Favorite Heavy Bag Combinations

[grzegorz]

No doubt one can't learn tingjin from a bag, but the same is true for hitting sand, brick, or wood, or standing for a long time, or doing a form. It takes "four hands" to learn tcc, at a minimum. However, I don't recall anyone mentioning tingjin as the object of heavy bag training.

Exactly!

Not sure how tingjing even came up.

As the OP I definitley wasn't saying about tingjin.

[grzegorz]

The fact is, most or all of the top ranked combat fighters use the heavy bag.

Let me guess... this is a sort of trick question... They use the heavy bag to practice tingjin skill? Am I right? What prize did I win?

But sure, if you like fighting with gloves and combat sports that utilise gloves, yes practice punching on a heavy bag is a very good idea....
Though I didn't know that tingjin was a boxing skill and peng a boxing concept...

After being on the RSF I have started to like boxing more and more. Because threads like this make IMA look more and more like western boxing....

Well Bao, I saw many IMA and other CMA people hitting stuff in China; rocks, poles, trees, etc...although not so much in the West probably because in the West it was marketed differently.

If you don't lke hitting anything that is fine. But I get a lot of it and when I did attend boxing gym they were very impressed with my power as a newbie off of the street. I am not trying to toot my own horn but skill came completely from CMA.

[Bao]

If you don't hitting anything that is fine. But I get a lot of it and when I did attend boxing gym they were very impressed with my power as a newbie off of the street. I am not trying to toot my own horn but skill came completely from CMA.

I prefer working with a partner holding a sturdy kicking protection, someone that can judge and comment on what he feel that you are strong or weak. The thing is that if you work with IMA, you sometimes work with quite different mechanics than many other arts. We work with coordination and posture in a very detailed way. You can't just "try to hit harder". You need to learn how to coordinate all small details while remembering "song" and supporting the body correctly on impact. But sometimes we forget small details on posture, movement and transition. It's hard to judge yourself when working alone, you can get stuck from messing up details or food yourself that you do it better than you do. But he will feel very clearly when everything works or when something is wrong. Together you can help each other figure out problems, how to do things even better etc.

---

But I do appreciate bag work for power practice, learning how to really penetrate the bag, getting better on how to create some real damage, i.e. finishing methods. But practicing "combos" is something I have hard to see any use of from an IMA perspective. In IMA, you work mostly from contact and any combo starts from first taking any kind of contact. I have a feeling that many people have a boxing or a general sparring mind set where you close in from distance by the use of different strikes and kicks in combination. Closing in by reaching for contact can also be a matter of striking and kicking, sure. But the main goal should IMO still be not striking for the sake of striking, but then instead striking reaching for contact for control, qinna, takedowns, throws and set ups for finishing methods.
... Hope that all of this made sense ... I am not against bag work, but against disregarding the genuine strategy and tactics these systems were built for.

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[grzegorz]

Well your comments seemed to be saying otherwise.

If you want to work on striking someone, clinching and tackling someone, grappling with someone and then joint locking them then that is fine. In my experience and every fight I have seen personally everything started with strikes and ended with strikes, except for once when a crowbar was used to whack someone over the head. If I were to get in a fight my choice would be to use my striking.

Like I was saying do as you wish but why de-rail a thread which is clearly about heavy bags? It would be like me popping up on a qinna thread saying just kick them in the head.

As far as having someone hold a shield and tell me what they feel I have done all of that too. These things are all a part of training but I don't necessarily see one as better than the other or see the heavy bag for sports only, in fact I do a lot of palm strikes on my bag which is my preferred strike for the head.

In fact the only reason heavy bags are not more common in CMAs is most likely because they were hard to find in China much like kettlebells were difficult to find in the West until recently.

[grzegorz]

Same goes for Mr. Walker. If I wanted to discuss ting jing I would have started a push hands thread.

[C.J.W.]

Before you come to any conclusions about the things that you believe you already know, my suggestion would be to talk to CMA/IMAists worth their salt and find out more about WHY all those CMA/IMA guys you saw in China were hitting fixed, hard objects with little or no give such as trees, poles, and rocks as opposed to ones that are soft and free-swinging like heavy bags......

[johnwang]

When you punch

- into the thin air, no matter how much power that you can generate, your power will disappear into the thin air. You don't get any "feed back" from your power.
- on a heavy bag, your counter force will come back to yourself. You can get "feed back" from your power through your heavy bag.

IMO, to take the counter force back into your body is a very important part of the CMA training. One day when you are 80 years old, if you can still throw 200 jab and cross on your heavy bag, 40 front kicks, 40 side kicks, 40 roundhouse kicks, 40 elbows, 40 knees, ... not only your body is still strong outside, your body will be strong inside as well.

[daniel pfister]

When you punch

- into the thin air, no matter how much power that you can generate, your power will disappear into the thin air. You don't get any "feed back" from your power.

This is a false statement. If you throw a punch at full force "into the thin air" the antagonist muscles need to activate at the end of the movement to prevent joint injury. For an intense punching workout, soreness in the bicep is often experienced as that muscle needs to absorb the power generated by the rest of the body.

