The Devil’s Handshake is an apt name for this come-along for a number of reasons: it is painful to the victim, requires a betrayal of seemingly friendly intentions, and, like modern warfare, there may not be a clear exit strategy.

The Devil’s Handshake is probably the second most common come-along during the 1900s jujutsu craze (here’s the most popular one). It is typically applied by offering up a hand in friendship to then snatch the hand offered in return and slip into an arm lock. The idea, as the illustrations show, is that the victim’s arm is isolated and straightened to place pressure upon the elbow in a straight arm bar. Shown here are a number of illustrations of how different practitioners performed their versions.

That first illustration (left) is the eponymous demonstration by Higashi from Jiu-Jitsu Combat Tricks (Hancock 1904). It was Hancock and Higashi who first used the term “the Devil’s Handshake” as well as labeled the opponent “the victim,” which seems appropriate enough considering they recommend the old handshake subterfuge.

The technique is similar all these, although the details differ. For the right side, you grab the right wrist of the victim (the fake handshake is the perfect set-up), pull it towards your chest while turning it palm upwards so that your left arm can slide up under his right arm and grasp the lapels. Downward pressure on the victim’s right wrist places stress on the elbow joint and allows you to walk him around town like an escort wearing high heels.

Higashi/Hancock’s is the only one that doesn’t use an anchor for the inserted arm (lapel or neck) and is technically the weakest in my eyes for that reason.

O’Brien

J.J. O’Brien is shown in the next three photos offering the best breakdown of the maneuver from his Complete Course of Jiu-Jitsu and Physical Culture (O’Brien 1905). O’Brien was Teddy Roosevelt’s first jujutsu instructor and chose to market jujutsu to American audiences using the angle that they wouldn’t need to work up a sweat to learn it.

O’Brien uses the same approach in this lesson, keeping an upright posture with little movement. While he visually breaks the lesson down into three bites for easy digestion, his final posture is facing the victim and does not appear very strong. He does emphasize turning the opponent’s arm palm upwards as well as his own elbow placement, but it is not my favorite technically.

Kuwashima/Skinner

B. H. Kuwashima demonstrates it slightly differently in Jiu-Jitsu: the Japanese Method of Attack and Self Defense (Skinner 1904) by turning to face the same direction as the victim as well as grabbing the near, rather than the far, lapel.

Skinner explains that the technique is one used when “you wish to put a troublesome bore or a belligerent half-drunk loafer out of your place of business.” Jujutsu is used so as to not lower yourself to his level by coming to blows.

The variation that Kuwashima shows in the second illustration is the one I prefer– placing the hand up against the head is very controlling, but is even tougher to get. You can flow into knees or a throw very easily and it does not depend upon the clothing worn by the victim. Kuwashima/Skinner also recommend digging the thumb into the sensitive spot behind the jaw for more extreme circumstances.

Issues

One problem is that once you begin shaking hands with the devil, you may not be able to let go. After all, a come-along at best puts events on hold in any physical encounter. At some point, you’ve got to let go of your victim. To put it mildly, the fellow you’ve just offered an handshake-turned-armlock may not be willing to cry uncle, tip his hat, and stroll away peaceably. The options are therefore few-you can escalate (attacking the elbow, throwing the victim, digging in thumb, etc.) or you can release them. This is a negative built-in to the come-along, but at least it offers another level of force option between nothing and all out in an encounter.

The accepted idea, of course, is that this come-along is most suited for escorting an offensive person out of doors. If so, before release it may be prudent to gather a few friends on the way out the door to avoid further hostilities.

Before reaching the dilemma of how to let go of the tiger’s tail, you have to be able to grab it first. A victim’s natural reaction may be to pull the arm back towards the body once the wrist is grabbed, or, less friendly, to begin punching with the other hand. The first problem encountered with this come-along is that it is difficult to apply without subterfuge. Even so, it is worthwhile to practice occasionally in drills or lock flows because the principles of isolating the elbow opens up options from many different positions, rather than just limiting it to the handshake scenario.

