Has anyone read Jack Dempsey's book "Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense"? It is really interesting so far, you can read the whole thing here (or print it out):

http://www.freecirclefighting.com/jdbook.pdf

Anyway, I'm starting to get really confused when he's talking about the "power line" and using specific knuckles to land a punch with. Dempsey claims the power line goes from the shoulder to the pinky finger, and insists its vitally important to land all your punches with the ring finger knuckle, which he calls the second knuckle. While I don't doubt it worked for Dempsey for obvious reasons, the little boxing training I've had I've always been told to land with the index and middle finger knuckles first.

So what should I do when I go hit my heavybag? Any suggestions and thoughts from people with experience would be greatly appreciated

If your pissed off at some one and bare knuckle punching him in the face use your pointer and middle knuckles that way if your really mess up the punch your not going to destroy your knuckles.

hitting the bag you can use your lower 3 but get good at landing them so it hits with the knuckle above your pinky then immediately goes to your middle knuckle then back to your ring knuckle then finally to your pinky once your good at that you can start swinging like that hard on the bag.

Has anyone read Jack Dempsey's book "Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense"? It is really interesting so far, you can read the whole thing here (or print it out):

http://www.freecirclefighting.com/jdbook.pdf

Anyway, I'm starting to get really confused when he's talking about the "power line" and using specific knuckles to land a punch with. Dempsey claims the power line goes from the shoulder to the pinky finger, and insists its vitally important to land all your punches with the ring finger knuckle, which he calls the second knuckle. While I don't doubt it worked for Dempsey for obvious reasons, the little boxing training I've had I've always been told to land with the index and middle finger knuckles first.

So what should I do when I go hit my heavybag? Any suggestions athoughts
from people with experience would be greatly appreciated


This is easy. If you are fighting for real (bare knuckle fist fight) you should have a straight line from your shoulder to your index finger, meaning you hit with your first two knuckles. To me, that is the real way to hit. In boxing, you are trained to hit with the middle and maybe 3rd fingerr because your hand is wrapped and you have gloves on. This will give you more of a chance to score because you have a bigger fist aiming at your target.

If your wrist is straight, you will do more damage hitting with the first two knuckles.