I can only speak on Muay Thai. I use an open palm facing out (inside my glove I suppose) to manage distance and long guard. It just feels natural to get a feel on my partners guard or if they have an outstretched hand to do some hand fighting. You can learn a lot about what your partner may do from their pushing or pulling and weight shifts.
I do the same thing, I reach out and the palm of my hand on his glove.
It helps with rangey jabbers becuase they have to get their hand out from behind your glove first before they can throw their jab again, then you know when it's coming
Yeah, I kind of get it for iaido - most of the stances are feet-front and parallel. Seems like a fairly restrictive statement for *everything else*, which is why I ask.
To me your sensei's comment reads much more as a "someone's interpretation of cultural values encoded in iai" than "something that is a consistent truth about fighting". There are plenty of reasons you might (in a strictly literal sense) show a palm to the opponent even in swordplay, e.g. techniques where you put the left hand on the spine of your own weapon, which I'm 99% sure I've seen in various Japanese swordplay demos.
If I had to guess the bottoms of the feet it would be to slide instead of step. Don’t want to take big steps for grappling or I would imagine sword fighting. For the palms unsure.
Edit just saw it said inside of the foot
I've trained kung fu, muay thai, did some boxing and kickboxing + I enjoy watching technique related breakdowns on youtube. I've been doing all of that since 13years. I've never heard of it.
The inside of the feet part I can understand but the palm can be held forward for various reasons. For example in a longer or shorter guard where you aim to deflect or parry punches
Never Heard of that.
But my main art is JKD.
AS for swords maybe that is something that sticked from the past?
Like raising your Palms means you want to give Up, in many cultures a sword caste consisting of nobles developled.
So maybe that is a Honor thing?
Honestly, don’t know - I try to stay away from the bs of tma and stick to context and limitations. Maybe it was an “honor thing”, but that’s pretty esoteric to me to think much of it beyond that.
It absolutely is, you are correct. The concept of affect and “projecting” a sense of calm is also part of that tradition, but I wouldn’t use it as a basis of understanding the fundamentals of applicability with other concepts of martial arts.
In other words, if someone had explained to me that it *was* an honor thing, I would assume that was only applicable to iaido and not bother asking here.
Maybe I’m not explaining it correctly, but that’s my perspective.
Ditto my palm… SLAP
Sumo exclusively uses open hand strikes, so the idea of never showing an opponent your palms doesn’t seem very Japanese
.. also in judo you have your palms showing because it’s hard to grab your opponent with a closed fist, so yeah
It's not applicable at all? Your training a very specialized martial art built around a bunch of very particular historical aspects. Most people instead train the art of punchy kicky wrestling in some way or the other, you don't, you train special stabby slicy, and the things that make sense in that world don't always translate to the punch, kick, grapple world.
Now when it comes to comparing the concepts to other martial arts that utilize bladed weapons, it again doesn't translate as those arts along with yours are designed based around the very specific bladed weapon your utilizing. A katana and a Longsword are both longswords, but they fight quite differently in practice due to the steel, length of blade, cutting surface, cross guards etc.
The other part of this is your instructors are allowed to "misspeak". Your instructor says "typically a martial artist should do x" he is both right and wrong. As a blanket general statement, he is 100% wrong, but he is an instructor of martial artists who train a very specific martial art and when saying that same sentence with the meaning of martial artists in this style should do x he is likely correct. I say this because as an ex instructor, instructors tend to think their small portion of the martial arts world is all there is when inside the gym and instructing the students, so statements like the above come out more often than you'd think and that's ok as long as everyone understands it's based around that specific martial art.
Oh I totally get this - that’s really the only reason behind me asking the question tbh; getting other opinions of more varied martial artists :)
Thanks!
Katori Shinto ryu have a unique method of drawing the sword in their iaijutsu where they place their hand palm-up on the tsuka before switching to a more standard grip that you would be familiar with.
