Hand to hand combat is when you strike either directly with your fist or in an indirect way with your whole hand or with your wrist.

That’s a great advantage especially if you can’t use your hands to defend and you need that extra power. Let’s have a look at each hand. The most often used to hit your opponent with in hand to hand combat is the closed fist. Most martial arts systems use the closed fist to do so. In MMA’s we call it the “MMA clinch”. In Muay Thai we call it a “slap fight” and more in general boxing.

In the martial art of Japanese Judo both karate and judo use a closed fist or a closed hand or a closed fist and with it’s fingers spread and knuckles facing in to throw a punch. In Judo you also use your elbow if you hit with a palm strike. In Japanese Ju jitsu we call the closed fist the “clinch”, as well as the palm and palm strike the “push”. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu the closed fist is “the clench” and this is also a kind of punch. This is very important for the BJJ system as you should always have the closed fist over the closed palm. The closed fist can also be used to hit a partner and both the striking partner and the struck partner have better understanding of how to use the fist to strike. This is a very useful thing to know in our training as well.

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When you train to hand to hand combat you put the fingers of your closed fist together. If you don’t have your fingers together it’s a problem. The fist should always end up in the closed fist. It is good to get rid of your own hand between your hand and the partner’s hand while training in hand to hand. To do this you might use any of the techniques that are shown above.