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?