Right, that makes a lot of sense. After 3 times of reading, i'm thinkin' i'm knowin' wot you're meanin'.

I'll try the move in thing, sounds good.

If i'm honest with you after two or three GOOD rounds on the bag i'm pushing the 'punch' in. But thats just(!) a fitness thing, can be sorted. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/frown.gif[/IMG]

When i'm relatively fresh I can get the bag to 'jump' rather than swing and I take this as a good indicator of a hit rather than a push. BUT it takes focus, which come to think of it is probably the root of the matter?

So in conclusion it is quite possibly mental lazyness.

Right, i'm off to find a bag.

Thanks

Alec.

Don't throw a punch unless you mean it (or if you don't mean it, it should be on purpose!).

If you get tired concentrate on keeping your guard up and moving around the target. Then throw small combos - Jab, cross or Jab, cross, hook. But don't go mad just return to your guard, keep moving and repeat.

Your fitness will catch up to the point where you can keep combos going throughout a round, I think its better to do ten proper combos in 3 mins than do 10 proper and 20 sloppy.

Remember the 5 P's 'Perfect Practice Prevents Poor Performance. If you get used to punching sloppy, you punch sloppy. If you don't know how to punch sloppy, you can't punch sloppy!

yeah definitely work on the details of the techniques; what helped me to keep my elbow slightly bent was to think that my fist is just a weapon, but the power comes from the ground through my hips. good stances, footwork, balance and grounding make or break your punches. power doesn't originate from the arm itself. thinking that, i do lots of heavy bag work in my training and haven't hurt myself in years.
i also learned from the experience of breaking boards. if i mentally shift away from hitting the board, to hitting through down below, then i do not hurt myself. same with the bag.

Well most of this has probably been said already but just to throw in my two pence worth.
It sounds like a simply case of "impact reliance" to me. By that i mean that when hitting the bag, you are relying on a combination of correct distancing and your experience of the give of the bag relative to your known punching power with each technique to declerate and stop your arm before you hyperextend the joint. When hitting the air you know you don't have this luxury and therefore you lock the arm at the correct extention. This trend would also to my mind tend to indicate that you are limiting the power of your punches on the bag. In saying this, I mean that you are clearly relying upon the initialy contact and mass of the bag to trigger and assist in deceleration of the technique. In fact you should be hitting through the bag and metaphoricaly finishing the technique on the far side of the bag. With this in mind and removing the mental crutch that you have been employing, the bag should idealy as suggested move away from your point of impact and your techique should end as near to where it would of had the bag been made of paper and you had blasted right through it. A confused explanation I'm afraid but I hope it makes some sense.

Regds
Mr V

Don't throw a punch unless you mean it (or if you don't mean it, it should be on purpose!).

Confused me at first, but with a little thought, i think i know exactly what you mean. Sounds like good advice. I'll try and bear it in mind.

A confused explanation I'm afraid but I hope it makes some sense.

Yes and Yes. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/wink.gif[/IMG]

I think i'm with you.

I may have some difficulty with the whole hitting through thing, mainly because of the weight of some of the bags. I realise that this shouldn't change the technique, but a really heavy solid bag makes it a bit more difficult to focus on the paper analogy. Having said that, I readily accept the validity of what you are saying.

I hope it'll just be a matter of correct and appropriate repetition now!

Thanks

Alec

Often the fear of turning your wrist when we punch a heavy bag limits the power we put into a punch.

Get some wrist wraps, and put them on tight so you cant bend your wrist, i find most students can almost instantly hit harder.

mark

Also dont forget is critical to keep in mind...
punching the air is different then punching a bag....
punching a bag is didfferent than punching a person.

Its easy to get into "bag" mentality. We had one school in our assocation spend a great deal of time for awhile focusing on bag work. we found in high level testing that these students tended to have a higher propensity to drive in to the attack ( more aggrressive with their punching) but didn't have the targeting, follow thru, or transitional capabilities of the students who used a mix of air/real contact training.. think the moral of ths story is to use all of them, and be wary if you become too dependant on
a specific one.

Malachi