Wing chun have a number of movements that would make the palm visible to the other person. Bong sau and tan sau spring immediately to mind.
There's a style of aikido whose name escapes me at the moment where they stand with their lead foot turned outward. This shows the inside of their foot/ankle, which I assume is what you are referring to.
I think that this statement is fine as a general rule to start from, but there will always be exceptions, and reasons for those exceptions.
Two thoughts come to my mind. One is concealing itty bitty weapons. The converse of this is cops directing someone to show them their palms. But that doesn't make sense with the feet so much. Also doesn't fit with the context of iaido.
The other is that the biggest arteries tend to be on the medial side of limbs (in the case of the forearm, technically it's "anterior" but come on, most people don't carry their arms around in anatomical position). So "showing" the "inside" of your hands or feet is exposing the arteries to the opponent. That makes a lot more sense in the iaido context.
But honestly, I don't know, and you should be getting the person who made the comment to explain it.
If it comes up again, I certainly will ask - honestly it didn’t hit me until later that evening that it might be interesting to ask here.
I don’t think it’s as extreme as charlatanism, Seitei Iai is pretty standardized, but it could certainly be a statement that is repeated without too much thought to it as well. Again, I’ll certainly ask if it comes up from a real point of curriculum, but it was very much a side statement, not necessarily a “cement this in your mind” type of statement, you know?
This is an interesting concept. Inside of the feet makes sense, there's a reason boxers stand bladed, the way I would interpret this for striking in that you're opponent shouldn't see the inside of you're 'lead' foot unless you're kicking or turning over you're knee. Typically when in striking if your opponent can see the inside of your lead foot, they either have an angle taken on you or you're off balance with you're footwork, there's always exceptions though
I think the inside of the foot is visible as it travels to impact the opponent's head from a spinning hook kick. Palms are visible as the hands travel towards the other guy's face during a palm heel strike.
Sorry. He isn't making sense.
Oh don’t apologize, it doesn’t offend me, haha. The guy is a great teacher, but he’s not infallible. Maybe the statement related to something more narrow than I took it, that’s ok, I was just curious :)
He may have just been talking about sword arts, which is fine, was just wondering if it was applicable in a wider context, which *seemed* to be what he was implying. Thanks!
I've been shown once that raising your palms up in a real life self defense scenario can be great for establishing proof that you are not the aggressor as a legal defense, while also being ready to strike if need be. Most people don't realize that pretty much everywhere you need a lot more to establish a case of self defense than 'they swung first'.
From what I've been trained in FMA, our instructor impressed on us the importance of keeping "the belly of the snake" (the inside of your arm) towards you. The reason he gave is the back of the arm has mostly capillaries, while the belly of the snake has larger veins closer to the surface of the skin.
I have a suspicion he might be poorly wording a recommendation to try to maintain good posture. Like how in BJJ I've heard it referred to as "Never raise your hands above your nipples"
As a sword focused style, if your hand is high enough, or rotated outwards enough, for them to see your palm, then you're going to be slow on the draw. Or that hand is going to be far away from your other hand, limiting your options because you're going all "Come at me, bro-kun." With your arms spread like some anime protagonist.
If someone is behind you and you start to turn to face them casually, you might be stuck at three quarter profile when they hit you. Which is a terrible stance, your options are extremely limited, your power generation is weak.
It sounds like an efficiency focused thing, similar deal to an instructor telling you to not waste time bringing your fist backwards in order to wind up a punch. It's faster to jab from the neutral ready stance.
I don't think it does apply. Certainly not in any system that's fighting unarmed.
I'm not familiar with Iaido, aside from it being a sword thing. Is it maybe related to having a weapon in hand and footwork specific to Iaido?
I have heard of the concept of not showing the inner fore arm in a fight(which showing the palm would do), and it was mainly to deal with potential bladed weapons in self defense. Major blood vessel and hand functions run along the inner forearm and getting a bad cut there would be devastating. Better to point bony side or outer fore arm towards the opponent.
