TTEscrima

YouTube - Silat Suffian Bela Diri - Shock Blade Entries - Speed Kill

Didn't see this stuff already posted anywhere. I usually find their clips thought provoking.

Mike Brewer

I'm not a fan of all the scooping and passing, but the directness and repetitiveness of the vital attacks show some functionality. In my own experience, anything more than a small scoop or ride often ends up with a committed, fast attacker redirecting his blade and getting you somewhere else. A lot of people better and more credible than I make it work with regularity, though.

I know you didn't post this to turn the discussion toward morality, but I have to ask what your exposure to this group has been? I'm not a big knife guy (I train it, but I don't really seek out new ideas with it, nor do I follow a lot of what's out there), but the camo fatigues and web belt tend to give me pause except under certain circumstances. My position on this kind of thing is very well known, so I won't rehash it and divert the thread. I was really just more curious as to whether the group in the video works mostly with civilians or soldier-types.

TTEscrima

My only exposure to this group has been through the internet, but I think they train military groups as their main focus.

I agree that as with any type of training theres stuff in there that isn't everyones cup of tea. I'd venture that the training isn't geared to a civilian reaction to attack. I sure wouldn't want to be in court defending those responses as SD.

Tant01

Seems more than a bit like assassination to me?

Good luck making THAT seem "reasonable" in the eyes of a jury, eh?

Insanity might be better than self defense for a legal strategy there...

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While the old form, jujutsu, was studied solely for fighting purposes, Kano's new system is found to promote the mental as well as the physical faculties.

T. Shidachi, 1892

Mike Brewer

Agreed. I also figure these sets are showing very basic concepts and not actual techniques. Hard to make the jump that any realistic knife art would begin with both opponents armed equally, squared off, face to face. Among other things, it's that sort of distillation that contributes to massive public misunderstanding of what knife engagements often look like. The idea that everyone's armed and ready and aware of the exact threat has probably been shattered more than once by the reality of the issue.

TTEscrima

SHHHHHH, If you take the concept of two equally armed opponents who are facing each other and aware of the impending fight out of the equation you take all the fun out of knife work. It's been my observation that people don't like to train things that aren't fun, reality sux even in training. If you train for reality you have to ambush unarmed people and no one likes getting "killed" even in training.

Mike Brewer

Well, I don't know if it sucks or not...I've always liked the idea of knowing what actually works and what doesn't. But I'll agree that it almost always a very humbling, ugly, chaotic thing that almost never goes the way we'd like it to go.

Ambush drills were something we took to an absurd level in my seniors group. We carried training blades around for fun for a while, and we'd try to nail each other while hanging out at the moovies, dinners together, or wherever. The game rapidly degenreated into what you'd expect, and everyone started getting shanked in the restrooms. "No one fights good with their dick in their hand" became a commonly accepted rule of combat, and we decided it might be best if we backed off the exercise at that point.

Bystanders rarely felt about our training the way we ourselves did, and many did not have much of a sense of humor.

As a sidebar, the other rule of combat that emerged from said training is that the guy who has the knife out and ready to use almost always beats the guy who doesn't.

A more timid version of the game arose later on, but it's apt to give people rampant paranoia so I don't recommend it. We stopped using actual training knives, and when we did, we also stopped using our training partners as "targets." The goal was ot try and see ourselves as others see us; particularly, to see ourselves as potential bad guys see us. We'd pick someone out of a crowd and watch them for a few minutes. The goal was to spot who they were with, where they were likely to move if threatened, and whether or not they were armed. Then, you had to get close enough to them to deploy a blade and touch them in two vital areas to simulate a successful attack. Most often, this mean an incidental "nudge" or accidental "bump" to the kidneys or base of the head. When it eventually became clear that you can almost always get away with that - sneak attack to two vital targets without the intended "victim" knowing you're a threat - we figured the lesson was sufficient and I stopped training it that way.

The simple, ugly, horrible truth is:

If an attacker wants to hurt or kill you with a knife and he has even half a brain, he's going to hurt or kill you with a knife. The best defenses you have against that unfortunate truth are not passing and cutting and stabbing, but situational awareness, positioning, and fluid methods of escape. Or counter-ambush, of course, but that's a different thread. And one well out of the purview of civilian martial arts in my opinion.

ttruscott

Sorry TT, the attacker is stiff, unmotivated to make the kill and unbalanced in his attack. He also freezes on 'first touch' from his teacher...

It only makes the defender look like an amateur.

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"Fear, not compassion, restrains the wicked."

Mike Brewer

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?

TTEscrima

Comments like this always amaze me. If both parties reacted at anywhere near full speed you wouldn't be able to see jack shit. The videos are designed so people can SEE them and draw concepts from them to incorporate into their own training. I've been known to freeze on contact from some of my instructors as well because if I continued to move they ramped things up to put a stop to it thus the only thing I learned was the teacher was working at my level not the other way around. All that aside though, it's easy to pick apart everything wrong from behind your keyboard, so PLEASE post a video of knife training you approve of, in the event no one on the net meets your criteria feel free to post video of you showing us how to do it correctly. After all if you note I said "their stuff is always thought provoking" IE: it makes me think and examine the material compared with my own experiences and training and thats all you can really ever expect from a video on the net.

You do need to realize that the idea to my posting this was to stimulate thought and conversation about the arts on the net, and then you need to step back and realize that some people on the net assert that Karate generates power the same way as Tai Chi.

kingoftheforest

The reason the attacker acts this way is because he is acting as a Uke and he is smart enough to know what to do to not get fked up. If he resists or tries to continue moving the desired effect of him getting something broken would happen.

This is training with a partner so that is not the effect you want. The drill still teaches the defender what to do properly though.

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Mike Brewer

I'm not posting these as "pro" or "con."

They're just up because I find them thought provoking as well.

YouTube Video

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Tant01

Nice vids Mr.B...

__________________
While the old form, jujutsu, was studied solely for fighting purposes, Kano's new system is found to promote the mental as well as the physical faculties.

T. Shidachi, 1892

Mike Brewer

To balance it out and present the other side of things, here's the way it looks for real:

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

YouTube Video