Punch’s treatment

A humorous WWI article conveys potential complications in applying the hold:

SAFEGUARDS.

It was the special terms to Special Constables that tempted me—and I fell. I don’t just remember how many times I fell, but it was pretty nearly as often as the “Professor” of the wily art took hold of me. Before the first lesson was over, falling became more than a mere pastime with me, it grew into a serious occupation. So I left the jiu-jitsu school at the end of the second lesson with a nodding acquaintance with some very pretty holds and a very firm determination to practise them on Alfred when he got back to the office next day from Birmingham.

I suppose I ought to have persevered with my lessons a little longer, but I was losing my self-respect, and felt that nothing would help me to gain it better than to cause somebody else to do the falling for a bit. Alfred is six-foot-two, but a trifle weedy-looking, and so good-tempered that I knew he wouldn’t resent being practised on.

As he came in I advanced with outstretched hand to meet him. “How goes it?” he said cheerily, holding out his hand. “Like this,” I said, as I gripped his right wrist instead of his fingers, turned to the left till I was abreast of him, inserted my left arm under his right, gripped the lapel of his coat with my left hand and turning his wrist downward with my right, pressed his arm back. To attack unexpectedly is the great thing. “Don’t be a funny ass,” said Alfred, as I lifted myself out of the waste-paper basket. How I got there I wasn’t quite sure, but concluded that I had muffed the business with my left arm by not inserting it well above his elbow for the leverage.

“Sorry,” I said; “the new handshake. Everybody’s doing it.” “Are they?” said Alfred. “Well, I’ve been having some lessons in etiquette myself the last few days from a naval man I met down at Hythe. Seen the new embrace?” “Er—no,” I said, putting a chair between us, “I don’t think I have; but I’m not feeling affectionate this morning. I’m going to lunch.”

Thank goodness, if I do meet a spy, I’ve got a truncheon and a whistle.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914

Walker

Lastly, just to point out that western readers were learning a technique already known in western martial arts, we have Donald Walker demonstrating the same come-along from his Defensive Exercises (Walker 1840) at right. Walker’s version appears similar to Kuwashima’s sixty years later, turning to face the same direction as the victim and grasping the near lapel.

Zaap…zaaap-clack-clack-clack…zaaap. Just the sound and spark of an electric weapon triggers something from childhood that makes you step back when you see and hear the electricity arc through the air between the leads. The two most common forms of today’s electric "stun" technology, both of which can take advantage of that reaction, are the stun gun and the taser. [N1]. The early antecedents of both of these devices can be found in the records of the United States Patent Office and a review of the patent record shows that the development of electroshock devices was first aimed at incapacitating animals before later being extended to humans.

Development of the Stun Gun

Electricity was written about as early as 6oo B.C.E. when philosopher Thales of Miletus found that amber, after being rubbed by wool, would attract feathers, thereby resulting in a practical demonstration of static electricity. By 46 C.E., Roman physician Scribonus Largus introduced the electrical powers of fish into clinical medicine as a cure for headache and gout. However, it was not until electricity was first “bottled” in the 18th century that large numbers of electrical experiments (and mistakes) with humans and animals arose.

One of the earliest experimenters, Petrus Musschenbroek, is a candidate for discoverer of the Leyden jar (he was from Leiden, Netherlands), which is a device used to store static electricity by separating differently charged ions. It behaves similarly to a capacitor in that it stores a built-up charge and releases it quickly. When touching the wrong part of a charged Leyden jar in 1746, and consequently completing a circuit, Musschenbroek may have been the first to experience what countless electricians, unsupervised children, and stun-gunned subjects would eventually experience in more recent centuries: “Suddenly I received in my right hand a shock of such violence that my whole body was shaken as by a lightning stroke…the arm and body were affected in a manner more terrible than I can express. In a word, I believed that I was done for.” Musschenbroek had just received a really strong electrical shock, one of the first man-made electrical discharges powerful enough to be frightening. Even more fascinating is that the charge was created purely through static electricity: typically, a large wool pad was spun on a glass globe to store a charge inside a connected Leyden jar.

