Last weekend at ISMAC in Lansing MI, I was lucky enough to get to
present my Jack Dempsey pugilism to a nice sized class of interested
and skilled seminar attendees. TIm Ruzicki and I had covered footwork
and some other basics in an earlier class so I was able to get more to
the meat of the style right away.

We went into the drop/falling/trigger step which was easily caught and
absorbed by all. Then into the shoulder whirl from the hook and closer
range straight punches....next came the fun stuff...the shovel hook.
We spent most of our time on this punch and my goal of making sure
that everyone could throw a decent shovel to the body we attained with
less sweat and trouble than I thought due to the high quality of the
participants........I had promised to make sure everyone could break
ribs in our class intros and hopefully they all left with perhaps not
the desire to do so but at least the ability.

It was nice seeing people all weekend doing shovel hooks in play or
threatening with a shovel hoot to the kidneys anyone who gave them a
hard time in jest. During the waning hours of the weekend, sitting
watching the singlestick tournie I was pleased to see one of the
people from my class, a blonde woman, clearly a fencer, standing on
the opposite side of the large gym throwing shovel hooks at
someone...possibly Stefan?

Ken