On one of the several Facebook Jeet Kune Do group, there is currently a 'discussion' on hand before foot when punching. I put discussion in brackets as the poster of the questions appears to be fully convinced that moving hand and foot together (or even a foot a fraction earlier) is better (more powerful) including various example videos. (the group in question is JKD talk, look it up if you so desire) and it is starting to take on levels of 'trolling'.
So let me explain why hand before foot. The human eye has poor depth perception, and to register depth, it required multiple points of reference. Moving a fist towards someone's face in a perfectly straight line results in the person not seeing the movement until it's well underway, and differences in the position of the fist vs the rest of the arm or the torso of the opponent become more obvious. All this takes place in a split second of course but that is exactly the reason, to beat the opponent to it. To hit before they can respond or before their response/defence is fully developed.
If you step forward at the same time, the entire body has so many reference points for us observers, that you will notice almost immediately.
The straight lead, is very much based on the above principles, and they come from fencing. A fencer will trust his epee forward to the opponent before he himselves moves, a very deceptive way of striking.
You'll hopefully understand that this principle is very effective when you have to bridge a gap between you and the opponent in order to land the hit.
A common mistake however is that people end up landing the fist with a completely outstretched arm, almost like superman. This is a case of the wrong timing/distance judgement. Whilst the fist is the first to land, you have to ensure that there is at least about an inch or two left of the arm 'extension' to complete, as well as some of the hip rotation, before the leadfoot lands.
This will ensure that the forces involved with the arm extension and the rotation of the hip all contribute to the power of the strike. If these are already completed on the moment of impact, all you are left with is the linear force produced by your footwork x your body mass. (force=mass*acceleration(speed)).
These factors are often poorly understood. You need to combine the forces of your footwork, with that of the arm and hips to maximise the impact. This takes time and lots of repetition to get right, and for that purpose it is important to try to train this slowly.
How to do it:
From your guard position with your hand in a neutral (almost horizontally) position (this way it starts from underneath the peripheral vision of your opponent, giving him even less reaction time).
Start extending your arm (nothing else!), once this is extended almost halfway, you start to add hiprotation, and a fraction later you push off the rear foot. This second half of the movement is difficult to do slow as you can't overcome gravity, you'll just have to complete the movement at normal speed.
However it is important to train the start of the punch slowly, to really develop the neural pathways/signals to execute the punch correctly. And do this repeatedly. Once you can do that without thinking, you slowly start to speed up the first half of the movement. There is no other way, step by step, slowly increasing. The moment you sense you're ending up doing it at the same time, slow down and start again. You don't need (and I recommend you don't!) to spend hours on it. Spend 5 minutes on it, maybe a few times per day where you have a moment available. Do this consistently and regularly, several times per week. That teaches your nervous system much more effective than one longer session (if you do spend longer, spend that time on other aspects of JKD training, but start with the fine motorskills such as the above when you are fresh and fully focussed, doing it at the end of a session will result in less focus, you're physically and mentally tired so you risk doing it wrong)
If you have a target (bag, or someone holding a glove for you), then start using this to practice on and take care of the moment of contact, the arm should still be in it's final phase of extending, the hips in the final phase or rotation, and the leadfoot not yet landed to ensure all forces are present in the impact!.
Don't have the arm too far bend on contact because then the remaining extension happens when your leadfoot is already on the floor, and the punch becomes a push! A way to get the fist landing correctly is to try and aim for the palm of the hand that is holding a focusglove, not the surface of the focus glove itself. That will result in a penetration of approx 1-2" in the final extension.(so aim through the glove (just)).
These are all small but very important details, don't skip them, focus, and get it right!
Walk On!
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