Punching someone in a real street fight can be useless self defense training yet it’s taught as the most common martial arts technique.

Some other hand-striking options are:

Knife Hand Strike
The classic knife hand strike has been a staple technique in just about every martial arts system you can think of. As a kid, I remember spending many hours moving up and down the dojo drilling this strike along with many others.

Front Hammer-Fist Strike
The front hammer-fist strike is another one of those strikes that is popular in many combatives training circles, and yet in terms of practicality and effectiveness, this strike is largely useless.

Face Smash
Those who teach the front hammer-fist also tend to teach this strike alongside it—the Face Smash, as it is known. This strike entails taking your hand and smashing it into your opponent’s face so they feel like they have just been hit by the Facehugger from the Alien movies.

Downward Elbow Strike
We include the downward elbow strike not because it isn’t effective, but because most people don’t know how to do it right and end up making it ineffective. So rather than jab down with your elbow, twist your hips (in the direction of your striking arm) which will allow you to drop more of your bodyweight into the strike. This will obviously result in a much more powerful strike.

Practice your form by actually hitting something (of relative equal hardness) with your bare knuckles, rather than aiming at the air or punching a bag with gloves.

This will give you a healthy taste of reality, without actually hurting someone.

Here’s why you should never punch in a real fight.

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A great video put together by the guys at Modern Combat & Survival
Check out their YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHt2KH7CTOMjCzTEDt7am6g