The Anatomy of Impact

Tiny clubs are being thrust at someone’s head over and over again. Someone is holding a few small wooden dowel rods in their hand, and stabbing at their head with the tips of these little rods.

These half inch rods are padded, so they don’t break as easily, but they also don’t do nearly as much damage as if they were just bunches of wood.

Nevertheless, imagine the damage you could do by stabbing someone over an over again with these blunt instruments, or by thrusting them at a person repeatedly. You could really mess someone up.

This is a punch.

Those dowel rods are the metatarsals in your hand, those big bones that make up the biggest parts of your fingers.

Decades in martial arts have had the interesting side effect of thinking about the underlying body parts any time a technique is done. What’s really happening, and why does this move work? You have to stop and ask this question frequently.

My understanding of anatomy is different than that of a physical therapist or a doctor—instea…