Dec 16 Dennis Jones – Dojo Sparring is Useless for the Street…

This interview was recorded in July 2005

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

SR  Hi Den, we were going to talk about some trouble you experienced and it’s relation to dojo sparring….

DJ  That’s right, years ago I was working at a pub and two guys were trying to get in. One was aged about 35yrs and his friend about 19years.  One of the other bouncers stopped the older man who was in front; he was holding a walking stick that looked very similar to a swordstick and he definitely didn’t have a bad leg! I also knew that he had previously threatened someone with a knife in the pub. None of us are superhuman and we all know that weapons change the state of play.

SR  They certainly do….

DJ  The older guy ignored what was said and pushed the bouncer out the way and came in. I was in his way and stopped both him and his friend. I was very polite and respectful but that didn’t count for anything. He turned on me and delivered a torrent of verbal abuse. He was a master at this kind of provocation and had previously intimidated others and was very confident.

I won’t go into detail but the point is that the whole ‘physical encounter’ only lasted literally five or six seconds. I was on my own and luckily managed to render both of them unconscious before I got hurt.

I was thinking about this incident on Sunday at the honbu where I run a small class for security personnel and some of the students wanted to experience some ‘sparring’.  I have to say that however we did it, even with body armour, padding etc– in no way did it represent what happens out on the street!  In the past when I and my students have really ‘gone for it’ and we’ve toyed with hitting and grappling of all kinds, we’ve found it impossible to recreate ‘what really happens’.

Dojo sparring is ‘hard training’ and can be very good for you providing you don’t get injured.  Eventually you just develop excellent sparring techniques. For example, I would always use my left jab to hold opponents at bay, setting them up for my right hand.  Yet in every real fight I’ve ever had, I’ve just hit.  I don’t think of feints or ‘tricks’ and I don’t even try and hit as hard as I can. When it all begins, I think only of ‘destroying my enemy’. Thankfully, I left my sparring techniques in the past and at the dojo, because if I hadn’t, I think life would’ve been a lot harder.

SR  That’s why I use very little ‘dojo sparring’ because I don’t want the students to develop bad habits for self defence, I don’t teach sport karate at all.

DJ  I agree with that.  If you want to do competitions you must train for competitions. Dojo sparring makes you good at sparring but will give reactions that are wholly inappropriate in the street.  Many years ago when I first practised Kyokushinkai karate we were allowed an element of grabbing in our sparring, but even that was removed and replaced largely by ‘trapping’ as a way of holding your opponent. I think this was to pave the way to make Kyokushinkai Knockdown more entertaining and appealing to the public.

You will react the way that you train.  One of my students practiced a particular form of martial arts for about 7 years, I won’t name the style, but he won one of their tournaments using my style of punching, the following year, that way of punching was banned!  He was told it wasn’t the correct way to punch and it wouldn’t work on the street!

SR  Do you think their skills may give purely sport practitioners a false sense of security?

DJ  That’s exactly what happens – and I really don’t understand why they think that way.  Martial artists seem to think that they will be able to adapt what they’ve learned for the street and often have far too much confidence.  What they don’t understand is that a street fighter who’s had a lot of street fights is also going to be confident in his domain. Remember an experienced street fighter will have done some training and will tend to be fighting in a ‘Natural Style’. With him it will be pure instinct.  When I first started on the doors many years ago I used to think that any good martial artist would be able to handle street fighters –  I certainly don’t think that now!

SR  I think the best bit of advice that I got from my first karate instructor was that ‘everybody bleeds’.

DJ  That’s exactly right and I’d add that everybody bleeds fear!  I remember in the early ‘80’s meeting a karate instructor in the late Judge Dread’s martial arts shop in Strood after I’d been bouncing for about a year.  He was so confident – they say the confidence of an amateur is the envy of a professional and I’d agree.  I’d been in some battles by that time and I remember thinking “I wish it was as easy as he seems to think!”  He was so convinced that he had a ‘killer’ chudan tsuki and that he would have to ‘temper’ his technique so that he didn’t kill someone – and I was thinking that he had absolutely no sense of reality. He said he would never get angry because that made you weaker, he’d be calm and wait for the right moment and defeat the opponent. I’d recently dealt with a pregnant woman who had been sexually abused by a group of guys in the nightclub and when this instructor was saying about how you had to control your temper, I asked him what he would do if this happened to his wife if he’d been present – and guess what?  He lost his temper while he was telling me what he would do to those guys!

SR  Talking about the late Judge Dread’s shop I remember talking to a Kyokushin guy around the same time as that incident about using a  punch bag, I was telling him that I push the bag away and stand in its place and hit it so that it was always wanting to take my space, and he told me that he used to swing the bag away and let it hit him in the face! When I asked why, he said that you had to get used to being hit in the face!  Another Shotokan guy was telling me that he only knew that he was doing a good technique when his karategi cracked

DJ  (Laughter)… There certainly were some ‘nutters’ around at that time!  That’s like getting shot in firearms practise to see what getting shot feels like!  I don’t want to get hit in the face, that’s why I hit people quickly!

I’ve seen martial arts trained people fall apart at the drop of a hat out in the street, the moment they feel threatened and fear and adrenaline creep in they often revert to the techniques of a white belt.  This is why I say you have to train with the right kind of mind and natural movement.  This is one of the reasons why I hit ‘off a curve’.

SR  I see self confidence as a mountain, it’s something that you build and it’s on the surface, the problem with building self confidence is that it’s something that can be taken away.  Knowing yourself by comparison is more like an iceberg, 90% is under the surface.  Good training is learning to know exactly who you are and what you can and can’t do.  It’s realistic.

We think in principles, our martial arts are principle led.  Martial artists who think in techniques can never make them happen in a real fight.  The moment the situation goes ‘out of their box’, they go to pieces.  Techniques are merely expressions of the principles, if the principles are in place; whatever you do is right, break one in the opponent and the others topple.  It’s a proper strategic way of thinking and training.  If you’re looking to apply a technique in a dynamic situation – you’re bound to fail.

DJ  And to confirm that Steve, I’ll add the words of Miyamoto Musashi:

 “When an excessive number of sword moves are taught, it must be to commercialise the art and impress beginners…it is essential that the physical aspect and the mental state both be simple and direct…”

SR  Thank you Dennis.

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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