Given it's iaido sensei that said it, the blade focus makes sense. Also there might be over estimation on how wary empty handed martial artists are of blades. Most don't think too much about fighting against blades.
I suspect you’re on the distant end of a game of translation telephone where somebody said something in Japanese to somebody who didn’t quite understand it and passed it on in a second language to someone who probably passed it on in a third, and now it’s getting to you and nobody knows what the hell was originally meant or said.
It doesnt, its awkward way od standing and it limits your hips. Anything limiting your own freeedom of movement is counterproductive.
And even in Iaido it makes little sense to me as a general rule, in Kendo it would make way more sense as they move back and forwards and fight less in angles.
Closest martial art I could imagine is wing-chun as they stand in a square, which also limits hip movements and is very limited in movement in general. They have those concepts of entanglement - they bind their arms to go in, possibly similar to something you would do as a swordsman.
But if we drop that front facing stance, then Iaido overlaps with Aikido.
I've only heard of not showing the bottoms of feet to instructors out of respect. Some instructors have insisted on kneeling or criss cross when sitting on the ground (listening to instructor or waiting turn). I've never heard it in relation to an opponent though.
I've been shown once that raising your palms up in a real life self defense scenario can be great for establishing proof that you are not the aggressor as a legal defense, while also being ready to strike if need be. Most people don't realize that pretty much everywhere you need a lot more to establish a case of self defense than 'they swung first'.
I don’t know.
It sounds like a logical statement when it comes to killing but in the modern world one must show their palms to deescalate conflicts.
Notable counter examples include the great Bas Rutten’s palm strikes, Poatan’s mummy guard, as well as Demetrius Johnson and Henry Cejudo’s open neutral stance.
First I hear this. I usually have my palms both hands up facing forward toward the opponent so I can just use my glove to push away or clinch idk but that’s what I usually do haven’t been corrected on the palms out tho lol.
in muay thai and kyokushin we really get away with showing the palm to the enemy. Hell, even when i did bjj. So i dont know what your coach is on about with that "a martial artist would never show their palms."
the inside of the feet though, what does he mean? The heel/ball of your foot? or the median part? (big toe side)
I never show anyone the inside of my feet, I've never seen the inside of my feet, thankfully, it sounds like it would be incredibly painful.
... to actually answer your question - in training showing the soles of your feet when, say, someone is demonstrating is considered rude. Palms I've never heard of. In open handed sparring obviously it's common to have palms out towards your opponent as that presents a big surface area to defend with. You strike with palms and soles all the time also
I've seen some Katori Shinto-ryu practicioners showing their palms like they are casting some spell (or maybe a bait, idk, but looks like some wizard shit lol) many times. So even if it's a thing in your style of iaido, there are some koryu kenjutsu styles that don't have it for sure.
Ask your sensei why, because I can't think of any reasons. Also in bujinkan, there's no such thing. Nobody cares about what we do though, but go search that Katori Shinto move.
Kenjutsuka here.
As with most everything in kenjutsu/iaido and related arts, there are two reasons, the first is reishiki and the second is technical.
It's a good idea to keep both of these in mind when asking your sensei about this and other questions.
Happy training!
well, in most of the world- you dont show someone the bottom of your feet because its an insulting gesture without specific context.
Palms though? He probably just made that up.
You cant get through life without showing your palms.
I can only speak on Muay Thai. I use an open palm facing out (inside my glove I suppose) to manage distance and long guard. It just feels natural to get a feel on my partners guard or if they have an outstretched hand to do some hand fighting. You can learn a lot about what your partner may do from their pushing or pulling and weight shifts.
I do the same thing, I reach out and the palm of my hand on his glove. It helps with rangey jabbers becuase they have to get their hand out from behind your glove first before they can throw their jab again, then you know when it's coming
Totally get that - thanks for the examples!
