Title: Open Hand Basics - Part 2 Of 2 Word Count: 603 Summary: Hit Like You Mean It Hitting through the target is more commonly practiced in the West. The hit is much more effective when it is led by the waist and when the intent is to hit through the target. One example is to dive through with your body weight behind the strike. Pukolan and Hsing-I both strike this way. Another kind of hit is to slap through, hitting with the body weight and friction. This is how basic burning palm works. Utilizing waist and knee power helps get t... Keywords: silat, silat dvd, self defense, kung fu, Article Body: Hit Like You Mean It Hitting through the target is more commonly practiced in the West. The hit is much more effective when it is led by the waist and when the intent is to hit through the target. One example is to dive through with your body weight behind the strike. Pukolan and Hsing-I both strike this way. Another kind of hit is to slap through, hitting with the body weight and friction. This is how basic burning palm works. Utilizing waist and knee power helps get the body into the strike. When done correctly, your hits will feel light and effortless, but the power exhibited on the enemy are heavy and with purpose. Master Guy Savelli insists that if a 200lb person whips with his body weight at 25 mph, the fingertips will strike with a force of 5,000 PSI. Although the front or back of the hand will hit with less force than the fingertips, the striking force remains considerable. Utilizing knee power can be as simple as allowing them to relax and dropping your body weight. Add percussion to the hit with a simple kilap strike. These hits are typically dropped on pressure points. Each strike usually connects with more than one pressure point so that the impact causes a ripple effect throughout the area. The internal arts emphasize putting the entire body into the strike, sending the energy up through the feet to the knees, waist, shoulders, and arms. As long as the body works as one unit, the power ill be delivered as one concentrated unit. A Bolt of Lightning The symbol given to sigung Richard Clear by ba pak Willem de Thouars to represent the kilap kilat part of teet lung pai is an open hand with a lightning bolt entering the back and emitting from the palm. The idea is to hit with lightning-quick explosive speed and internal/spiritual power. The hit should arrive the moment you see the target - anything taking more than an instant is not kilat. The sudden and shocking explosiveness should be so fast that is surprises both the person throwing the technique and the person receiving the hit. The technique works best when the technique explodes of flies. High-level internal power hitting with the open hand consists of utilizing the mind and the spirit to hit with the lao gong and the open palm. There are a variety of energies associated with this technique. Vibration waves and particles are two of the most common types we recognize in the West. Sigung Richard Clear can place a thick phone book over someone's abdomen, strike the phone book with an open hand and generate a palm print on the surface of the subject's skin. This demonstrates the ability to penetrate past the strike. A good practice method is to stack two bricks or boards and try to break only the one on the bottom. Internal power hitting can be combines with other types of hitting, including iron palm, penetrating palm, vibrating palm, poison hand, cotton palm, springy palm, fire hands (burning palm) and universal energy palm. Also, the Yin palm takes out energy while the Yang palm puts in negative energy. Other examples include the dim mak claw taught by Erle Montague, the delayed death touch that included advanced kilat strikes, and the heavy hand kilap strike. This is but an example of the hand strikes taught in our system. Open hand strikes offer the martial artist some of the most potent and lethal self-defense tools available. In the hands of a trained practitioner, an open hand can close the door on any enemy.