Watched it this morning. I really enjoyed the piece. Everyone interviewed came off as eloquent in relaxed, informal manner. DB has ANOTHER great video piece with which to increase public awareness. Pieces like this only make me even prouder than I already am to be involved with the organization.
The "hunting by touch" theory is right in line with my material. We guide offline, blind, and cut off the hands of the zombie in about a second in my material before making sure the undead can no longer bite.
A 12th grader at the high school at which I teach English passed away yesterday morning, before school. The cause of death has not yet been determined.
I was thinking of a machete length blade, but I don't like the serrated edge I'm seeing on one side of many of the basic machete models. I need something with good balance that cuts right through flesh and bone.
The majority of my workshop is aimed at use of a single blade like the one above, with the last 20%ish being aimed at the same sequence for double machete.
Not to be too self-promoting, but the footage will be used for a commercially available DVD which should be finished by late November.
Work will also soon begin on the first two curriculum DVD's from my academy. I tweaked my curriculum guide for about a year before I began using it with students, and it is still evolving. It is a guided progression through eight arts in two tracks (armed and unarmed).
Without too much auto-back patting, I have been able to move a variety of people with different body types and varying prior martial arts experience to satisfactory levels of physical competency, so I'm fairly satisfied with it for the moment.
I was down for two days with what my doc called "stress-related lower back cramping". Grateful to be feeling better; I am back at work and I will be back teaching the FMA's tonight.
GC - I reads like Conrad took away a lot more from the experience than his medal. I have to ask: Is fighting at a Gathering something you might want for your children in their futures?
Grateful for the excitement that comes with assigning one of my favorite projects of the year to my high school students: make a 90 second to 2 and a half minute trailer (preview) for the different works of core literature explored in grades 9 through 12.
I'm thinking bladed weapons, and stipulating that if the outbreak is the "if you get zombie blood in your eyes, you are infected in 30 seconds" type, you're just screwed, period. Blunt impact weapon shots to the head can still bring blood, and hitting the jaw to destroy the zombie's ability to bite is a major idea in my material.
The 28 Days Later zombies all seem to spit blood purposefully to infect anyway. Oh well, it's my simulation, and I say that in my scenario as long as the zombies don't bite you, you're not infected.
No worries. I don't think it's disrespectful/negative to ask questions, so you have nothing to apologize for.
In fact, the workshop is purposefully exploring a horror fiction motif (a zombie apocalypse) to make the participants realize that martial arts run deeper than fighting techniques. Scenario training and disaster preparation play a part as well. DBMA was one of the first arts to really open my eyes to thinking outside of the box in terms of being a martial artist/scholar.
I am married with two small children. If we were alerted to the outbreak while still home, obviously, we would prep as quickly as possible and attempt to make it to the car that could get us the furthest (my wife has a hybrid, so we would take that car.) We maintain earthquake supplies (we live in SoCal) which we would quickly pack into a more easily carried container. We keep our cars parked on the street, directly in front of our home. We would visually sweep the area, unlock the car from inside using our remote, and get into the car as quickly as possible.
I would actually favor the idea presented in Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead and head somewhere like Newport Beach, or Marina del Rey to find a boat to steal. En route to the boat, we would find a store containing food and water that was contained in a small one/two room building (a convenience store or gas station food mart). I would be the only one to go into the store, and before doing so, we would try to find some heavy objects to throw through some of the windows of the building to see if any zombies came out. My wife would be under strict instructions to leave me behind if I was not out in a few minutes.
I imagine we would stay on the boat for as long as possible, using our radio to establish contact with other survivors. We would be weary of other boats, particularly large ones. If it's a small boat, and the survivors aboard could come out and prove they are not infected, great. If it's a cruise ship, that's too much room for zombie stowaways.
I don't know that I would want to be the last man on earth. That sounds fun for about a week.
Shooting the undead in the head from long range is probably the safest means of dispatching them, but my workshop is aimed more at using longer bladed weapons to dispatch them if say my family was confronted by zombies on the way to the car. I can deal with slow, lumbering Night of the Living Dead zombies, or even the Snyder, Dawn of the Dead fast zombies using my curriculum, and by the time you put them down for good with my material, they will not be a threat to anyone.
And I was serious in a previous post: the same material would work just fine on a vampire with one targeting change from the zombie material, as well as on a werewolf, but you would need a long bladed weapon made of pure silver.
Hot damn, I love scary movies and Halloween so much!
I'm aware of the origins of many of our holidays, but nothing seems to tick as many people off as Halloween. Again, "The Annual, Secular Celebration of Scary Story Motifs" - It's catchy, right?
Oh, the material I will be teaching would also work for vampires and werewolves, but you would need at least a machete-length blade made out of pure silver for consistency across categories.