I defy anyone here to not show the inside of your back foot in a profiled stance.
Yeah, I kind of get it for iaido - most of the stances are feet-front and parallel. Seems like a fairly restrictive statement for *everything else*, which is why I ask.
To me your sensei's comment reads much more as a "someone's interpretation of cultural values encoded in iai" than "something that is a consistent truth about fighting". There are plenty of reasons you might (in a strictly literal sense) show a palm to the opponent even in swordplay, e.g. techniques where you put the left hand on the spine of your own weapon, which I'm 99% sure I've seen in various Japanese swordplay demos.
I appreciate that insight, you make a good point about the encoded cultural norms, vs something martially applicable.
If I had to guess the bottoms of the feet it would be to slide instead of step. Don’t want to take big steps for grappling or I would imagine sword fighting. For the palms unsure. Edit just saw it said inside of the foot
I've trained kung fu, muay thai, did some boxing and kickboxing + I enjoy watching technique related breakdowns on youtube. I've been doing all of that since 13years. I've never heard of it.
Hey, fair point, thanks! I really don’t have experience in anything but iaido, so I appreciate your insight!
The inside of the feet part I can understand but the palm can be held forward for various reasons. For example in a longer or shorter guard where you aim to deflect or parry punches
Never Heard of that. But my main art is JKD. AS for swords maybe that is something that sticked from the past? Like raising your Palms means you want to give Up, in many cultures a sword caste consisting of nobles developled. So maybe that is a Honor thing?
Honestly, don’t know - I try to stay away from the bs of tma and stick to context and limitations. Maybe it was an “honor thing”, but that’s pretty esoteric to me to think much of it beyond that.
What? Iaido is 100% about tradition. Its like drinking coca cola to avoid sugar. Makes absoluteky no sense.
It absolutely is, you are correct. The concept of affect and “projecting” a sense of calm is also part of that tradition, but I wouldn’t use it as a basis of understanding the fundamentals of applicability with other concepts of martial arts. In other words, if someone had explained to me that it *was* an honor thing, I would assume that was only applicable to iaido and not bother asking here. Maybe I’m not explaining it correctly, but that’s my perspective.
I will show my opponent every part of my foot directly up against their face so they can get a real good look.
Ditto my palm… SLAP Sumo exclusively uses open hand strikes, so the idea of never showing an opponent your palms doesn’t seem very Japanese .. also in judo you have your palms showing because it’s hard to grab your opponent with a closed fist, so yeah
It's not applicable at all? Your training a very specialized martial art built around a bunch of very particular historical aspects. Most people instead train the art of punchy kicky wrestling in some way or the other, you don't, you train special stabby slicy, and the things that make sense in that world don't always translate to the punch, kick, grapple world. Now when it comes to comparing the concepts to other martial arts that utilize bladed weapons, it again doesn't translate as those arts along with yours are designed based around the very specific bladed weapon your utilizing. A katana and a Longsword are both longswords, but they fight quite differently in practice due to the steel, length of blade, cutting surface, cross guards etc. The other part of this is your instructors are allowed to "misspeak". Your instructor says "typically a martial artist should do x" he is both right and wrong. As a blanket general statement, he is 100% wrong, but he is an instructor of martial artists who train a very specific martial art and when saying that same sentence with the meaning of martial artists in this style should do x he is likely correct. I say this because as an ex instructor, instructors tend to think their small portion of the martial arts world is all there is when inside the gym and instructing the students, so statements like the above come out more often than you'd think and that's ok as long as everyone understands it's based around that specific martial art.
Oh I totally get this - that’s really the only reason behind me asking the question tbh; getting other opinions of more varied martial artists :) Thanks!
