Any reviews of Vunak's "Enigma"?

[Paco]

Hello All and Happy New Year:

Has anybody gotten Vunak's new video "the Enigma"? I was wondering what you thought of it.

[Michael Wright]

uh oh, ready for round two Mike?

[Mike Brewer]

I was waiting for Thai Bri.

[Aaron04]

I received the Enigma videos when they first came out. Overall, they are pretty good. It has 2 DVD's total. The first one has the overall program, which contains the RAT system, some basic BJJ and Kino Mutai, and some basic weapons (defanging the snake). He also discusses things like mass attack and how to use weapons to deal with it, and how to escape from holds, grabs, etc. The first DVD is all about actual techniques and concepts that you would use in a streetfight. The second DVD is all about training methods. This one goes pretty in depth, and it mainly revolves around weapons training, the idea being that weapons training will speed up your reflexes for fighting with and without weapons. It also contains Vunak's "Golden Goose" principle, which is also a training method without weapons. The easiest way to describe it is that it is several charts that contain different arts and techniques. You pick one technique from the first chart, then follow up with something from the second chart, and so on. An example would be to choose the front elbow destruction from the first chart, then Savate from the second, then Dumog from the third, and so on. As you or someone else chooses from the various charts, you can practically train forever without repeating the same sequence.

Overall, the package is pretty good. It does not go as in depth on the various aspects of the arts as the Streetfighting series does, but this should be expected considering the length of the Enigma (2 DVD's) vs. the Streetfighting series (20 DVD's?). People who have seen the entire Streetfighting series or who have trained with Vunak (I have done both) will find most of the material redundant, but at least in my opinion still worth the money. For those with less exposure to the material, I would say it's definitely worthwhile.

The one thing that I was a little disappointed with was the BJJ section. While it does have some good stuff, I honestly was hoping for a little more. He has been doing BJJ since the 80s, and having rolled with him I can say that his ground game is awesome, especially as it relates to the street. His video "Kino Mutai" was much better for this subject. He also forgot to mention the shuffles that help facilitate a good interception from long range. He talks about this quite extensively on his video "Attributes III".

One thing that I did like quite a bit was that he did a very good job in clarifying the difference between training methods and actual techniques. In his past videos, it was sometimes difficult to determine the difference. In this series he makes it very clear that the whole first video is all about the actual fight, and the second video is all about the training methods. It was a very good clarification in that regard, considering the confusion that would sometimes come up in his past videos.

Hope this helps.

[Mike Brewer]

He talks about this quite extensively on his video "Attributes III".

I was in that one.

[Aaron04]

Seriously? That's pretty cool. I'll re-watch it sometime soon and see if I can find you, as I've seen a couple pics of you on these forums. You need to start a new thread, something like "My experiences with Vunak". That would make for a very interesting read, and I'm sure it would generate a lot of replies. By the way, thanks again for all your help in the thread "Has anyone trained with Vunak lately". It was very helpful to me, and I'm sure others learned a lot from it as well.

[Mike Brewer]

You're always welcome.

I imagine a thread dedicated to people's experiences with Vunak would draw out as many critics as anything. I'm not going to subject anyone to that discussion again.

[Aaron04]

One other thing, especially for Paco. Of all of Vunak's videos, probably the best one from the Streetfighting series was his RAT video. There are 2 different ones, one from TRS and the other from PFS. I'm referring to the PFS one. It's called PV-18. It is a seminar video that was filmed in England and it covers pretty much his whole program. The quality is not as good as it is a seminar video, but the information that it contains is very good. If you only buy 2 vids from him I would suggest that one and also PV-19, the Kino Mutai video. Out of the whole Streetfighting series, those 2 pretty much wrap the whole series into 2 DVD's.

[Aaron04]

Mike, that's probably true, unfortunately.

[bodhisattva]

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

You're always welcome.

I imagine a thread dedicated to people's experiences with Vunak would draw out as many critics as anything. I'm not going to subject anyone to that discussion again.

Most of the criticism of Paul I've read or heard has been positive. I've heard that he has a great game, and he is a friendly person to be around.

