Barbelith Underground > Conversation > It's Punching Tim... Ow!

well if you're serious about answers to your questions I'd suggest asking it here where alot of people can speak from deep experience.

My 2¢ on the subject:
What makes the punch or fist such a commonly useful means of attack is that it turns a hand (which is basicly a collection of really small breakable bones wrapped in a thin sheath of muscle tendons and skin) and turns it into a single blunt tool for striking. Monkeys do it too. Of course us 21st century humans have lost alot of gripping strength and developed greater sensitivity on that surface area making the use of a fist a bit more challanging. One has to Learn how to hold a proper fist these days as well as leaning how to use it.
Still the average person is more likely to get results from a balled fist than an open hand slap.

If you make a fist you'll notice that the bones in your knuckles will almost protrude from the body of that fist. Any decent strike with them can be devestating (consider also the addition of rings) of course if your not used to punching something hard it's going to hurt. But a punch to the head's got plenty of potential for stopping a fight quickly.
There's a bloody nose.
There's the Black eye.
A punch to the mouth can damage teeth but those teeth can damage your fist as well.
A punch to the forehead can potentially rock the brain against the back end of the skull causing dizzyness or a "knock out"
A punch to the ear will hurt alot but it tricky to pull off. The random round-house type of punch that most people will resort to first might achieve this but that's really a very ineffeciant attack. Instead, an open palm slap to the ear --cup the palm just a bit to trap air-- can burst an eardrum.
Then there's punching to the throat, very effective. Once again if it's a round house attack then you're better off "chopping" at the neck with the blade of your hand. Or, if you know how, the ridge created by you tucked thumb, as with most of this stuff, practice is the only way to make this stuff usefull.

Punches to the upper body are prettymuch useless and punches to the gut are overrated. You have to really know how to puch if you xpect to get results from punching someone in the stomach. A punch to the groin can be useful but again not recomended, people are instinctivly protective of their groin and to get a punch down there you're prettymuch leaving your entire upper body vulnerable. A kick is better, but you risk loosing balance. Better to kick the knee then close the distance enough to get your knee into the groin . . . keep your hands up.

If you're going to enter a fight leading with elbows and knees you're probably doomed. Just look at the distance from an outstretched fist compaired to an elbow. Reach does matter and the elbow, while fearce, is effective only once you're already in close.

Here's an experiment you can try at home to examine reach. make a fist and extend it in front of you, for the purposes of this experiment keep your shoulder squared. Now extend you fist out but keep in vertical, with your fingers horizontal as if you where holding a torch. Now with your shoulders still squared off, standing straight-up place that extended fist against the wall. Not many people punch like this.

Once you've placed that fist against the wall rotate it so that the palm is facing the floor. You should notice that suddenly you loose about an inch or two from your striking distance. You would have to roll your punching arm's shoulder forward to make up that distance. This is the classic "boxing" punch most people learn in the school yard or basement, it's decent, but the loss of those inches can mean the difference between a punch that clips the tip of someone's nose and one that lands squarely in the face.

A decent article that expands on those mechanics can be found here.