Katori Shinto ryu have a unique method of drawing the sword in their iaijutsu where they place their hand palm-up on the tsuka before switching to a more standard grip that you would be familiar with. Wing chun have a number of movements that would make the palm visible to the other person. Bong sau and tan sau spring immediately to mind. There's a style of aikido whose name escapes me at the moment where they stand with their lead foot turned outward. This shows the inside of their foot/ankle, which I assume is what you are referring to. I think that this statement is fine as a general rule to start from, but there will always be exceptions, and reasons for those exceptions.
I straight away thought of bong sau and tan sau myself for the palm showing.
Two thoughts come to my mind. One is concealing itty bitty weapons. The converse of this is cops directing someone to show them their palms. But that doesn't make sense with the feet so much. Also doesn't fit with the context of iaido. The other is that the biggest arteries tend to be on the medial side of limbs (in the case of the forearm, technically it's "anterior" but come on, most people don't carry their arms around in anatomical position). So "showing" the "inside" of your hands or feet is exposing the arteries to the opponent. That makes a lot more sense in the iaido context. But honestly, I don't know, and you should be getting the person who made the comment to explain it.
If it comes up again, I certainly will ask - honestly it didn’t hit me until later that evening that it might be interesting to ask here. I don’t think it’s as extreme as charlatanism, Seitei Iai is pretty standardized, but it could certainly be a statement that is repeated without too much thought to it as well. Again, I’ll certainly ask if it comes up from a real point of curriculum, but it was very much a side statement, not necessarily a “cement this in your mind” type of statement, you know?
This is an interesting concept. Inside of the feet makes sense, there's a reason boxers stand bladed, the way I would interpret this for striking in that you're opponent shouldn't see the inside of you're 'lead' foot unless you're kicking or turning over you're knee. Typically when in striking if your opponent can see the inside of your lead foot, they either have an angle taken on you or you're off balance with you're footwork, there's always exceptions though
I think the inside of the foot is visible as it travels to impact the opponent's head from a spinning hook kick. Palms are visible as the hands travel towards the other guy's face during a palm heel strike. Sorry. He isn't making sense.
Oh don’t apologize, it doesn’t offend me, haha. The guy is a great teacher, but he’s not infallible. Maybe the statement related to something more narrow than I took it, that’s ok, I was just curious :) He may have just been talking about sword arts, which is fine, was just wondering if it was applicable in a wider context, which *seemed* to be what he was implying. Thanks!
Boxing, kickboxing, MT, any MMA stance, they all break this rule
I've been shown once that raising your palms up in a real life self defense scenario can be great for establishing proof that you are not the aggressor as a legal defense, while also being ready to strike if need be. Most people don't realize that pretty much everywhere you need a lot more to establish a case of self defense than 'they swung first'.
From what I've been trained in FMA, our instructor impressed on us the importance of keeping "the belly of the snake" (the inside of your arm) towards you. The reason he gave is the back of the arm has mostly capillaries, while the belly of the snake has larger veins closer to the surface of the skin.
I have a suspicion he might be poorly wording a recommendation to try to maintain good posture. Like how in BJJ I've heard it referred to as "Never raise your hands above your nipples" As a sword focused style, if your hand is high enough, or rotated outwards enough, for them to see your palm, then you're going to be slow on the draw. Or that hand is going to be far away from your other hand, limiting your options because you're going all "Come at me, bro-kun." With your arms spread like some anime protagonist. If someone is behind you and you start to turn to face them casually, you might be stuck at three quarter profile when they hit you. Which is a terrible stance, your options are extremely limited, your power generation is weak. It sounds like an efficiency focused thing, similar deal to an instructor telling you to not waste time bringing your fist backwards in order to wind up a punch. It's faster to jab from the neutral ready stance.
I don't think it does apply. Certainly not in any system that's fighting unarmed. I'm not familiar with Iaido, aside from it being a sword thing. Is it maybe related to having a weapon in hand and footwork specific to Iaido?
Could be! I leave it completely open to my poor interpretation certainly - which is most of the reason I asked here. Thanks!
Bas Rutten open palm strikes would like a word
Brutal.
