Dennis Jones

[puma]

So none of you think you can hit as hard as that? Surely any man can swing at a bag like that. Considering those punches are meant to be 'for real', he only seems to work middle distance. This is the most comfortable position to punch from, especially on a bag. I would have thought up close punches would have been important to him, but then technically they are harder to get power. You can't just swing.

Why the relevance of hitting without gloves Mike?

[d0ugbug]

I'm fairly sure I can hit hard, that was not your original question though! Hitting without gloves is good conditioning.

Also striking at middle range if you KNOW someone wants to attack you why do you want to let them step in so close to you? Granted most situations are up close but people who preach reading people and using the fence as a defensive system all of your strikes would be that distance and no closer

[Mike Flanagan]

Hi Puma

First gloves (or not). Quite simply I don't see many people work a heavy bag without gloves or wraps. And typically when they do (with gloves) there are lots of techniques thrown in that simply wouldn't work without gloves as you'd damage your hand in the process. Working it without gloves (and actually hitting rather than tapping) is unforgiving, you have to get your angles right or you can easily cause yourself damage.

Second, middle distance. I've only watched the 3 videos on this thread so I don't know anything further about his approach. But from these 3 vids I get the impression that he has a specific, consistent approach that works for him. Namely that he disarms the opponent verbally / with body language then pops them with one good shot. I suspect (reading from the vids and knowing a little of his reputation) that he is a master of both this mental disarming and timing. What might seem a crudely telegraphed technique when you're in a sparring environment could be hugely effective if applied with the right setup in a different context (ie. door-work, self-defence). Its like DIY, the secret is in getting the preparation right before starting the actual work.

I presume Dennis has a backup plan and so can work at closer range if his chosen tactic doesn't work, but we're only seeing a snapshot of what he does - the most important part of it granted , but still only a snapshot.

Another point to consider when watching anyone do bag work is what they're focussing on at the time. Are they simulating having a fight, using all of their arsenal in free play, or are they working on specific skills? If its the latter then they might do things that might look odd in a different context.

On a final note, I don't really take too much note of what anyone actually looks like when they're doing their art. I've learnt over time that I really need to feel it to appreciate its value (or lack of). That said, the way he's hitting the bag may look like wild swings, but I can see a linkage between his fist and his core as he strikes most of the time, that says to me that he is delivering power from his centre.

Mike

[puma]

Well Mike, I take your point about the gloves/no gloves, although I am not sure that is entirely true. With gloves you still have to line your wrist correctly, etc. You can't just stick a pair of gloves on and whack a bag full-pelt. You'll still get hurt. I was talking to someone last night actually, and they were of the opinion that if you really whack hard, and you train a lot, you will have wrist injuries anyway sooner or later, as the constant impact will have an effect. Put simply, he said if you hit like Tyson, you wouldn't be able to hit a rock-solid bag that isn't going to budge with too many bare knuckle shots. He said, yeah, maybe a few, but if you keep doing it something has to give. He was of the opinion that yeah, once in a while go without gloves, it is good to use a decent fist, but not all the time. He did acknowledge as well that boxers or people that only use gloves generally don't close their hands properly, and this leads to hand problems that could possibly be avoided. What do you think?

What your focusing on at the time of bag work was an interesting point. One thing I was always told is that when you are throwing, you have to be prepared for the possibility that you may be getting hit at the same time, or slightly before, etc. Or of course you may miss. This is why just swinging at a bag isn't really doing anything. We all know things don't always go as expected. Recovery and positioning is very important, which in this instance seems to be missing.

I don't really agree that he is delivering power from his centre. The reason is, he pulls his punches back and telegraphs them, and this is the sign of an arm punch. If he was hitting from his centre, his body would go first, and there would be no need for that pull back. Telegraphing your shots is a big no-no in any form, and in self-defense situations more so. Any hesitation gets you killed. It would be interesting if someone from GKR or something like that performed this bag work. I wonder what people would say then?

[PASmith]

I would say the same as I said before.
Form not so hot, power and potential street effectiveness as a one shot KO from a fence pretty good.

[Mike Flanagan]

Originally Posted by puma

Well Mike, I take your point about the gloves/no gloves, although I am not sure that is entirely true. With gloves you still have to line your wrist correctly, etc. You can't just stick a pair of gloves on and whack a bag full-pelt. You'll still get hurt. I was talking to someone last night actually, and they were of the opinion that if you really whack hard, and you train a lot, you will have wrist injuries anyway sooner or later, as the constant impact will have an effect. Put simply, he said if you hit like Tyson, you wouldn't be able to hit a rock-solid bag that isn't going to budge with too many bare knuckle shots. He said, yeah, maybe a few, but if you keep doing it something has to give. He was of the opinion that yeah, once in a while go without gloves, it is good to use a decent fist, but not all the time. He did acknowledge as well that boxers or people that only use gloves generally don't close their hands properly, and this leads to hand problems that could possibly be avoided. What do you think?

