. . a n a d a 1 5 1 0 9 - 0 7 - 0 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . "How To Punch An Annoying Person . . . . . . . . . . In The Face" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Lachrymite . . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you are anything like me, chances are, at some point in your life, you've been heavily annoyed by someone and have had the urge to punch them in the face. However, you may have been held back by a number of factors. Perhaps you were afraid to due to social programming, that punching someone else in the face is generally a bad idea. Perhaps you feared possible reprimand from law enforcement agents. Or, perhaps you just aren't really sure how to deliver an effective punch which will make sure your opponent does not have the physical capability to counter-attack you. If that last reason is what has been holding you back from punching every idiot you see, fear not! I will now instruct you, a novice in the ways of hand to hand combat, how to effectively punch an annoying person in the face, in such a way that you won't have to worry about them ever again... until they come after you with four friends and baseball bats. The first step in hitting someone with impact is to make sure they don't know it's coming. Don't drop into some silly martial arts looking stance or anything, don't even put up your fists. Just stand like you normally do, and don't give away any hints that you will be knocking several teeth out in a few moments. Try to remain calm looking, and somewhat disinterested. Next, you need to be able to make a good fist. The most important thing to remember, for those of you who don't know anything at all about fighting, is to never punch with your thumb on the inside of your fist, with fingers wrapped around it. This admittedly will make your punch stronger... however, it will also most likely break your thumb. One of the greatest things about being human is the wonderous merit of our opposable digits. I suggest you don't ruin yours to break some guy's nose. That being said, the standard fist is made by curling your fingers inward to your palm, and placing the thumb resting on the middle finger segment, rather than resting against the curl of the pointer finger. While punching with a standard fist, it is extremely important to remember to keep your wrist completely straight, locked out, so that your knuckles and the back of your hand line up evenly with the back of your forearm. There are alternatives to the basic fist, for those of you who are already comfortable with this. You can try the variant where you only bend the outmost two finger joints, and the joint connecting fingers to actual hand, the knuckle, is kept straight. In this case, you would strike with the middle segments of your fingers. You must keep your hand perfectly straight, having the back of your knuckles and your finger up to the middle joint in perfect alignment with the back of your hand and forearm. This method has more potential damage, but I suggest you punch a few inanimate objects before you try hitting any people with it... the potential for injuring yourself with this fist is rather high. There are other alternatives, such as striking with the palm, or the finger tips, or various other parts, but for pure nose-breaking power, these two should be sufficient. The third step, and most complicated part, is following the four rules of generating extra force in your punches. These four rules are linear movement, marriage of gravity, torque, and body pivot. By following these four rules, you can easily double the power of your punch. First, you need to follow the rule of linear motion. A lot of times, when you see someone punch someone, they swing their fist from the outside inwards towards the opponent. This is a bad idea. Not only do you lose power with this technique, it is slower, more easily blocked, and makes it harder to defend yourself from incoming attacks. The best method is to move your fist in as much of a direct line as possible, from where it is now to the face of the opponent. Connect straight on, without wasting any time and energy with a roundhouse swing from the outside. A direct punch is a lot more difficult to roll with, because instead of simply needing to turn your face to the side to deflect a large amount of the impact, you need to roll your head backwards, which can send you flying back if you are hit hard enough, and it will also open you to further attacks. The second principle of powerful punching, is marriage of gravity. This is actually a very simple concept to apply. As you are punching, have your entire body drop slightly through a minor bending at the knees. The slight downward motion helps you add more force to your punch. Trust me, it works. Third, is the torque applied to the fist. When you begin your punch, begin with your fist "sideways," so that it is vertical rather than horizontal, with your thumb near the top. Then, while you are in the process of moving your fist through the air and towards the opponent, begin to rotate it so that when it connects, it connects in a horizontal position. It's pretty easy to do with a little practice, and the extra spin definitely hurts more, and the twisting has a higher chance to break a nose. The final principle you need to remember for the actual punch, is to pivot your entire body when you punch. Don't just jab; if you followed the first rule well, the other guy doesn't know it's coming. A jab will just disorient him for a second, and then he will know you want to fight. The trick is to put everything you have into that first strong hit, so that he won't be able to counter. To do this, shift your shoulders and, to a lesser degree, the trunk of your body, so that the shoulder of the arm you are punching with ends up pivoted out towards the opponent when the arm is fully extended. Try to put some of your weight behind this pivot, but not too much, because you want to increase the power of the hit but not knock yourself off balance. Now, at this point, you've probably done some damage. If you aimed for the nose, there's a good chance your broke it. You might even cause the collapse of a cheekbone, though that might bruise your knuckles. Stay away from hitting the forehead area, the skull is very thick and can hurt your knuckles a lot. A hit to the eye will probably blacken it. If the guy turned his head to try to avoid the brunt of the hit, you might hit him in the ear... this is good, being hit in the ear hurts a whole lot, plus it can cause deafness and knock the opponent off balance. If the opponent was being annoying and talking while you hit him, and you hit him in the jaw, you might even punch his mouth closed, making him bite the tip of his tongue off in the process. That will definitely end delusions he had of fighting back. In the case that you aren't sure he's down for good, remember; honorable fighters usually lose. As soon as you see he isn't a whimpering little ball on the floor, start hitting him some more. If you let him get up, you'll just have to defend yourself in a real fight, and you might actually get hurt... nobody wants that. So, if your hit didn't knock him down, punch him again. Try the stomach this time, or aim a little below the stomach but above the groin if he's drunk... this will make him piss himself. Kicking out his legs work pretty well too. I won't explain in detail how to kick, he's messed up enough right now that you don't really need to know what you're doing and you should be able to take him out. Once he's down, if he's trying to get up, kick him in the face or stomach very hard. Or stomp on him. Just don't let him take you in an even fight. In the case you are too soft-hearted or stupid to follow the above advice, just remember that 99% of fights are resolved in less than ten seconds. Also, the vast majority tend to follow the same routine, unless there are trained fighters involved; the two people immediately begin grappling, and use any free limbs to perform strikes. Try not to get sucked into this routine. A much more effective technique is to just strike the opponent very hard in the face whenever he tries to close in on you to grapple. If you do it hard enough, he will just keep being driven off. Capitalize on this time to begin fighting dirty if you can. Avoid grappling at all costs, unless you are a lot bigger than the other guy. Just keep hitting him in the face. This will let you win the fight. So just remember, next time an annoying person says something stupid, just follow these simple rules and punch him in the face. You'll be happy you did, and so will everyone around you. Violence is good like that. . . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . anada 151 by Lachrymite (c)2000 anada e'zine . . . w w w . a n a d a . n e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .