I was doing a commercial for chinese class, and decided to use some footage of me hitting a heavy bag. Obviously, I'm psyched to have people pore over it and see what the big issues are. So have away.

http://web.mit.edu/mao/Public/bagwork.wmv

Here's a list of things I've already noticed, roughly in order of badness.

Elbow flare on punches.
Not snapping punches back to guard.
Not returning kicks to stance.
Not covering face during kicks.
Stance too square.

I didn't really do any hooks or body shots because I wasn't wearing gloves and didn't want to hit all out. I thought the wraps would look more 'hardcore' for the commercial.

pet hate of mine - pulling the hand back to the body after punching rather than returning it to the guard..

to critique it, we kind of need to know what youre training for ie if its full contact, youre not hitting hard enough, etc...

i saw only three hands and feet combos. usually it was punch, punch, punch and then move a little and kick.

and, you needa heavier bag to compliment this one.

to critique it, we kind of need to know what youre training for ie if its full contact, youre not hitting hard enough, etc...
I'm training for kickboxing rules matches, I suppose.
Yeah, I wasn't very happy with how hard I was hitting, but I didn't try to hit 100% because of no gloves. I didn't hit hard with my left kick because it sucks.


i saw only three hands and feet combos. usually it was punch, punch, punch and then move a little and kick.

and, you needa heavier bag to compliment this one.
Yeah, I do need to instinctively put kicks into combinations.

I dunno what to do about the bag. I can't really afford a nice leather heavy bag.

with a bag moving that much, it sets you up nicely for lots of kicks set up by punchs.

I liked your hand speed (reminded me that I need to get back into training) and fluidity. The hands when kicking seemed like an issue, and not a lot of variety in combos (I know you didn't wanna throw hooks and uppercuts, but coulda worked the double jab more).

Why does your heavy bag have a condom? =P

with a bag moving that much, it sets you up nicely for lots of kicks set up by punchs.
It's true. I felt pretty good about the distancing when ending combos with kicks.



Why does your heavy bag have a condom? =P
A while back, I managed to put a horizontal tear in the bag, so I was advised to duct tape the hell out of it, which made it really hard. I wasn't used to the stinging, so I put a layer of cloth around it to deaden it a little.

How heavy was the bag?

Looked alright to me I guess. The lack of body shots detracted though.

It's a 70lber.

From your comments, it looks like you know what you need to work on. Personally, I don't think your stance is too square. Needs some fine-tuning, but I thought it looked okay.

Might wanna learn some punch combos.
all my combos end in hooks, so i didn't get to throw any here.


From your comments, it looks like you know what you need to work on.
From the comments here, I think I'll go off and work on three things:
1) ending combos with kicks
2) hands covering during kicks
3) less elbow flare

It's my opinion, but it might not be anyone else's, that practice, any practice, should have an overal goal. So what were you trying to accomplish? What were you working on?

1) Perfecting your individual striking techniques?
2) Improving your power?
3) Build your striking cardio?
4) Simulated sparring/Shadowboxing with a heavy bag?
5) Developing combinations?
6) Improving you footwork?

If you say that none of these were really your goals, and that you were simply demonstrating your abilities, then I would encourage you to spend some time perfecting your individual techniques.

Good luck!

what about more variety in the kicks? all i saw was roundhouse kicks to the head.

also, the level of wandy faces on your body is kind of disturbing

- Get rid of the trash around the bag so you can stick and move more.

- step forward *on* the jab, not before.

- work the rear foot pivot on the cross more deliberately.

- Don't be so lazy stepping out of range.

Nice vid.

I am glad you moved the bag onto a different stand. You had it way to close to the stand, Because of that, you were pulling your kicks because your body was afraid to hit your leg on the steel. Get that bag way away from everything so you can move 360 around it.

Number your strikes. 1=jab 2=cross 3= hook 4= kicks etc, then get a dry erase board and write down the numbers 1,2,2, duck/cover, 4, mix it all up.

Get a timer and time your bag workout. Set it for two minutes and go all out, full power on everything (do this at the end of your techincal work out)

Throw more feints and false kicks in from time to time.

Try setting your kicks up with your punches to set your range. When fighting a real person, it is very difficult to land a kick unless it starts in puching range (unless of course, they have no foot work, but you need to train to fight good to great fighters, you can already beat the crappy ones, don't train to fight them, train to take out the good ones that is an improtant mental aspect of training).

Punch then kick. Most fighters will at least back up when you try to punch them, if you kick then punch and they get away from the kick, they are already way to far away to get hit with a punch, you gotta have some Sugar Ray Lenard foot work to catch them then, and we ain't no Sugar Ray!) So train to kick in punching range.

Get out of kicking range when you are not kicking or punching!! You don't want to get hit or kicked AT ALL in a fight, so train like it with the heavy bag, if you dance around in kicking/ punching range while not throwing combos at the bag, your going to do it in the ring too, get away and learn to set up your entry into kicking/punching range with false starts and feints.

Your foot movement (read: body mechanics) while hitting looked good, to get more power, just isolate power. Hit that bag with just one punch (jab or cross or hook) and just hit that bag as hard as you can stand to, the reason you are not hitting hard is because it hurts, you have to get your hands used to hitting hard, the pain will go away after a while and you can hit harder for longer.

That should keep you busy for a while. To learn to keep your dang hands up, have your buddy put on some gloves and hit you in the face everytime you dont bring your hands back to cover, you will break that habit real fast. (TELL HIM NOT TO HIT YOU TOO HARD! Its just to REMIND you, not take a cheap shot)

Oh, one more thing, tie that bag up (clinch) and throw some hard knees and elbows, simulate the clinch and the take down.

You are on your way to kickin some can if you do all that!! There is allot more to training with a heavy bag, but there is enough here to keep you improving for the next 6 months if you train it all.

To add another voice - just my opinion:

I'd work on returning to a good stance after throwing every hit - it looked like you actually switched lead there a few times.

It was great that you filmed it from so many angles. I'd watch the elbow flare - you really need your elbows down and in to get your drive behind them.

Might be an idea to get used to training in gloves, because hitting a (heavy) heavy bag really hard with just wraps = damaged hands.

And yeah, stepping on the jab.


Good vid.