Chambering Punches

Chambering punches (and re-chambering) and pullback are other controversial areas of martial art styles.

Chambering

Chambering is cocking the punch or starting the punch from a cocked position. While it is not good to chamber a punch, unless the opponent is stunned and the punch is finishing blow, it is good to start punches from a chambered position when possible since the chamber allows the punch to generate more power. When beginning Taekwondo students are taught to punch, they are taught to chamber the punch at the hip and to re-chamber (or pull-back) the other hand to the hip.

These are the extremes of the motions. If the muscles are trained in the extremes of movements, then less extreme movements are easier to perform. This extremes are used to teach the theories of punching and to put artistic expression into the performance of patterns, they are not used in free-sparring and only used in self-defense under certain conditions, such as the aforementioned finishing blow.