Wow, Dale, you are exactly correct that the straight arm IS a key to my "bowing centerline" technique, which evolved partially from my experiences knife throwing: When you first learn to throw a knife, it should be done with a stiff arm and wrist, and the wrist, as SV said should NEVER snap, or bend, as this destroys accuracy (similar to "shooting off of" the elbows in prone combat pistol CQC shooting: By stabilising the wrists by resting them on the ground, and "firing off of the wrists", you AUTOMATICALLY tighten groups fired under the WORST of possible stress conditions, often by FEET, from misses to possible head/organ shots! The same holds true for slinging, so far as not bending the wrists is concerned!
The mention of so many true points with regard to such an approach has made this thread one of my favourites already! The "unbendable arm" sort of automatically happens later, with practice, as you settle into a more natural, relaxed style and loosen up after hundreds of successful throws with knives, or the sling. Your arm is relaxed, and partially bent, with a barely perceptible "bouncing" sensation as the elbow naturally compensates for the momentum/dampens the shock, but only slightly, as in Aikido's "unbendable arm", and its Southern Chinese boxing counterpart, as used in Wing Ts'un Gong Fu, etc. where you find the optimum angle by extending your lead elbow a five-spread-fingers distance from your rib cage (just make a Taiji/Tai Chi Chuan "fist guards elbow, open your fist to wide-spread "Aikido hand" fingers, and flip the rear "guarding" hand palm up so that the thumb tip is against your lead elbow, and adjust your elbow so that the tip of the pinky pushes it forward until the pinky is just touching the ribcage (approximately at the "bottom" touchable rib level/circa Gall Bladder 24-liver 13). This is the optimum position for a strong guard (adaptable to "Dao Chi Do's" counter-Muay Thai "shield", and shifts well into Ryukyu Kenpo's/Aikido's (nikkyo) counter-grappling equilateral triangle pull of both hands into the thymus to set up further counters, such as the "bowing wrist/finger breaker", or striking down on the radial bone/nerve/lung and colon acupuncture/dim mak meridians, then backfisting or -chopping across (same movement as kali's backhand punyo strike, or step three of classic sinawali) the opponent's stomach-9 point/ (or just behind at the vagus nerve for a safer nerve/stunning knockout strike) at the carotid sinus for a dangerous "emergency only" blood pressure knockout.
At any rate, the more-or-less straight, unbendable arm is what you get when you practice the slinging technique you, Dale, so astutely refered to! That made my day! SV and the other very sharp posters here have hit on so many great related fine points, I'll have to re-read it to fully appreciate and digest all of it! In knife throwing, you should always go straight down from twelve o'clock to six, and NEVER diagonally for most consistent accuracy, but with slinging, it seems to be both useful, and natural to do so, in many cases. Although they have much in common, knife throwing and slinging are two different things, of course! Horizontal "helecopter" slinging makes it easier to make a windage error, and likewise, the horizontal "overhead" release makes it harder to make windage errors, if your feet/body angle are positioned naturally aligned with the target, but makes it easier to make elevation mistakes with an early or late release. With a diagonal release, however, both of these error tendencies are lessened, so misses are less drastic along both lines, and corrections a little easier to make, initially.. However, with the "bowing centerline", by definition, your ideal path of your power stroke/release tends to BE your head's/body's vertical centerline, so if your swing tends a little diagonal, that's fine, so long as your release line crosses the centerline at the same position each time, releasing just slightly before the intersection point, and the stone should cross the centerline just as it impacts with the target.
Thanks for bearing with me! There's a video of this (several, in fact!) posted under the "Rapid Fire" thread, where I modify this technique slightly for applying maximum killing power and speed under "red line" self-defense/close quarters combat conditions. It's not pretty, or graceful, and won't impress anyone wanting a Chinese opera-ballet wushu choreography, but it gets the job done like nothing else I've ever seen, or tried, and it's the one I WOULD USE (with or without the sling!), if forced to defend myself, or drive away a dangerous animal, and had something to throw (beer bottle, mug, glass, soda/soup cans, groceries, tools, small appliances, shoes, boots, belt buckle (slung by the handy, ingenius strap that they usually throw in when you buy the buckle!
) heavy books, pipe fixtures, yanked-out heavy industrial power plugs, public phone recievers, sticks, rocks, cell phone, pens, furniture, (modified for using both hands, of course!) lap top, the kitchen sink, etc.!
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wrist action redundant (Read 4724 times)