I've got to agree that gloves don't totally protect you from injury, but its still IME significantly easier to get away with alignment mistakes. I understand that boxers don't close the fist completely, but hey they're playing a particular game and so understandably gear the way they punch for the format of that game. I think you may have a point re: damage happening anyway - if the object you're unhitting is too inflexible or immovable. There's got to be some give or its just a mugs game.

What your focusing on at the time of bag work was an interesting point. One thing I was always told is that when you are throwing, you have to be prepared for the possibility that you may be getting hit at the same time, or slightly before, etc. Or of course you may miss. This is why just swinging at a bag isn't really doing anything. We all know things don't always go as expected. Recovery and positioning is very important, which in this instance seems to be missing.

I'll vary impact exercises myself. For some, focussing on recovery I think is counter-productive for the actual exercise. But if you do exercises like that then I'd say you also need to do plenty in which you do focus on recovery. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by positioning in this context.

I don't really agree that he is delivering power from his centre. The reason is, he pulls his punches back and telegraphs them, and this is the sign of an arm punch. If he was hitting from his centre, his body would go first, and there would be no need for that pull back. Telegraphing your shots is a big no-no in any form, and in self-defense situations more so. Any hesitation gets you killed. It would be interesting if someone from GKR or something like that performed this bag work. I wonder what people would say then?

I'm not going to argue about telegraphing, Dennis' way certainly isn't my way (although I did like quite a lot of what he did on the vids I posted). But I do think he's connecting the punch to his centre. His shoulder is braced appropriately, but most important is the the direction of force through his fist at impact. Its not a completely round swing of the arm (trying to project force at 90 degrees to his own centreline) but rather a more acute angle that's allowing him to partly put his centre behind it. As for the pull back the way I'm reading it - and I could be wrong - is that its not about power generating. I think he's turning away to mentally disarm his opponent (who thinks he's turning to walk off). Only Dennis could answer that question really. That's a tactic that people have tried on me (it worked once when I was 11 years old). Although its a common and therefore easy to predict tactic I could see it working if used at just the right moment in a verbal confrontation.

I think you're probably right that such techniques wouldn't work so well in a one-on-one with a trained martial artist with an agreed start and finish time. But that's not the game Dennis is playing, like the boxer he's gearing his technique for the particular game he's involved in. If I understand correctly, he's knocked lots of people out so he must be doing something right.

Mike

P.S. if he was a GKR student I'd just be impressed that he was hitting the bag at all

[fire cobra]

Originally Posted by puma

On the subject of bags, has anyone ever used a water-filled bag? I was told once Tyson used one, a 200lb one.

Ive used one bro,actually I didnt like the feel of it(and it sprung a leak!) however it must be better for your hands long term than a heavy/hard bag.

[fire cobra]

On the subject of hitting a bag bare knuckle I was messing around inbetween weight sets with a friend/student of mine and he put his phone video on and caught me hitting the bag here it is below..any one like it or dislike it?

YouTube - My Instructor Messing Around

YouTube - My Instructor Messing Around

[PASmith]

I like. Especially the quick double cross. Tricky to get power in that second cross.

[Kwan Jang]

I had not heard of Dennis James before reading this thread and all my knowledge of him comes from this thread and the youtube vids on it. After seeing the first vid of him doing bagwork, I was not impressed. As Puma mentioned, he telegraphs quite a bit and he holds his hands far too low. Though he does at least tuck his chin a bit, his jaw and T-tone are far too exposed. Also, I worked the doors at clubs for three years during college and I can tell you from experience thst while you can gain some valuable experience from that line of work, the majority of the bouncers that I worked with were far from being qualified experts on combat.

Having said that, once I saw the second and third videos, I came to understand more of his approach and the reasoning behind it. Mr. James does focus on superior positioning, he uses his own version of probing that adapts for his enviroment, and even works in the rule of three for combos. We have a lot more in common than I would have guessed by just the first glimpse of him through the "snapshot" of his training through the lens on youtube. It also should be remembered that who a teacher is working with and how much time they have to work with those people makes a huge difference in what and how you are going to teach.

As a similar example, when I first saw Krav Maga's approach to knife disarms and defense, I was utterly unimpressed initially. By that time, I had well over 20 years of training in the FMA's and had worked with several of the best in the business. The things being taught in KM would leave you woefully vulnerable against a skilled knife fighter/Escrimador. However, I was reminded that the purpose of their general training was NOT against a skilled or experienced knife fighter and that the vast majority of the students of KM were not going to have or put the time into developing the skill set necceasry to match my expectations as a guro. They did however do a decent job of accomplishing their goal of gaining a workable training method for people who wanted to be able to apply a usable defense in a short amount of time against more common knife attacks.