The criticism I've heard was mostly about Paul's students and whatnot. I've heard criticism that many of them are un-athletic people looking for a "quickie" system that won't involve a lot of training, but instead depends on "dirty tactics."

And that criticism wasn't about ALL of his students, either. Just that he seems to attract a lot of peole who fit that description.

I don't know much about Paul, or his students, myself.
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But, when a guy I trained with and I were stickfighting regularly, and suffering for it, I found I was quickly better at dealing with my sparring partners punches and kicks when we were later boxing. We were fighting with semi-padded weapons, and they really hurt like hell. I've never fought with completely unpadded sticks - I'm not sure it's necessary. If I were LEO I might do it a few times - just so I'd feel better dealing with stick blows and whatnot in the field. But for what I'm looking to do, the semi-padded sticks are punishment enough. A head-shot knocked my buddy to the floor, and a hand shot once crippled up my hand for almost a month - for my interests it was contact enough.

It definitely increased our speed and reflexes boxing, and it increased our courage when boxing, too.

[Mike Brewer]

Good observations, Bodhi. I think anyone that trains people on the sheer volume as Paul is bound to have a good percentage of slobs in their midst. It's unavoidable. Personally, I feel really good about a school if twenty percent of the students really have any talent and athleticism at all. Fact is, most people just don't make it a lifelong passion or serious pursuit. It's a hobby to them, and tht's all it'll ever be, so we shouldn't expect tehm to be mini-Paul's. Now, your percentage may be higher in a competitive gym that focuses on something like boxing or MMA, but I'd still wager about 50% of the people there have no business getting in the ring.

As for the stick training, I agree with an assessment made by Marc Denny. The heavy contact stuff with real sticks serves as a sort of tempering and forging process for the "tribe" to harden its would-be warriors. It's scary, and it's painful, and it can potentially cripple a fella, true. But the benefits one gains from it extend well beyond fighting. They can serve to make a better man out of someone, and as a result, can make whole societies stronger. In that respect, it's easy to say that going all the way with it and experiencing things from a more realistic standpoint is good, and has more benefits than softening things and taking away some of the danger.

In other words, it depends on why you train. There are many people who engage in real contact stickfighting that just wouldn't get anything out of a more limited set of rules or working with padded sticks. They might even go so far as to say there's just no point in using padded sticks, or that it doesn't add any real value to training, especially when you can just use the real thing. But that of course is up to you to determine, and if you're benefitting from your methods, then you ought to be using them, no matter how little value anyone else finds in them.

Holy shit. That's starting to sound a lot like the kata discussion, isn't it?

Couldn't resist, man. Sorry.

[bodhisattva]

We know you can't resist.

It's ok, I think most of us here accept it.
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Sure, real contact stickfighting is a test, and you can be crippled by it. I'm all for being manly and hardened and passing through manly rites of passage.

But I think the boxing ring does a pretty good job of that. I don't see that people need to cripple up their hands (or worse) to experience incredible personal growth by challenging their ideas of ego and security.

I also don't see any problems with people who want to do real contact stickfighting. I think its one of the neatest damned things ever. I wish we could watch it on tv like UFC/Pride/Others.

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As far as the benefits of the padded sticks - they don't seem to fracture bone. Yet they still hit hard enough to leave dinner-plate-sized bruises on your upper leg, and cause the tendon behind your knee to ball up in an ugly inflamed mess for a week. They aren't likely to shear a tendon away from the bone like a stick can do, either. If, somehow, having a tendon sheared away from the bone is likely to give me a personal growth experience - I'll pass - if I have a choice. I am pretty sure I can find personal growth without screwing up my tendons, and I'm pretty sure it will help my fight training, too. I seem to use those parts when I fight.

No benefit? I'm OK with people saying that. I'm even OK with those people being "tougher than me." When I wake up in the morning sore from boxing with my arms covered with bruises from wrestling - that's enough for me.

And I just may do the full contact stick thing someday. Who knows?

[Mike Brewer]

We know you can't resist.

It's ok, I think most of us here accept it.

It's just a small part of why I'm so irresistable.

[Paco]

Thanks, Aaron, for the breakdown.