Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show and saw the hero or villain do a fighting move that you wondered about. Sometimes they even make sense in an acceptable manner. Well there are plenty of these bogus fighting moves out there.

Lets start off with a personal pet peeve that I have. To start off, I am an avid Star Trek Fan. I am not a Trekee or a Trekker. I do not own a Star Trek Uniform and answer the door on Halloween with the Vulcan greeting. I just enjoy the shows and movies. With all of that said lets move on to the fighting technique. It is the 2 handed axe strike (at least that is what I call it). Where the fighter clasp their 2 hands together and strike with both hands simultaneously like swinging an axe. It is almost always done by a smaller person to a larger person. Like Major Kira fighting a Gem Hadar (if you know the characters). The first time I remember seeing this is when I was very young. I saw it on an episode of "The Real McCoy". I remember thinking that it was real cool because you got to use the power of both hands. Well to Luke McCoy and the producers, directors, and Actors of every Star Trek movie or episode. It doesn't work!! And here is why. It does not allow you to get a full swing with your arms and it restricts your power by having one arm brake the power of the other arm. Agonistic and Antagonistic. the antagonistic restricts the power of the agonistic (email me if you want more explanation on this, it is a fact of kinesiology.. Sorry for the big words, I try to avoid them whenever possible).

The Jump turn split kick This one is done by Jean Claude Van Damn. What he does is to jump up in the air with a turn and while spinning around he throws his legs out into a split supposedly hitting the opponent and hurting them with the kicking leg. In reality if you slow mo this on your DVD Player. You will notice that the only part of the foot that is capable of actually hitting the opponent is the outside edge of the foot by the toes. Not exactly a part of the foot I would like to hit with. But it sure looks good.

Multiple kicks Let me start off by stating a rule about Multiple Kicks. No matter how many kicks you throw at once. Only one of them can have any real power. The only way to add real power when doing multiple kicks is to refortify your balance between kicks. Otherwise when doing multiple kicks all but the power kick are used as diversions. The power is only focused on one kick. So when you see a movie and a guy jumps up into the air and machine guns off a bunch of kicks and they all have power. Just remember that you are watching a movie!

Back Fist with a following Right Cross. Every time and I mean every time I teach someone some kickboxing. They want to spin around with a back fist followed by a right cross. It sure sounds like it will work. Let me see 2 circular techniques with one following the other. Ya sounds good to me. However it just doesn't work. I think it is because the back fist is a speed technique and the right cross is a power technique. They just do not mix will.

Throw a right cross and if you miss it you can follow it up with a right elbow. Yes this is a quote from a Paul Hogan movie (Almost an Angel). something about when he believed he was an angel and had to make amends for a bad life before he could go to heaven. Well he was teaching some kids about boxing or fighting or something like that when he told them this and demonstrated it on a hanging bag. Since then I have had other people say that this worked like as if they were experts. I have never been told this by a legitimate black belt in any style or a boxer or a kick boxer. Because truthfully if you have already made the commitment of throwing a right cross then you would have to move in even more to complete the elbow strike. The only way this could possible work is if the right cross was a fake to sit up the elbow. But even then the lunging overhand elbow strike is way too much of a commitment to truly be effective against a good fighter. I guess you could do it on a drunk or somebody half your size

There are a whole lot more of these bogus techniques that are ineffective. maybe I will do some more next month. Email me and tell me what you think. Maybe you have some you want to share. or at least let me know if you want to read some more of these.

Mike Pikey