Dale Dugas - Iron Body

[David Jamieson]

Iron body is cool and all that, but how do you condition your head and face? I mean properly condition, like iron face technique or Iron Jaw? In full contact, that’s pretty much the part that’s the downfall for most fighters.

If I can condition my jaw and my head, i think I can become a really good fighter. imagine, no knockouts ever

lol.

You can't condition your face and head, but you can condition your own perceptions and you can practice rolling the head and clamping the jaw and so on.

Mostly, you are better off learning how to slip, duck and eat head shots on the arms and shoulders same as every other boxer out there.

the point your raise is good though, I find that when I watch demonstrations of traditional martial arts, there is a propensity for leaving the head wide open as a target. Often there is failure to shrimp, tuck and protect the head. It is the most vulnerable area and it is the one area that any fighter worth even the tiniest grain of salt is gonna go after. body shots are nice, but on a conditioned fighter, that's a real slow road to the finish.

so, learn up your slips, your bobs, your clinch work, your footwork, your ducking skeelz and your ability to seam feed, pat, chop and destroy incoming shots to the head.

[GeneChing]

...but I don't have to see that. I was there.

Dale's a friggin' huge monster of a dude. Even without Iron Body, it'd be tough to get a punch in through that thick hide of his. If I needed to do so, I'd bring a bat... a bat with spikes through the top... big sharp pointy spikes.

[sanjuro_ronin]

...but I don't have to see that. I was there.

Dale's a friggin' huge monster of a dude. Even without Iron Body, it'd be tough to get a punch in through that thick hide of his. If I needed to do so, I'd bring a bat... a bat with spikes through the top... big sharp pointy spikes.

You'd just **** him off....

[David Jamieson]

as an aside, i would express that Lai Hung employed head covering techniques heavily into his expression of north shaolin kungfu. There are a few clips of his stuff out there that clearly demonstrates a much more conventional modality of fighting built into the kungfu. Interesting stuff if you come across it, I'm sure someone here can verify more clearly about that.

also of note, Y.C Wong plays his kungfu very tightly and sharply and shows this protective measure as well. I don't want people thinking I'm bagging on tcma when there are indeed excellent examples of reliable methods that are still antiquary on some levels and still quite effective even by modern standards of slugfesting.

[sanjuro_ronin]

lol.

You can't condition your face and head, but you can condition your own perceptions and you can practice rolling the head and clamping the jaw and so on.

Mostly, you are better off learning how to slip, duck and eat head shots on the arms and shoulders same as every other boxer out there.

the point your raise is good though, I find that when I watch demonstrations of traditional martial arts, there is a propensity for leaving the head wide open as a target. Often there is failure to shrimp, tuck and protect the head. It is the most vulnerable area and it is the one area that any fighter worth even the tiniest grain of salt is gonna go after. body shots are nice, but on a conditioned fighter, that's a real slow road to the finish.

so, learn up your slips, your bobs, your clinch work, your footwork, your ducking skeelz and your ability to seam feed, pat, chop and destroy incoming shots to the head.

You make a valid point, personally I always viewed iron Body training as an excellent way to not "worry" about my body and focus on protecting my head !

[sanjuro_ronin]

as an aside, i would express that Lai Hung employed head covering techniques heavily into his expression of north shaolin kungfu. There are a few clips of his stuff out there that clearly demonstrates a much more conventional modality of fighting built into the kungfu. Interesting stuff if you come across it, I'm sure someone here can verify more clearly about that.

also of note, Y.C Wong plays his kungfu very tightly and sharply and shows this protective measure as well. I don't want people thinking I'm bagging on tcma when there are indeed excellent examples of reliable methods that are still antiquary on some levels and still quite effective even by modern standards of slugfesting.

There is a "guard" in old Muay Boran that uses the elbows to protect the head from counters while closing, It showed it to my Hung Kuen Sifu a while back and he said that Hk has somethign similar, and he showed it to me.
Aside from a few minor differences, it was the same principles ( having your opponents fists run into the points of your elbows).
He called it a "dragon horns", not sure how typical it is though.

[Eddie]

I think its important to do body conditioning, and I really have nothing bad to say about the video clip, other than I’d prefer to rather have that sort of skill to protect my head. But we know this is not possible as David pointed out.

But a good fighter is well conditioned all over, so its all good.

I knew an old Chinese man who used to do some sort of iron shirt hard qigong stuff, and he was solid. I asked him to teach me that, but to tell you the truth, I lasted only 5 sessions.

[Eddie]

There is a "guard" in old Muay Boran that uses the elbows to protect the head from counters while closing, It showed it to my Hung Kuen Sifu a while back and he said that Hk has somethign similar, and he showed it to me.
Aside from a few minor differences, it was the same principles ( having your opponents fists run into the points of your elbows).
He called it a "dragon horns", not sure how typical it is though.

We have that in my LKH Choy Lay Fut too. Usually from a chin lau to charp choy. Im sure allot of southern styles have this

[TenTigers]

In Southern Kung-Fu, the distance is close so the hands are occupied with striking and controlling the bridge, leaving the iron body to take care of the lower part while the hands protect the head. In NY, where they wear coats most of the time, head-hunting is the name of the game, so this is a skill worth learning-for me.
The ducking, bobbing,slipping, and weaviing is also found in the Dragon and Snake sections of our forms.

[Satori Science]

as an aside, i would express that Lai Hung employed head covering techniques heavily into his expression of north shaolin kungfu.

A little curious ware you've seen clips of Lai hung?
It would make sense though based on his full contact ring experience against Thai style boxers,

[Mulong]

Maybe I'm wrong, but some of the strikes were a bit on the lame side; also, his uniform is large enough to hide some padding under it.

[golden arhat]

Maybe I'm wrong, but some of the strikes were a bit on the lame side; also, his uniform is large enough to hide some padding under it.

i thought that too

the people hitting him didnt look too solid

and its not too hard to take a few punches to the gut especcially if your a big guy like dale

[Akronviper]

i thought that too

the people hitting him didnt look too solid

and its not too hard to take a few punches to the gut especcially if your a big guy like dale

Looks like a George Clyman demo (golden bell guy), he does not take direct shots always turning to the side as not give solid target so all blows slide off. Just being the devils advocate it still has to hurt wonder what kind of bruising he had

[TenTigers]

bruising is bruising. The idea is that your internal organs are not getting injured. Surface bruises will always occur. With iron shirt, they simply don't penetrate.

[Dale Dugas]

Being that this was a demo of Iron Body and not Baguazhang fighting, I was kind to my kung fu brothers.

But there was no padding under my Hifu.

And two of the kicks were to my ribs.

Iron Body does not mean you sit there and let people kill you. It gives you the ability to take more abuse than a normal human.

Moving is how Im trained being a Bagua teacher.

Tough to get me not to move.

Funny that after demos like this I get people asking to hit me. I think I had about 7-8 people ask to hit me.

I let them hit me and kick me and they get this weird look on their face when I take the attack and smile back at them.

It is only one skill you can develop.

In a real fight, I would take their center after first contact and begin the rain blows to soften them up and get them ready to kiss the dirt.