Along the same lines, in his seminars, I am certain that Mr. James is giving the people who come in the best he can with the time he has with them and the amount of effort he expects them to take home and work with the material he gives them. There are a few areas that he and I differ from what I saw at this very brief glimpse at his training. I would still try to get students to stay protected during my attacks (chin down, hands up) and I would have them pivot the back foot on their punches.

However, if someone were to judge me and my school from what my students have put on youtube, then most would think that we are all about flash and no substance. We train and teach MMA, but with a strong traditional base. If you look the videos that our teens have posted on youtube, you would see a bunch of martial arts "tricking" even though we have none of it in our curriculum. It's something that some of the teens and young adults will hang out and do after classes or after demo team practice. I don't mind them doing this, but it is not a reflection of what our school is about. Though if you were just peering in through youtube, that would be many people's impression. I am assuming it is much the same for Mr. James' teaching.

One final note regarding the heavy bag. I grew up working the bag with no protective gear and I found it did wonders for keeping good habits in striking. My joke was that during High School, my "girlfriend" was the heavybag since I spent so much time with it (My actual girlfriend during high school was not so amused by this BTW. She was a wonderful and lovely lady that should really not be compared to a bag). As I physically matured and gained an obsene amount of physical strength and striking power, my hands became aware of the advantage of gloves and raps for doing my bagwork. I still work barehanded on the bag roughly 20-30 % of the time though.

[fire cobra]

Originally Posted by PASmith

I like. Especially the quick double cross. Tricky to get power in that second cross.

Thank you for your feedback bro.

[Mike Flanagan]

Hi fire cobra

Nice solid straight right. Wouldn't want to be hit by it. If I have one criticism its that there's a slight telegraph on the first few punches. On a couple of them you hold the shoulder and arm back just for a moment before firing it.

That may sound odd criticism coming from someone who's not criticising Dennis Jones for the same thing. But I think the difference is that you're starting from a more conventional face on (sparring?) position, ie. with your hands in a guard, and throwing quite a straight punch. For my money, from there should only be one direction to go in - forwards (of course, its one thing me saying that but its another thing achieving that in all my techniques myself). The way Dennis is walking around the bag I think is meant to be achieving the element of surprise and confusing the opponent about what's coming. Combined with the round punches its quite a different beast.

Thanks for posting. Like I said, I wouldn't want to be hit by you

[Snoop]

Nice punches Fire cobra, quick hands

Dennis Jones is working on a one punch KO on the street. What would be hopeless telegraphing in a ring needn't be on the street with the right set up.

As to the amount of power he's generating, its a huge amount. Anyone who can't see that has no idea what they're looking at. He hits with incredable force..

[puma]

Oh well, I must have no clue. I spend a lot of time with quite a few people in varied places on bag work and such, and what he generates certainly isn't a hugh amount going by what I see week in, week out, unless of course every single person I work with is some kind of superman, which I doubt. I am guessing he gets away with it to a certain degree because of his reputation. I am fairly sure if it was me or someone you had never heard of doing what he is it would get pulled a part. I have never heard of him, but obviously others have. So I am judging just by what I see, not what I have heard. In any case, even if he is a doorman or whatever, it doesn't really make much difference. I know quite a few. I am good friends of one who has worked the door for 28 years. He says some of the people he works with have reputations which are very misleading. He said one is known as a proper hard-case, but he says nothing could be further from the truth. He said once, just as it was about to kick off, this bouncer decides to go and have a crap. He said the incident was fairly rough, and obviously people heard about it. This guy spent the whole time the trouble was going on in the shi****. So my mate said the next night he hears this other bouncer telling his mates he did this and that, and he said it was complete fantasy! He was in the bog! But obviously his mates were impressed, and he has a reputation for something he is not. My mate said he was a useless bouncer, but people think he is rock-hard.

Not that this Dennis dude is like that. I wouldn't know. All I am saying is it is easy to exaggerate, and make stories a little more impressive than they actually were. I go by what I see.

[Mike Flanagan]

I am guessing he gets away with it to a certain degree because of his reputation. I am fairly sure if it was me or someone you had never heard of doing what he is it would get pulled a part.

To be fair, I probably looked more closely, then went and searched for some other vids, based on the fact that I (vaguely) know he has a reputation for being effective in what he does.

And yes, reputation in door-work does count for a lot. I had a colleague and good friend who prided himself on never having hit anyone. I had to keep saying "Fine, lovely even, just don't let the punters hear you say that!".

Mike