Dan Anderson

Hi All,

I watched the new Bram Frank's Presas Jungle Bolo DVDs last night. George Denson covered them fairly well in his post on MartialTalk so I'll take a different tack in this review.

What Bram does is go straight to the roots, historically and technically, of Modern Arnis. Many of the actions Prof. Presas made which, on the surface, students didn't get or failed to make sense of, are explained in this series. Much of Modern Arnis is based on the blade work of his grandfather and uncle and this is what you see. Bram shows the Presas family bolos and his trainers are made according to specs. An interesting note is that he makes the distinction between agricultural bolos and jungle fighting bolos. His bolo is in the second catagory.

DVD #1 goes into the history and relevence of the blade to todays Modern Arnis. Bram and Amy demonstrate basics of the blade and what happens to areas you cut. There's a bit of functional anatomy lessons in there.

DVD #2 goes into Anyos 1-4 with a blade viewpoint and then variations off of the bolo techniques. What I like most about this DVD set is that with Bram going over the important points (and differences) of blade work, one can use the data as starting points to continue your own research. This is vitally important to anyone who has only done stick work (which comprises the bulk of Modern Arnis players in the US). While he doesn't need it, I endorse the hell out of this series. This is a missing piece of the pie for those with mostly cane orientation in the FMA.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

PS- You can't beat the price either. You can get them on the CSSD/SD website.

__________________
Visit my website at www.danandersonkarate.com