Musschenbroek’s discovery led to the first crude stun guns: the same century a number of European demonstrators with charged Leyden jars ran around killing birds and other animals under the guise of “scientific demonstrations.” Except for proof of lethal effect, these demonstrations added little to the body of knowledge regarding the interaction of animals and electricity. However, in a series of experiments starting around 1780, Luigi Galvani, at the University of Bologna, found that the electric current delivered by a Leyden jar or a rotating static electricity generator would cause the contraction of muscles in the legs of dead frogs and other animals when applied to the muscle or to the nerve. The following illustration shows, among other things, frog legs with leads attached on the left, a static electricity generator middle left, and a Leyden jar on the far right.

Whereas Musschenbroek’s experiments led the way in showing that pain and possibly death could result from exposure to electricity, Galvani’s frog experiments became the basis to later show that nerves could be directly stimulated, and eventually to show that electricity could be used to incapacitate humans.

In the meantime, the manual generation of electricity was limited to static electricity generators until Michael Faraday invented the dynamo in 1831. In a dynamo, electromotive force is developed in a conductor when it is moved through a magnetic field. Of course, a hand-cranked dynamo hardly leads to the development of a practical handheld self-defense device. For that, the development of a practical battery was required. In 1800, Alessandro Volta had created the first chemical battery, a voltic pile constructed of different metals and brine. Even so, the first commercially viable battery design was not produced until 1886, when Carl Gassner patented the carbon-zinc dry cell. Gassner’s basic concept is still used in many modern batteries.

Once all the elements were in place, it was only a short time before the first electrical shock device was developed. In 1890, inventor John Burton, of Wichita, Kansas, patented the “Electric Prod Pole,” or electric cattle prod. Burton envisioned the device as helping direct cattle without piercing the valuable hides like common non-electric cattle prods.

The patent had two basic designs, one powered by battery (Figure 1) and one by an internal dynamo (Figure 2). The design is simple, but the important elements are already in place. In Figure 1, the prod is simply a battery, a coil of wound wire, and two positive and negative prongs. A battery by itself would have too little voltage to overcome the non-conductivity of an animal’s hide (resistance). It appears that the coil would act to step up the voltage enough so that the current could flow through an animal’s hide and cause a localized shock. In 1915, a patent was issued for a similar battery operated design that appeared to do little more than provide a new method to hold the cap on and add an on/off switch (an important safety feature).

Burton’s dynamo design, on the other hand, produced its own electricity by pushing the prod against the animal, which collapsed the handle a short distance. Doing so would then activate the ratchets at F and G (Figure 2) causing the S-prime shaft to rotate. The shaft rotated the armature through the magnets N and S, creating a current. It seems unlikely that the dynamo, through such a meager application of mechanical movement, could create enough current to cause the desired effect, especially without a coil such as used in Figure 1 to step up the voltage to overcome the resistance of the animal’s hide.

In 1939, Hansen and Cough had patented a prod with only superficial differences from earlier battery-powered designs, the main difference being an extension that could be added to the end of the prod to better reach cattle in a pen. Then in July 1940, Leon Paul Mongan patented a combination flashlight/cattle prod for those moving cattle before daybreak or after dusk. Internally, the battery-operated device sent current to a vibrator that converted the direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The current was then stepped up through a transformer to high voltage AC and went to the terminal contact points. A capacitor limited the amount of arcing between the contacts. The contacts, partially retractable, completed the circuit when pressed against an animal. The previous month, Ernest Jefferson had also obtained a patent for a safer prod with a pair of spring tension terminals that had to be pushed in against the hide of the animal for the device to operate.

