"From the Cage to the Street" DVD Review

[Thai Bri]

"From the Cage to the Street" DVD

Introduction

This instructional DVD is involves guiding the student through a selection of foul tactics which, if used in a sporting match, would almost certainly end up in you being disqualified. But, of course, the techniques are there to cater for any selp protection need that a person may have. It is not meant to be an actual fighting system per se, but does provide useful additions to someones extisting arsenal. It comes from www.streetfightek.com for £12.99.

Production Quality

The DVD come with the standard "scene select" option that does help the student save time when selectively looking at individual sections. The camera work is good, and the often seen over zealous use of the zoom facility is, thankfully, avoided. Picture quality itself is reasonable, though it does have the slightly broken effect of, for example, film you view over the net. Still, it does the job as well as most DVDs of the genre. Much of the work involves Ritchie, the presenter, working and demonstrating on a partner, and care has been taken to ensure that their clothing is different in colour, and the background also helps them stand out. How many times have we viewed footage only to struggle to see which limb belongs to which person? Well, not here. It is about 1 hour in length.

Content

A main underlying theme involves training both safely and realistically Another is about developing the ability to find the targets without looking.. This is emphasised numerous times during the presentation. The content is divided up into named sections, including:

Eye gouge
Head Butt
Body Targets
Clavicle and Throat
Claw (1, 2 and 3) etc.
Stomping (1 and 2)
Elbow to Neck
Drills
Application

One slight criticism would be that Ritchie occasionally goes off at a tangent, mentioning a related topic, but then allowing himself to be drawn into a more detailed explanation before getting back to the subject at hand. This is not a major issue and, for the most part, the information contained in each "tangent" is useful anyway.

He goes into considerable detail in each section, and many people may well find points to note that they had not previously considered. I know I did. I didn't agree with it all of course, but it certainly provided food for thought. Though many of the targets are common sense, he did mention some of them in terms of "pressure points," even to the extent of using the wierd and wonderful lables such as "Stomach 8, 9 and 10." And they were no-where near the stomach....

But don't let that put you off. They were still points that would hurt like a bitch if struck, clawed, bitten, butted or generally abused. He also displays an awareness of the advantages of how your techniques appear to witnesses, hiding the ferocity of them were possible. He likes to be "nice and sneaky...". He combines his attacks too, finding things that complement each other in a good way. Well, in a nasty way, but you know what I mean. Though not knowing it (Ritchie hasn't seen "The Shredder" or other Senshido material) some of it occasionally resembled Richard Dimitri's stuff, and I wondered if the Liverpool Ritchie was following a path already trodden by the Canadian Rich without knowing it.

Conclusion

This was a surprisingly good presentation that would have something for most people to consider adding to his or her arsenal. It showed sound techniques, along with ideas on how to apply them. There is not much in the way of "fluff" here at all, and people could take things from it for their immediate use if need be. I personally recommend this for people interested in self protection style fighting methods, or for people who want enter Mixed martial Arts matches and get banned for life!

[blitz]

gah i wish they sell some ma dvds over here T_T too bad i gotta order them =/
I'd like to see a movie which involves self defense in the street since its pretty much different