Human Weapon " Krav Maga"

Human Weapon " Krav Maga"

On Human Weapon this Friday Bill and Jason went to Israel to study Krav Maga. So far this has been my favorite episiode, probably because it did not involve a sport like art. Krav Maga is agrressive, to the point and its only purpose is to protect yourself or someone elese. I lived in Israel for a while and for a country the size of Vermont and everyone around you hates your friggin guts, you may want to be able to fight. The people are very good at what they do and very proud. The art of Krav Maga has been developed by techniques of various other arts that they saw would best help them accomplish their mission of self defense in an agressive and simplistic manner. I really liked how the Instructor mentioned that they may know how to fight in a ring but actual self defense, they don't know shit. This of course, is a common site in the martial arts community. Add a knife to the picture and they realize this very quickly. Most of the techniques I saw were very affective, especially the firearm disarm (which I have seen done a bit differently). I am a big fan of kicking in the nuts, attacking the throat and breaking the knees. The only thing that I did not agree with was some of the knife techniques (or the attacks) Many people don't use the ice pick (reverse grip) in the fashion they presented it, especially if they consider themselves a knifer. My cuts are always very small with small arcs, with elbows in tight. You wil not be able to get on the inside of these cuts and if you raise your left hand to block my right handed cut, I will blueworm you everytime. One thing I really liked, even though they used the bad hand, was that they hit the knifer right away as they blocked the knife. It is hard for the knifer to think about cutting when he is being hit in the face or throat. My belief is when you counter attack that you continue until it's done. When you enter, you stay in and continue. It's not fun to have to try to enter in on a guy with a knife, especially more than once. Once again no art is perfect and I have never tended to know everything and I am sure my techniques have flaws or holes as well. This is just my humble opinion which doesnt meant much in the realm of things.

Human Weapon #1

The History Channel has a new show on Friday nights called the Human Weapon. The gist of the show is that these two MMA guys go around the world and train in various styles of martial arts and the challenge of the people of that art to a fight. At first I thought that these two guys would try to make everyone else look bad and show how great MMA fighters are. Well I was wrong, so far in the past episodes they have lost and for the most of the time they were pretty humble. They have had three episodes thus far and I will cover them one at a time.

The first episode was on Muay Tai and I liked the history of the art and they trained with the sporting element of the art, a well as a more defensive aspect in the jungles. The fight pretty much stunk but the American lost.

The second episode was on Eskrima(Arnis/kali), for which I had high expectations. They visited the group of Doce Pares Eskrima, which primarily focuses on stick fighting. They trained with various people including Tuhon Gaje and the Filipino army studying PTK. The show never did associate PTK with Tuhon Gaje though and this was quite odd. The fight once again was pretty weak and the guy with hair lost again and the Doce Pares guy seemed to be pretty easy on him.

The third episode was on Okinawan Karate. I forget which style they visited first but its major focus was, once again, on sport. They did visit some wondeful grand masters who trained "old school" which I found refreshing. They also visited a GoJu Ryu sensei which was the real deal with "real world" applications. The fight sucked ass because hits were not allowed to the head , so they were training themselves not to worry about blocking that part of the body. This time the bald guy fought and he moves like old people fuck (very slowly). I am not sure what system he studies (or studied) but they never taught him how to move. The guy he fought was being very nice to him, even though he stated that the punches were full speed (it didn't look like it to me)

Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts on the show. I don't like that they keep coming back to some sort of competition of sport at the end.Many of these arts are blade arts and sports aren't much of an element of that art. The next episode will be on a street version of French Savat and they will cover Krav Maga and Silat later on down the road. I am interested in knowing what you think. On a side note, these two guys contacted Sean stark about if he knew any Silat masters in Indonesia. He stated no he didn't but if he did they wouldn't talk to you because they are true blade arts and that doesn't seem to be what you are all about.

more blogs to come as the show continues.....

Silat Mubai

I have been watching some Silat Mubai videos that I just received. I like most of what I have seen thus far. The killing video disturbs me somewhat about falling in the wrong hands. Many of the techniques are really nothing new but his aggressiveness is. The aggressiveness is really the only Silat characteristic I really saw. He believes in stomping the hell out of the bad guy when he is on the ground of stabbing him multiple times. Thats nice and all but in the states thats called prison and I don't look good shaved down...lol. Anyways...I did really enjoy the kerambit video but hey, I'm a knife guy..big surprise there. The kermabit moves were pretty simple and non complex...always in cuts of three which I like. The other knife video was not bad either (for what i have seen of it) but many of it is knife to knife which probably won't happen too much in real life unless a song for West Side Story breaks out. He was also pretty realistic about disarms which I was happy to see. Disarms just don't happen in real situations and you are a fool to go for them at the start. Beat the snot out of the guy first and then, if needed, take the knife. I am really starting to believe, from my current two teachers, that if you hit the guy enough with the knife that he will not be thinking about stabbing or cutting you but will be thinking about saving his own ass.Back to Silat Mubai...I also enjoyed the Instructor himself...he is very plain spoken and treats his partner with care, even when he is showing multiple ways to break his skull in two.The last video I watched was one of locks. In my past 20 years or so I have always been a fan of such locks but as of late, not so much. I like how Guru Stark puts it in his book "You do not have to apply any Kuncian (locks) EVER. Locks are strictly for control or mercy". I have control over the guy as I beat the snot out of him and he falls down. Where I do see locks being useful is when it is a drunk freind(brother-in-law, father, students...etc...) who attacks or who you need to stop in their actions. An elbow to the face or breaking their knee probably would'nt fly in those situations. So then I can see the use of a lock to help "calm" them down.Overall I like the videos and the system itself. I don't see a lot of silat in there (mostly kali) but I see some good applications and some good fighting theories. I will write more when I notice more.

There is a sample of Silat Mubai on the FIFS website