Due to refinements through the years, the 1940s cattle prods began taking an internal form similar to modern stun guns. Not only were the internals similar, but some models even outwardly resembled modern stun batons:

However, it was well before the 1940s when inventions began to appear that applied electroshock technology to humans. By 1912, the idea of using a portable electric device for self-defense and law enforcement had appeared. In an amazing, as well as an amazingly hazardous, invention, Jeremiah Creedon of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented a set of “Electric Gloves” to be used in “subduing unruly persons” and “resisting attacks.” The device consisted of a pair of gloves with leads connected by wires to a belt on which a battery and an induction coil were mounted. While the method of application differed, the design was basically the same as used in the cattle prod. In either design, the relatively low voltage (compared to modern stun guns) means that the effect would probably be limited to localized pain where the contacts touched the subject, rather than incapacitation.

German inventor Franz Lollert came up with a similar device in 1926, although slightly less cumbersome. He hoped it would “give to every person carrying something equivalent to a training in jiu-jitsu.” Notably, Lollert supposedly had a demonstration model that he used with some success. He even had interest from the German police in purchasing the device. Here is Lollert posing with his invention:

An almost identical device was patented in 1933 that added another coil and substituted a different design for the contacts in the gloves. Its appearance was very similar to the original 1912 device and the inventor, like Lollert before him, was active in marketing the device to police forces. Cirilo Hernandez Diaz was a Cuban inventor who worked in Latin America as a construction superintendent for an American company. He used the induction coil from a Model T Ford to step up the voltage to around 1,500 volts and reduce the amperage to a level that would not burn anyone touched by the gloves.

While most of the previous devices included an induction coil, Diaz was the first to articulate an important safety and efficacy principle behind electric stun weaponry: the need to increase the voltage and reduce the amperage from the battery source. High voltage passes through poorer conductors, such as hide, skin, or clothing, better than low voltage. If the power source remains the same, stepping up the voltage will also reduce the amperage produced, which is an important point, since most adults will go into ventricular fibrillation at currents around .1 amperes.

Diaz pitched the gloves as a method to quell rioters and subdue individuals resisting arrest. After a demonstration to the New York City police in 1935, Diaz then demonstrated the device to reporters by “subduing unsuspecting entrants to the office of the inventor.” (New York Times, June 23, 1935). No mention was made whether any of the surprise subjects later punched the inventor in the nose. According to Diaz, then deputy police commissioner Martin Meany requested a price quotation on quantities of the device. If the procurement was ever made, it doesn’t appear that the use of the gloves by the police ever became widespread.

While the designs were moving in the right direction by the 1940s, it took the development of the taser in the late 1960s/early 1970s to spawn commercial sales of the handheld stun gun. In the meantime, law enforcement adopted cattle prods for use during the early 1960s civil rights protests. In conjunction with fire hoses and wooden batons, law enforcement utilized cattle prods to painfully shock protesters and suppress marches. The similarity between stun batons and cattle prods has led many critics to decry any law enforcement use of stun batons as an attack with cattle prods. Considering the shared development history, such charges may be wrong in fact, but not in principle: stun guns and cattle prods are a question of differing voltages more than any other factors. The low voltage of the prod is intended to cause localized pain, whereas the higher voltage of the stun gun is intended to overwhelm the human nervous system and cause temporary incapacitation.

That flurry of activity in the 1970s brought a resurgence of interest in wearable devices such as the electric gloves. A 1982 patent was issued for a lightweight harness worn on the hand that allowed current to flow through contacts located at the end of the index finger. It was probably just a coincidence that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial was also released in 1982, because the patent application was made in the late 1970s.

Another electric glove was patented in 1983, then in 1992 came a terrifying set of electric trousers or chaps designed to discourage livestock from crowding human feeders. This in turn led to a November 2005 patent for a women’s electric jacket. The jacket has on/off controls in the sleeve and, once activated, a visible electric arc on the shoulder to scare off aggressors. The inventors are cognizant of the devices weaknesses, warning against activating the device in wet conditions as well as the danger of exposing non-insulated body parts to it, such as the legs or head. [N3]. Those warnings are clearly ones that could be applied to all the wearable devices generally. Considering the patent history of these devices, it is interesting that the electric jacket inventors recommend against using the jacket for protection against animals because of their different physiology. Of course, an electric jacket only seems half-suited for defense against most animals anyway, being a passive device with large gaps in coverage and vulnerable to puncture.

