Nov 10 Dennis Jones – The Character of a Doorman…

This interview was recorded in January 2005

Steve Rowe talks to doorman and Shi Kon martial artist Dennis Jones…

SR  Hi Den, it seems that every high street pub and club has a couple of doormen guarding the entrance nowadays, do you think that there’s a particular make up to a doorman’s character?

DJ  There are ‘types’ – and door work is constantly referred to as the ‘testing ground’ of martial arts.  Some people see doormen as brainless idiots and to be honest, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some real top class ‘diamonds’ and also some strange people!

SR  What type of training do you think that doormen should have.

DJ  Good manners are essential, coupled with a fortitude and strength of character.  When you look at any door crew you’ll normally find a few good ‘steely’ guys there and they tend to ‘hold’ back a bit – and although they appear to be ‘standing back’ there’s something about them.  Then you get those who like to dish out the crap to normal 18 – 19yr old college kids who’re just there for a night out and ignore the older ‘harder’ thugs who they know shouldn’t be in the club who act rough, speak rough and are going to be trouble.  These troublemakers walk in and the doormen make out they haven’t noticed them! Yet they still keep on giving the ordinary customers a hard time.

Anyone that knows me cannot say that I’ve not done my job.  No one is invincible but you have to do your job based on right and wrong.  Why bully decent people and then not stop troublemakers?  They are the type of person that shouldn’t be on the door.

SR  They give doormen a bad name?

DJ  Exactly – and we don’t need them.  When it ‘goes off’ on the door – they disappear and then make up all sorts of excuses. When they are doing their rounds at the end of the evening you’ll see them walk round in a certain way asking everyone to drink up but will avoid the thugs who are still drinking and shouldn’t have got into the club in the first place!  They’ll pretend they haven’t seen them and tell everybody else off!

SR  What are your views on the new national doorman scheme of training and qualification?

DJ   This was first mooted in the ‘70’s and has been introduced by an MP whose son, I believe, was attacked by a doorman.  The fact is that the laws are already in place to deal with ‘rogue’ doormen.  Nobody has a right to hit somebody else other than in self defence. It appears that some people want us to become a secondary police force-very European. Doormen must know and work within the principles of the law, but don’t need to become police informants.  The primary function of a doorman is to keep the Queens peace, if possible without violence. 

We can do that, by prohibiting entry to potentially violent people and by talking to people and stopping trouble – as Sun Tsu said:  “…to subdue the enemy without fighting is the greatest victory of all.” then we’ve done our job.

SR  I used to lecture to industrial security personnel on their powers of arrest search and questioning, use of force and so on, do you not think that some kind of standardised training would help?

DJ  Yes I do, I think role playing and so on would be helpful, because very few people realise what kind of trouble we actually get on nightclub doors.  The powers associated with running licensed premises and the citizens powers of arrest are important for every doorman to know.  We have to realise that we are not a police force and not start conducting investigations and so on, the role is really quite simple.  We normally arrest for ‘breach of the peace’ and simply wait for the police to attend.

I think where doormen might come unstuck in the future is when clubs start getting sued for unlawful searches, unlawful detention and so on..

SR  So you think it could be a good thing?

DJ  It could be, but I am worried about the data protection of our personal details.  If it’s not secure and someone wants to …  ‘influence’ a doorman at a certain club by obtaining his personal details, it could be too easy.

Some clubs are asking the doorman to wear their names on badges – that’s bizarre!  Policeman don’t wear their names on badges, so why should doormen?  So there are issues to be addressed there.

The other thing to remember is that in English law it’s not an offence to do nothing.  If as a doorman I stood and watched someone get a good hiding I’m not breaking the law.  So there has to be an understanding between the police, the licensing authorities and the doormen as to where they’re going in the future…

SR  What about the doormen and martial arts training?

DJ  You hear lots of stories about martial artists working on the door and getting beaten up.  Martial arts don’t make you invincible.  They are your personal battle.  If you want to become a champion at any sport you have to put in some hard training to make it. And that’s the strange thing about a lot of people. Everyone knows that to be good at football, tennis or any sport you have to work hard at it. But when it comes to fighting…

Well, there are people in clubs and pubs who think they can fight. Up and down the country these people stuff themselves with beer and crisps and fags and sometimes drugs and talk as if they are experts!  I think a good thing that ‘no holds barred’ fighting has done is to demonstrate the amount of training that’s required to fight in that manner.

Many people knock the ‘average’ martial arts clubs and their training saying that it won’t work in the street, but at least that’s better than sitting on your backside in a boozer drinking and smoking and will give you some kind of a chance.  In a martial arts club at least you’re getting healthier and fitter and developing some skills.  A pub is the only place that’s full of people that are convinced that you get better by more drinking and smoking! (laughter)  The verbal diarrhoea that emanates from a pub door is unbelievable; everyone seems to know someone who can do this and that… There are times that I’ve even been threatened with me!

SR  So you think martial arts training helps doormen?

DJ  I know some doormen that are incredibly good without ever doing martial arts, some are just good communicators, but it’s certainly useful to have something to back it up! 

I’ve known doormen to be brave together and frightened together.  The problem can be that both fear and bravery can be infectious.

SR  …Occasionally when a ‘situation’ occurs doormen stand back. I know that one or two doormen do nothing because they’re not fazed or worried about what’s going on, it’s not a problem for them, the others stand back because…

DJ  They’ve lost their courage; then all the excuses come out. But the funny thing is, most seem to think that (all) the doorman standing with them, because nothing was done, also lost their bottle. They can’t imagine anything else.

SR Fear as Musashi said is infectious…

DJ Perhaps the following story of how fear is infectious might help some readers.

This guy came up to me and nervously asked me to work at a pub for him because there were some ‘really nasty guys’ in there and that they were causing a lot of trouble.  The previous week they had smashed someone’s face with a pool cue and they needed me in to stop them from coming in.

I asked him where he had got his information from and he said that it was ‘good information’ and that the person who had told him was there at these incidents and I again asked who it was.  Eventually he admitted it came from the woman that worked behind the bar and that she knew them because one of them was her ex boyfriend.

It turns out that she was putting her fears on to him and he was inadvertently attempting to pass them on to me!  This kind of ‘infectious fear’ happens a lot when you’re a ‘bouncer.’

This is why I found the Martial Arts classics like ‘Hagakure’ and ‘The Art of War’ so helpful, they didn’t talk about technique but how to handle yourself in these kind of situations.

SR  Thank you Dennis

DJ Thank you Steve.

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

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