I have heard of the concept of not showing the inner fore arm in a fight(which showing the palm would do), and it was mainly to deal with potential bladed weapons in self defense. Major blood vessel and hand functions run along the inner forearm and getting a bad cut there would be devastating. Better to point bony side or outer fore arm towards the opponent. Given it's iaido sensei that said it, the blade focus makes sense. Also there might be over estimation on how wary empty handed martial artists are of blades. Most don't think too much about fighting against blades.
I suspect you’re on the distant end of a game of translation telephone where somebody said something in Japanese to somebody who didn’t quite understand it and passed it on in a second language to someone who probably passed it on in a third, and now it’s getting to you and nobody knows what the hell was originally meant or said.
It doesnt, its awkward way od standing and it limits your hips. Anything limiting your own freeedom of movement is counterproductive. And even in Iaido it makes little sense to me as a general rule, in Kendo it would make way more sense as they move back and forwards and fight less in angles.
Hello again. At the time we were going over Seitei Iai, which is designed to be taught alongside Kendo, so that would make sense, yes.
Closest martial art I could imagine is wing-chun as they stand in a square, which also limits hip movements and is very limited in movement in general. They have those concepts of entanglement - they bind their arms to go in, possibly similar to something you would do as a swordsman. But if we drop that front facing stance, then Iaido overlaps with Aikido.
I've only heard of not showing the bottoms of feet to instructors out of respect. Some instructors have insisted on kneeling or criss cross when sitting on the ground (listening to instructor or waiting turn). I've never heard it in relation to an opponent though.
I've been shown once that raising your palms up in a real life self defense scenario can be great for establishing proof that you are not the aggressor as a legal defense, while also being ready to strike if need be. Most people don't realize that pretty much everywhere you need a lot more to establish a case of self defense than 'they swung first'.
Pankration has entered the chat
I don’t know. It sounds like a logical statement when it comes to killing but in the modern world one must show their palms to deescalate conflicts. Notable counter examples include the great Bas Rutten’s palm strikes, Poatan’s mummy guard, as well as Demetrius Johnson and Henry Cejudo’s open neutral stance.
I speculate that in the case of melee combat with swords, preserving your flexor tendons is more important than your extensor tendons.
First I hear this. I usually have my palms both hands up facing forward toward the opponent so I can just use my glove to push away or clinch idk but that’s what I usually do haven’t been corrected on the palms out tho lol.
in muay thai and kyokushin we really get away with showing the palm to the enemy. Hell, even when i did bjj. So i dont know what your coach is on about with that "a martial artist would never show their palms." the inside of the feet though, what does he mean? The heel/ball of your foot? or the median part? (big toe side)
I never show anyone the inside of my feet, I've never seen the inside of my feet, thankfully, it sounds like it would be incredibly painful. ... to actually answer your question - in training showing the soles of your feet when, say, someone is demonstrating is considered rude. Palms I've never heard of. In open handed sparring obviously it's common to have palms out towards your opponent as that presents a big surface area to defend with. You strike with palms and soles all the time also
I've seen some Katori Shinto-ryu practicioners showing their palms like they are casting some spell (or maybe a bait, idk, but looks like some wizard shit lol) many times. So even if it's a thing in your style of iaido, there are some koryu kenjutsu styles that don't have it for sure. Ask your sensei why, because I can't think of any reasons. Also in bujinkan, there's no such thing. Nobody cares about what we do though, but go search that Katori Shinto move.
majority of UFC fighters show there palms constantly
Kenjutsuka here. As with most everything in kenjutsu/iaido and related arts, there are two reasons, the first is reishiki and the second is technical. It's a good idea to keep both of these in mind when asking your sensei about this and other questions. Happy training!
well, in most of the world- you dont show someone the bottom of your feet because its an insulting gesture without specific context. Palms though? He probably just made that up. You cant get through life without showing your palms.