The Bare Essentials

For those that want to jump right in, here is The Cane as a Weapon. This is a cleaner version than the PDF that is floating around online. For future reference, you can also find it under the reprints tab at top right.

The original version contained only 12 photographs of Cunningham showing his method, yet included numerous drill sequences for practice. I therefore highly recommend that you also purchase Tony Wolf’s expanded version of The Cane as a Weapon which includes more than 170 photos to clarify Cunningham’s system. No, I don’t get a cut if you buy this book, I’m recommending it because Tony consistently puts out quality work. Click on the cover to check it out.

One more resource you will want to keep an eye on if you decide to study the Cunningham system is Chris Amendola’s blog entitled, appropriately enough, "AC Cunningham’s ‘The Cane as A Weapon.’" Chris is blogging his thoughts, notes, and discoveries as he proceeds to work his own way through the Cunningham cane system, as well as drawing out parallels from Cunningham’s other manual, Sabre and Bayonet.

Why I think The Cane as a Weapon is so Good

There are any number of reasons why I think this manual is so good. First is that Cunningham has an exquisite sense of what will work and what will not work from different postures and positions. He logically breaks down blows and parries, and places great emphasis on which of the three simple guards is best for any particular situation (eg., by not adopting a hostile en guarde position if not necessary).

His experience with the bayonet gives his work the versatility of using short, strong strokes with a double handed grip for close encounters and multiple attackers as well as movement, movement, movement. He does not show any grappling with the cane, which I believe is very sensible.

The footwork is clearly explained and has all the bases covered. He discusses the importance of targeting, and is cognizant that some strikes with a cane are less powerful than others.

More than any other single reason I could name, I liked this book because I found myself nodding at pretty everything Cunningham wrote. Quite simply, my experience tells me that Cunningham got it right. I may be wrong, but I would be surprised if anyone with much cane or stick fighting experience read this and viewed it in an overall negative light.

One note for the user, if Cunningham describes a "right cut," he is referring to a strike that proceeds from the left to the right. So for example, a high right cut will go from your left towards your right and strike the assailant on the right side of his head.

Cunningham’s History

You cannot really see much in this newspaper clipping, but I was impressed that the newspapers a century ago would not only print something useful, but do it with such a great layout:

Andrew Chase Cunningham was born into upper class New York society in 1858; his middle name Chase was the family name on his mother’s side. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874 and graduated in 1879. Like many midshipmen, Cunningham married immediately upon graduation. He then went active duty until 1883 when he resigned to go to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After graduating Rensselaer, he worked as a civil engineer for various companies and had a child at some point along the way. The trail stumbles after 1887 because that’s when Rensselaer’s alumni entry for Cunningham was published.

It is known that he later went to work for the U.S. Navy for a number of years, either located in Annapolis, Washington D.C., or somewhere in between. He must have went back active duty rather than as a civilian, because four years was too brief a period to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander. By 1912 he was a Naval Inspector of Public Works and had worked as a civil engineer for the Navy for some years.

In the early 1900s he was active in fencing and in 1904 helped guide the Naval Academy fencing team along with longtime Academy Fencing Master Prof. A. J. (Antoine Joseph) Corbesier. Corbesier deserves study in his own right, a Belgian that ran the physical drills and the fencing and bayonet programs at the Naval Academy for more than forty years. Corbesier published a couple of his own sword manuals: Theory of Fencing, with the Small-Sword Exercise, and Principles of Squad Instruction for the Broadsword. Cunningham, who possessed a reputation as a fencer even as a midshipman, would have trained under Corbesier in fencing when he was a student thirty years prior.

