Question about fingers.

[Kain]

Hello there, everyone. Glad I found this Forum.

As I say in my post at the Introduction section, I am a 9 kyu Shotokan student. I study Shotokan for over a year, though I took the exams for the next belt only once (various reasons for that, time to take it seriously ).

I am the only one at my class who can do push-ups with only the fingers instead of the whole palm, and I'm kinda proud of it. My recod is 15 in a raw and 50 in a day (in an hour, to be precice). I train my fingers at the end of every lesson (5 one hour lessons every week) and I wanted to ask some questions and, of course, for some advice.

First question: I admit it, I bite my nails, and quite badly, too. Is this going to affect my finger training? (If you know a way to make me stop it, please go ahead and tell me).

Second one: I train my fingers because I want to learn to hit in nerves to make numb parts of the body. Is there any specific style for that? If not, where should I look for help in learning where and how to hit?

Final question: Can doing finger push ups damage my fingers at any way? And is there a wrong and a right way to do this excercise?

I'm also open for advices in that matter!

Sorry if my English were bad at times, gonna excercise the language too . (Me from Greece)

[P.A.L]

1- i used to do that too when i was a teen, then i just stoped doing it one day, i gotta tell you my finger got infected once. at least wash your hand all the time. it won't affect your finger training

2- there are many style which use finger strikes, any style based on crane , mantis or snake would use fingers. I practice white crane and we use lots of finger strikes, i also do push ups on the fingers and some other training.

3- i don't think so, the damage will come when you start hitting a makiwara with your finger, it's better if you learn hitting from someone who knows how to align and positin fingers, the other thing you need to do is training your forearm tendons

the closest guy to you as i know is this guy

http://www.fujianbaihe.com/fujianbaihe/main.html

let me know if you need more info

[TigerDude]

Nail biting can be difficult to stop. Drugs, behavior therapy, and aversion therapy (putting bad tasting stuff on your nails) are all options. If it is a severe problem, you should probably see a professional.

[bushido_man96]

Trim your nails daily, so you won't want to bite them off.

As for the finger push-ups, I never do them, but I think they can be beneficial. It is important to remember to keep the fingers aligned so that you don't stress the bones too much.

[Simo]

i used to bite my nails, well saying i "used to" is a lie, cuase i still do, but i dnt do it as much as i did before, because like P.A.L i got an infected finger, and it took like 2/3 weeks to mend it.

I say doing pushups on ur fingers is great! remba proper technique and ull benifit from it. Your Nukite will be powering!

[Kain]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions. Hopefully, I am obsessed with keeping my hands clean, so an infection is inprobable.

Recently, I changed the way I do the finger push-ups, and I found that I was doing them completely wrong. I can do only 25 per hour of my new push-ups, since they are harder.

I want to be sure this time, so can sb tell me what is the right way to do the finger push-ups? Even a picture of the position of the fingers would be a great help. One of these days I'm gonna take a picture of how I do them and post it here, to take some opinions...

@ P.A.L. : Crane, Mantis, Snake! I'll do a search for these styles. Are the finger strokes on the nerves or they're just in weak spots of the body?

[P.A.L]

@ P.A.L. : Crane, Mantis, Snake! I'll do a search for these styles. Are the finger strokes on the nerves or they're just in weak spots of the body?

in okinawan white crane you mostly hit to the soft tissues, for nerves we use other parts, like shuto for the elbow nerve, or one knuckle punch for liver, 4 knuckles for solar plexus,

here is a crane kata

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXEPSGkiRfc from matsumura family

from Gokenki

if you like crane then look for a Uechi ryu dojo.

[AT]

i think kempo teaches hitting nerves and stuff to knock your opponent out pretty much instantly.

[Kain]

I heard something about a 5-style Kung Fu with the crane, snake, tiger, dragon and drunken styles (I think). Does it have anything to do with the crane and snake styles you mentioned? 'Coz someone told me once about a dojo that teaches this style in my region.

[P.A.L]

yes, 5 animals kong fu predate the style i tractice, okinawan crane goes back to Chinese crane styles. chinese styles show more internal aspects of MA compares to Okinawan karate.