Mighty harsh critique from someone who teaches Self Defense for the Non-Athletic.
I tend to view things like this differently, ttruscott. In my view, this is a video demonstration of some very basic ideas, and it wasn't meant to show the real capabilities or ability of either partner. For that reason, I find it hard to pass any terribly negative judgements based on a couple of minutes of video. I've done videos of my own, and I recognize that it's a different thing than teaching to a class or private student. Sometimes, people aren't really sure how to best present their material, or how to make it visually exciting. That can all play a role. I remember seeing Guro Dan in some very early video, and he had an opponent that looked a little stiff as well. That opponent was Larry Hartsell, and if I bought into the video impression I got, I'd have been badly, horribly, very possibly fatally mistaken.
In the interest of TT's original post - thought provocation - what do you think of it from a purely conceptual point of view, ignoring the mechanical this-and-that and the video presentation?