In 1906 Cunningham published his first manual, Sabre and Bayonet, but I know nothing about it.

In the 1900s, Cunningham was a member of the prestigious Washington Fencing Club (WFC). The WFC was upper crust, on the New York Athletic Club level, and did not allow women as members. If you were not an illustrious, or at least well-connected military officers or diplomat, there was little need to apply. Cunningham eventually became a member of the governing board.

In 1912, even though part of Navy, his expertise as a swordsman was so great that he was consulted by the army when evaluating a new cavalry saber design that Cunningham looked favorably upon. The submitter was a young Second Lieutenant who later became known as General George S. Patton.

Sources Consulted

Amendola, Chris. AC Cunningham’s “The Cane as A Weapon” Blog (2008)
Cunningham, A. C. The Cane as a Weapon. (1912)
Nason, Henry (ed.). Biographical Record of the Officers and Graduates of the Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute (1887)
New York Times, various issues
Wolf, Tony. The Cane as a Weapon by A.C. Cunningham. (2006)

As with all other retranscribed antique manuals that I republish, the text is available for free. You can download it at no charge. The treeware version is at “cost.”

Quote:
Born June 4, 1862, Robert Fitzsimmons began boxing first as an amateur n Australia, defeating four men in his debut. He quickly transitioned to professional, and in the late 19th Century met and defeated numerous well known champions of the day including Dempsey, Maher, Hall, Creedon, Corbett, Ruhlin, Sharkey, ‘and others of like note.’ retaining and defending the Heavy-Weight title until June 9, 1899.

In retired life, Fitzsimmons taught Boxing, Self-Defense, and Physical Fitness, then known as “Physical Culture.” In 1901, he published his Fitness and Boxing manual titled “Physical Culture and Self Defense” which included material from earlier articles he had written.

This book is a faithful transcription by Kirk Lawson of the original text. Special attention has been given to recreating the look and feel of the original document, including similar fonts, the preservation of spelling, hyphenation, and intentionally blank pages.

You can get the book at: http://www.lulu.com/content/1921948

While you’re there, check out Kirk’s other offerings:
http://stores.lulu.com/lawson

However, it may surprise some readers that the backfist, once called “the chopper,” was a common technique in western pugilism for a few hundred years. By pugilism, I’m referring specifically to bare knuckle boxing rather than the modern gloved boxing that took over at the end of the 19th century.

Daniel Mendoza, active primarily in the late 18th century, has long been associated with the chopper. As a smallish man in a dangerous sport with no weight classes, Mendoza relied on quickness, a deft defense, and fast, multiple strikes rather than size and power. His manual, The Art of Boxing (1789), does cover the chopper, but copies are rare and the pages found online contain only a reference rather than the actual instruction.

An anonymous boxing manual from 1825 by “The Celebrated Pugilist” does contain a discussion of the advantages of the chopper and goes on to describe the blow as Mendoza’s favorite:

A Back-handed Blow or Chopper,

with the large knuckles of the right hand and a straight arm, is very effectual, as these blows, upwards or downwards, cut, and it is better to hit with them than the middle knuckles of the fingers, which are apt to be much injured. This blow was Mendoza’s favourite, and the power of striking it with dexterity often enables you to return with the same hand with which you parried the hit of your adversary. Thus, if you are struck at either side of the face, you may successfully raise up your elbow, catch the blow upon it, quickly bring round your arms, and give the chop. When the elbow is pointed a little upwards, it is the most favourable time for striking the chopper; because, by affording your arm a swing round, it gives a greater impulse to the blow.

The chopper may be happily used in giving the return; and should a pugilist engage with a person ignorant of the science, it will certainly prove successful.

