Combinations involving backfists and knifehands

[DWx]

Our tournament rules were recently changed to now allow backfists, knifehands and reverse knifehands as well as punches (we just had punches allowed before).

Anyone got any good combinations that involve those techniques?

[tufrthanu]

I'm a bigger guy and one of the instructors at my school helped me modify one of my head instructors counters. In the original you turned into an opponents round kick and then did a back kick to the midsection. The modified one used a spinning backfist instead of the back kick.

Another one is to pull down on an opponents front guard hand with yours and then quickly shoot off a backfist with the same hand.

[bushido_man96]

If you look into some of Cho's books, he has some sparring sequences in which he does some spinning knife hand strikes. He also used some backfists and ridgehands. I'd check there.

[tallgeese]

I've had good effect with the lead hand backfist thrown in conjunction with a rear hand trap.

It invovlves and explosive closure of the distance gap and a read hand trap/pat of their lead guard/jab. This allows you to go over the top of the trapping hand with a backfist thru the opening you created with the trap.

It's been a good tool for me in multiple venues. Definatly worth a shot.

[NewLevel]

DWx, does the new rules apply to Karate point tournaments as well?

[KarateGeorge]

I've had good effect with the lead hand backfist thrown in conjunction with a rear hand trap.

It invovlves and explosive closure of the distance gap and a read hand trap/pat of their lead guard/jab. This allows you to go over the top of the trapping hand with a backfist thru the opening you created with the trap.

It's been a good tool for me in multiple venues. Definatly worth a shot.

I'll second that. I like to use that one as well. Speed is key in pulling it off well, but it is a great technique..

[DWx]

DWx, does the new rules apply to Karate point tournaments as well?

Sorry NewLevel, I wouldn't know. Its just for my org this has now been introduced. I'm sure there are some Karate point tournaments that'll let you use those techniques and some that won't. Best to check out the rules per tournament.

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys. I've found that a lead hand backfist followed by rear hand ridgehand is a pretty good combo. Easy to following it up with the punches. Nice thing about the backfist is it can obscure the vision so its great for covering up things like axe kicks, pushing kicks.

[Montana]

Wow, take away my backfist and you might as well cut my hands off! I've knocked a guy out with a backfist years ago in a fight, and it's probably the fastest, and most accurate hand technique to the head that there is in my opinion.

Personally, there's no way I'd enter a tournament where they put that sort of limitation on a match. But that's me. I've never understood why some tournaments (most notably TKD tournaments) don't allow hardly any hand techniques anyway.

[bushido_man96]

TKD tournaments tended to focus on kicking in competition, so they limited the hand strikes, and in some cases, attached higher point values to head kicking. Its just a different way of competing. I have competed in some TKD tournaments that did allow hand contact to the head. I prefer it that way, too.

[DWx]

Yeah TKD does promote the kicking although it does vary slightly from style-to-style and between competitions. What I've noticed about the ones I attend is that the lighter weight categories will tend to use lots of legs, less hands but at the other extreme, (my weight category) we're all about the hands, the legs are pretty much used to lead into the hands or to keep distance once we have enough points from our handy work