When using a bag, the bag will absorb much of the force so the antagonist muscles don't need to. So the feedback experienced will be different, mostly in the agonist muscles like the chest and triceps when using the bag. Some would argue that not using a bag exercises the body more, as force needs to be generated at least twice. Once to throw the punch, and once to stop it from over extending.

[johnwang]

Some would argue that not using a bag exercises the body more, ...

Are you talking about fight or are you talking about health? If you don't knock down your opponent in sparring. If you also don't punch on your heavy bag, how will your know that you have "knock down power"?

- In throwing art, you can throw your opponent down 1000 times and he won't get hurt.
- In striking art, if you just knock down your opponent once, he won't be your training partner any more. The heavy bag is the only tool that a striker can develop his knock down power.

The force that

- will disappear into the thin air will be useless force.
- can hit on your opponent's body will be the useful force.

In CMA, you train 筋骨皮 muscle, bone, skin outside and train Qi inside. If you don't hit on solid object, how will you train your "皮 skin"?

I have a 80 lb throwing dummy that's not in good condition for throwing any more. I may hang it on a tree and use it to replace my 100 lb heavy bag instead. Has anyone used the throwing dummy as heavy bag?

[Steve James]

Hmm, the bag offers resistance. Different size bag, difference levels of resistance. True, punching into the air is exercise; but, adding the resistance of a bag increases the level of exercise --in a way that punching into thin air cannot. For ex., there are 300+lb bags that are not easy to swing. If you can move the bag with a punch, kick, or shoulder, you can probably move a 300lb guy. Of course, simply trying to move that bag will increase the power of that technique --Or, teach one how to use power efficiently. The same is true if one is a wrestler and practices throws. Sure, one can throw an imaginary opponent and get a great workout.

[johnwang]

Sure, one can throw an imaginary opponent and get a great workout.

Agree! Again, if you don't care about fighting and you only care about health and get a great workout, why do you even care about "power generation" at all?

You can have 3 choices:

1. Punch on your opponent's head and throw your opponent's body.
2. Punch on your heavy bag and throw your throwing dummy.
3. Punch into the thin air and throw an imaginary opponent.
4. Sit on your chair and do nothing.

IMO, 1 > 2 > 3 > 4

[daniel pfister]

Hmm, the bag offers resistance.

The resistance of punching into the air is offered by your own body. The more power you generate with the punch, the stronger the stopping power must be. Otherwise you'd dislocate your joint.

Think of beng quan. The more power you use to explode off of the back leg, the more force the front leg has to absorb in order to "brake" that movement. Without that stopping power, you'd fall forward.

I'm merely saying that there is resistance in both types of training. Suggesting that "punching into thin air" is only a health exercise is rather short-sighted.

[Steve James]

The resistance of punching into the air is offered by your own body. The more power you generate with the punch, the stronger the stopping power must be. Otherwise you'd dislocate your joint.

That's muscular resistance, though, and there is a practical and Newtonian limit. I.e., sure, it takes an equal amount of energy to stop a punch that it took to issue that punch. That, however, has nothing to do with the amount of energy exerted by the punch or increasing the punch's power. If that were true, then weightlifters would only use imaginary weights.

Secondly, punching in the air gives one absolutely no physical feedback with regard to technique. One has actually no effect on the air, and one cannot tell what the effect would be on any opponent. Though, one could imagine that one's air punching was so powerful that no human could withstand it. How could ya?

This is not to say that shadow boxing and punching in air aren't useful training tools. They absolutely are. EVERY western trained boxer does it.

[Bao]

The resistance of punching into the air is offered by your own body. The more power you generate with the punch, the stronger the stopping power must be. Otherwise you'd dislocate your joint.

Feeling your own force or stopping power is the opposite to practice penetrative destructive power. If you feel your own force, it means that the force stops in your own body. When you hit a bag properly with penetrative power, you never have a stopping power. It's the opposite around, you need to relax on impact and use posture to support the body from not be affected by the resistance or the returning force. So trying to hit the air with power, IMHO, build bad habit more than anything else. You really need a bag or similar to achieve destructive power that can go deep inside an opponent.

Think of beng quan. The more power you use to explode off of the back leg, the more force the front leg has to absorb in order to "brake" that movement. Without that stopping power, you'd fall forward.

Stopping movement is designed to prevent damage when you practice with speed. And the whole body stopping action teach your body to coordinate the body properly on impact. But evident force is only the beginning in XY, it's there for coordination. The higher level teach no evident force, which means that you remain relaxed when you strike in air, so that your best power won't stop inside your own body, but to be able to leave your body and travel inside your opponent.

People are very funny. Many IMA practitioners believe that soft comes first and practicing power comes second. They fail to realize that it is exactly the relaxed, soft, no tension practice in air that is the power training you get from solo practice. This is exactly the attitude and use of the body that you need to translate into hitting an object with full speed. But you need to practice on bags and similar to be able to realize that the better power you get the less you will feel it.

[origami_itto]

People are very funny. Many IMA practitioners believe that soft comes first and practicing power comes second. They fail to realize that it is exactly the relaxed, soft, no tension practice in air that is the power training you get from solo practice. This is exactly the attitude and use of the body that you need to translate into hitting an object with full speed. But you need to practice on bags and similar to be able to realize that the better power you get the less you will feel it.