A round blow is easily perceived on its approach, and of course readily stopped. It is not a strong or quick way of fighting, and only resorted to by indifferent boxers; but the chopper is a blow out of the common line of boxing, and is found most effectual. For this purpose, the arm is to be drawn back immediately after giving this blow, so as to recover your guard. It generally cuts where it falls, and if hit but moderately hard on the bridge of the nose, or between the brows, produces disagreeable sensations, and causes the eyes to water, so as to prevent your adversary from seeing how to guard against two or three succeeding blows. If struck with force on the bridge of the nose, it splits it in two parts, from the top to the bottom; if on either of the eyes, it causes a temporary blindness, and if on both, it disables the person who receives it from continuing the fight.

The rear elbow stop from which a backfist can be thrown:

Rear Elbow Stop

Not all pugilism authorities were fond of the chopper. Lord Headley (R. G. Allanson-Winn), author of Boxing (1897), observed the transition from bare knuckles to gloves and not surprisingly found the chopper useless following the changeover. What was somewhat surprising was that Lord Headley thought it a weak blow even for bare knucklers:

I see the merit in both sides of the debate. It is a weak blow, in the sense that a knockout will not be scored from chopping the opponent. On the other hand, a strike breaking and splitting the nose or cutting the eyebrows or striking the eyes would be useful in an all-day bare knuckle match or a modern street encounter. A nice shot to the nose can be both disorienting and disheartening, resulting in the recipient watching through watery eyes as the claret flows down his chest. As the celebrated pugilist states, it also arrives in an unexpected manner because the line it takes is not “normal” in boxing.

A faithful reproduction of the chopper description from the Celebrated Pugilist’s Art and Practice of Boxing is depicted in the second sequence on this page: http://ahfaa.org/technique.htm [Update- Uh oh, looks like the American Heritage Fighting Arts Association may have went the way of the dodo. However, Pete Kautz was the man behind it and it looks like his overall site is still up.]

While that sequence does correspond with the image above of the rear elbow stop, it is not my preferred way of using the chopper. I prefer an elbow stop with my lead arm, rather than rear, because throwing a backfist from the rear hand is awkward for me and I often find myself out of range when doing so. From the front, however, it works well and I throw it like Terry Brown teaches on p. 197 of his excellent treatise English Martial Arts.

Basically, when you are at distance in a left lead and a right from your opponent comes in, you raise your left arm, blocking the strike with the elbow as below:

Front Elbow Stop

This does NOT have to be a complicated move. From my regular boxing guard, I keep my hands in place and simply rotate my left elbow up into a position as if I were throwing a left hook to the head. The elbow works as a great stop because it has a solid structure behind it, lining up with the shoulder. If you are stopping a bare hand right, the consequences of your opponent hitting the point of your elbow should be easy to imagine.

So, after you raise your elbow and stop the blow, you keep your elbow in place and swing your forearm around and strike the face of your adversary with a backfist.

Another variation can be used when the action is a little closer. A common defense against a right hook is a left elbow cover wherein you raise your left arm and cover the left side of your head by reaching back and placing your hand on the back of your head. The motion is similar to throwing an elbow directly upwards from a guard.

Here’s a pic I found on the interwebs something like what I’m talking about, although it’s not the tightest cover in the world: http://www.lockflow.com/images/article_images/5381.JPG

From that position, the backfist goes directly out and strikes the opponent in the face.

I was recently shown another method of using the chopper, and it was in a “modern” boxing match. My brethren on the MMA.tv History Forum recently discussed the Pancho Villa vs. Jimmy Wilde fight (1923). You can see the clip here. The first inkling of a backfist comes at about :53, but then at 4:18, Pancho Villa misses with a huge backfist. Throughout the fight, it looks like Villa throws a left hook at a little distance, then follows up with a backfist from the same hand. He may have also been throwing a left jab/left backfist combo at times, but the grainy, jerky film footage makes it difficult to tell. It doesn’t appear to have been too successful, and it’s not the reason he won the fight, but it does show another application of the chopper: a backfist off a missed hook. That makes perfect sense to me, as it is launched from almost the same position as an elbow stop with the lead arm as described above.