Knockout Power Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "Knockout Power Is Placement, Not Strength." Print it, keep it in your training bag, and work the parts in order. Every card in this book trains placement and timing on equipment. None of them trains a finish on a partner.

Safety First: The Gates (Pass/Fail)

These gates govern every card in this book. A session that breaks one has failed, whatever else it achieved. Read them aloud before your first session of the cycle.

• ☐ G1: Equipment only. Finishing techniques are trained on bags, shields, and focus pads, and in the air. A training partner's head is never the target surface for a finishing strike, at any power, at any grade, under any private agreement.
• ☐ G2: The neck is not a training surface. Shuto uchi to the neck line is practiced in the air and against a pad held beside a holder's shoulder line, never on a neck. No exceptions, no demonstrations on volunteers.
• ☐ G3: Agreed power, stated first. Every partner card states its power level before the first rep: touch, half, or three-quarter. Power is lowered on one word from either partner, no questions, no apology needed.
• ☐ G4: Concussion stops are final. Any blow to the head followed by headache, dizziness, blurred vision, confusion, slowness to answer, unsteadiness, nausea, or a memory gap ends that student's day. No second round. Worsening symptoms are a medical emergency.
• ☐ G5: A folded partner is finished. A clean body shot that folds a partner ends the exchange. You stop. Every time. Body targets are trained at agreed power only.
• ☐ G6: Holder safety is a skill. The pad or shield holder braces before the striker throws, keeps their own head behind the equipment, and calls the power down if they cannot hold the line. A holder who is being moved unwillingly stops the card.
• ☐ G7: Grades. Head-line pad work (Cards K1–K8 at chin and temple height) is intermediate work and above. Beginners run the body-line versions and the air versions until an instructor passes them up.
• ☐ G8: Surfaces checked. Wrists straight on every hand strike; ankle tight on every kick. A bending wrist or folding ankle at power is a stop signal: drop the power, fix the alignment, build back.