What makes a good grip? It's not a too strong either a too soft grip. A good grip applies an amount of energy equally proportional to the thing it wants. The harder the thing, the stronger the grip. We do it unconsciously with all the things we handle every day. And ideally we should do it also with bigger things like everyday attitude to problems or life goals. This is what tenouchi, the martial art holds.
The next fragments are from http://earlyretirementextreme.com/tenouchi-and-appropriate-action.html
Within the martial arts tenouchi is a fairly high level concept which literally means “inside of hand” (te/hand no/of uchi/inside) and which can be translated as grip. Understanding grip is obviously very important. What I offer here are just some general observations as they pertain to two-handed cutting weapons and how those observations translate into a couple of “life-lessons”. However, it should be clear how understanding grip is also important to the archer or in hand-to-hand combat; in particular in the latter understanding your opponent’s tenouchi will be important. The grip must be appropriate for what the sword is doing. When it is striking, the grip only need to be strong enough to hang onto the sword. (This leaves room for a quick reversal without working against yourself). Only when the sword hits must the grip be strong. Again, this is very awkward because a sword is a strange thing to handle. However, we do it quite naturally when we pick things up. Go ahead and pick something up. You’ll note you use exactly as much force as you need to to pick it up. No more no less. You aren’t squeezing the object despite not even thinking about it, nor is the object slipping out of your hand. Now move the object around from side to side or up and down. Note again how you subconsciously apply a little bit more force every time it changes direction. This is actually a tremendously hard thing to do. Humans can do it with a fragile thing like an egg without even thinking about it. Programming a machine to do the same is hard. It is the same for a sword. If we had been born with swords in hands and we spent as much time cutting things as we did picking things up and moving them around, our tenouchi, our grip on the sword, would be appropriate as well. The important thing to remember is that when the sword is “powered up”, it is my understanding that you’re committed to the motion. The key then is to only apply the minimum amount of power to get the job done—with a sharp sword, that’s astoundingly little. Yet, when considering “real life” our “grip” on things is often surprisingly inappropriate. Often too much force is applied. We build our houses too big, our transportation too fast, our food to full of fat and sugar. (We don’t seem to go about things in a way that is too small or too weak so I’m not going to comment on that problem.) When too much force is applied it is impossible to remain nimble or reverse course in the face of counter strikes. The worst part is that we are often the ones working against ourselves thus preventing us from action. This is a problem with our “reality”-tenouchi so to speak. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t have a good grip on reality—it is after all where all of us have spent all of our life(**)—yet it seems that this is not actually the case.
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