Taking a hard hit in the face

[ShotokanKid]

How does one take a hard hit in the face? I can be punched full on in the body without effect (I used to have my friends at school punch me as hard as they could in the stomach) But I know if I get hit in the face, I will tear up. How do you "train" to take a hard hit in the face?

[Ben Martin]

i dono but the only way i can think of is to try not to get hit rather then practice taking punches to the face. the more you do sparing, tournys, fights what ever you do the more hard face shots u will take and that over time that does help to toghen up most peoples jaw.

[Menjo]

i dono but the only way i can think of is to try not to get hit rather then practice taking punches to the face. the more you do sparing, tournys, fights what ever you do the more hard face shots u will take and that over time that does help to toghen up most peoples jaw.

Absoutly, the whole reason why you can take stomach but not face shots is because its foriegn(duh), plus getting hit in the head i find is more situational while getting hit in the stomach stays pretty much the same.

[Jay]

i once saw this guy who puches himself in the head and jaw every day and he has built up a resitance he has very thik skin on his face but i dont recomend it

[Menjo]

does his face look all messed up?

[Ben Martin]

can you spell brain damage? sounds like he wont in a few years

[White Warlock]

For the longest time, i'm talking years, i had a broken nose. Not merely broken, but shattered. The cartilage was all over the place and 11+ bone fragments from the inner bone cleft were strewn about in my nasal passages. Everytime anyone hit me in the face, it hurt tremendously, but i gained a tolerance to the pain. This overwhelming 'ugly' feeling when your face gets impacted: your nose shakes, your eyes want to water, and your cheeks feel like exploding... these are things you can learn to 'accept' as part of physical contact. But, u must ask yourself what the goal is.

I was disqualified twice in 85', because my nose ended up bleeding too much. I was directed to get it checked, and that's when i found out how badly broken it was... and how it had probably 'first' been broken when i was around 12 years old (a brilliant stepping-on-a-rope-being-dragged-by-a-bike incident), and then rebroken many times since. I struggled with rhinitis and other sinus ailments, and never once having a doctor that had the 'insight' to xray.

Anyway, i got it fixed, and a few months after the plastic brace and insertions were removed, i banged my nose hard against a window (thought it was open, duh). I immediately grabbed my nose... then stood there in awe. No pain (unfortunately, all was not better and i had two more operations before the dang thing was functioning 'somewhat' normally again).

Back to the point... it is mostly about mindset. The reactions to the pain are about 'fear of injury or disfigurement.' If you 'remove' the fear associated with these somewhat shallow concerns (at least the latter), you will find yourself able to better ignore the effect. In other words, it's mostly psychological... mostly in your head, not in your face.

[unknownstyle]

you cant really condition the face to take the impact of a punch, you can train yourself to be able to deal with the pain of it though

[ProjectJanus]

My suggestion would be to headbutt the punch. It hurts his hand alot more than your head.

[CagedWarrior]

can you spell brain damage? sounds like he wont in a few years

Hahaha!

My suggestion would be to headbutt the punch. It hurts his hand alot more than your head.

That works great, actually. Still hate takin shots to the head though.

Anyway, aside from just getting used to it over time, there's not much you can do. It sucks. Your strategy, I think, should be to get good at avoiding and blocking them, and get so good at fighting that it's instinct. That way, when you do take a hit, you aren't thinking but you know what to do anyway, and maybe you'll only take the one.