodotraining.blogspot.com/2010/10/iaido-training-session-27.html