Drill Post #8: Finger Wrench Drill

Of all the joint-manipulations/locks possible, the one that would be at the top of my Most Useable list would be a finger wrench. Going back to our observations regarding human combative instincts, it's clear that people reach out with their arms both in offense and defense, and often hands are open at that point. If you have "crashed the line," that is you are now in past the fighting measure and touching your opponent, you may have a finger available to grab and manipulate (a nice way to say "break or wrench"). As a general rule it will be when the inside of your arm is in contact with their limb and it is a quick slide down to get their finger before they know what's happening. For example, when executing a palm hook, if the opponent tries to obstruct with either a cultivated block or an instinctive defensive motion, a slide down the point of contact to the finger grab is viable. Other scenarios are equally good, such as a jackass pointing his finger at you in confrontation. It's not easy to accurately describe the way I like to train this, but give this a try; the trainer is grabbing/pushing the trainee in a messy way, and the trainee/defender, while looking for the most direct counter-attacks will grab the finger when that opportunity is presented (which the trainer insures will happen by sometimes actually in the mess of things putting his finger in the trainees palm). It's really interesting how many times, when doing this training at first, that I can say "freeze, now tell me what the closest thing is you can attack?" to a student, and they will point out three or four things they could do before I point out that my finger is actually in their hand.

As for the proper way to bend a finger, do not just grab the finger and point it back away from you, but (if, say, your right hand has grabbed his left index finger) use the little finger of your grabbing hand as a fulcrum to focus into the back of his knuckle as the index finger end of your fist bends it back towards him as you take the whole thing down to the ground while paying attention to move back and guard that he doesn't smack you with his other hand before the "point of no return."