Sifu Davis,

Just restarting my Focus Mitt training today.
I didn't use Gloves as I have gotten used to NEVER wearing gloves in my Southern Mantis training (we never hit anything though...)

In my JKD training, most people wore Bag gloves when hitting focus mitts.
I have open-fingered "Grappling gloves" so I can at least still feel my fingers.
As I'm sure you have noticed...sometimes it is as much for the comfort of the person wearing the mitts as it is for the person hitting them (traditional Focus mitts aren't very thick).

Anyway....I personally prefer to not wear gloves.
You can't really make a correct fist with gloves on.
Gloves let you get away with sloppy technique that would HURT bareknuckled.

I have a theory that they allow you to hit harder than you are "READY" to hit.

What are your thoughts on this?
I have seen that you tell people to bring gloves to seminars if they aren't used to contact.
Do you try to ween your students off of the gloves after a certain period of time?
Do you think it is bad for your hands long term to not wear gloves?

Thanks,
John

Hello!

I do not like wearing gloves! I have been hitting things with bare knuckles all of my life without consequence! I think that if you are hitting correctly, you really don't need gloves unless you skin just isn't conditioned to impact! I will wear gloves sometimes when hitting the heavybag, but that's about it for me. However, I don't think there is anything wrong with wearing gloves some of the time, I just feel like you need to devote equal time to learning what it feels like to REALLY hit something (as in NO GLOVES)!

I think that women should wear a good bag glove of the wristwrap variety (similar to the popular MMA gloves) for striking focus gloves and bags, as their hands are usually smaller, more delicate and not used to impact! I have a few female students, and they normally don't do very well punching the focus gloves without the bag gloves on. For self defense training, I emphasize more open hand strikes for women.

Keep Blasting!
Sifu Lamar M. Davis II
Senior Instructor
Hardcore Jeet Kune Do
sifu@live.com
http://www.HardcoreJKD.com
http://www.DragonBlastMA.com
Phone (205) 296-7070 (Incoming Only)
or (205) 213-2086

"Hit Hard, Hit Fast, Hit First - ALWAYS!"

"The REAL future of Jeet Kune Do belongs to US, the few, the proud, the HARDCORE! Now, what are we going to do with it?" _ Sifu Lamar M. Davis II