As a fun, free, Haloween-themed exercise, I will be teaching a workshop on Halloween night at my school in Pomona, California on the very topic suggested in the subject line of this thread: using the FMA's to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Some people get very uptight about the Pagan origins of Halloween. I have always considered it a secular holiday, and would have no problem with the name being changed to “The Annual, Secular Scary Movie/Story Celebration". The topic of the workshop is not intended to be offensive; it is the martial arts equivalent of creative writing.
The workshop will start at 5:30 PM and last until 7 PM, which is hopefully early enough that participants can still trick-or-treat or get home to hand out candy afterwards. You are welcome to wear regular street clothes, loose-fitting workout clothes, or even your Halloween costume. Anyone may attend, so long as they fill out a liability wavier (or have one executed in their name if they are a minor); the workshop will be recorded and turned into one of my first commercially available DVD's.
For those thinking about attending with children, there will be an emphasis on blade work. I leave it up to parents to decide how young is too young, in the same manner that a parent has to make a decision about the appropriate age at which to introduce any reality/scenario training to his/her child.
My school is located at: 3900 Valley Blvd., Suite B. Pomona, CA 91768
in the Big Valley Industrial Complex, next door to The Sugar Rush Cafe
If you have further questions, please visit my Website
Forgive me if this is not the proper place for this, but wasn't this the guy who trained Kimo and then danced in the octagon with him when Royce Gracie decided not to continue after his fight with Kimo in UFC III?
I also seem to remember this guy being involved in a UFC fight before groin shots were illegal during which someone was repeatedly punched in the groin. I can't remember if this guy was on the receiving end or the giving end, so to speak.
Had a moment of pure bliss tonight teaching martial arts in my new space. Only half of my mats were set up but we were finally able to safely cover some panuntukan/Silat style throws. One of my students said something like "I was completely exhausted before I got here tonight, but you're so excited when you teach that you make it impossible not to get pumped up."
I'm grateful for all of my instructors, including GC, who have played a part in shaping what I have to offer my students. After I had closed the big warehouse door, before I drove home at the end of the night, I stood in the wai position facing the many pictures (including some DB action shots) I have in my new academy with my eyes closed for about 30 seconds. It was an intense moment of feeling like I was doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing with my life.
Thank you all for the good wishes. I can't wait until the same student makes a video using footage from the new academy! We were all very impressed with what he was able to do with footage from the garage academy.
I am moving my garage program to a proper 1400 sqft space. My first classes begin in my new facility tomorrow. I will be starting with three days a week (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays), and hoping to add more classes as enrollment increases.
Children's classes (ages 5 to 13) are from 5 to 6 PM, and the adult classes are from 6 to 9 PM on all three nights.
I teach eight different arts in two progressions: my empty handed blend consists of Jeet Kune Do, Thai Boxing, Silat, Savate, Wing Chun, and Grappling and my FMA progression consists of Dog Brothers Martial Arts and Inosanto/LaCoste. Your first evening of training is always free, whether you stay for 30 minutes or all three hours.
I am having a grand opening celebration on Saturday, September 24th. There will be free sample classes all day and two of my students will be testing at the end of the day. The schedule for the day is on my Website.
Below, I have posted a video for my school one of my students made me from footage shot in my garage academy.
I am very fortunate to be able to represent the instructors, martial systems, and organizations that I do. East Los Angeles County, west San Bernardino County, and north Orange County are undeserved in terms of the systems that I teach; I want to change that. I hope to see you in my academy soon, even if you are just stopping by to hang out and leave behind some positive energy.
Grateful that today is the last day of summer. Grateful that my first class tomorrow is a group of 9th grade honors students, and I get to shape their first 45 minutes of high school. Grateful that I have found a location, and by the middle of next week, t's will be crossed and i's dotted...I will be moving my garage martial arts program into a proper warehouse!
Certainly, when a technique lands, it can end the fight. I once took a glancing, accidental groin shot with a stick at a Gathering (wearing a cup), but try as I might, I had to call off the fight, and that turned out to be the only exchange.
I am in agreement that a single shot can end a fight, having experienced it. I don't know how much long-term debilitation has been caused in DBMA but fight-ending shots. If someone takes a really good head shot, Guro Crafty will often tell that person they are done for the day. Of the folks I have seen who have had their days ended by a good head shot, I don't remember anyone carried off of the floor.
I would suggest that your goal should be to avoid/prevent violence if possible, and if not, your next goal should cultivating the ability to use whatever level of force is appropriate. If drunken Uncle Fred wants to "test your Kung-fu" at a family get together, I don't know that knees from the clinch, or a fully committed Thai round kick to the back of his leg, are necessary. If someone is trying to seriously harm you or your family, they need to be put down.
" In my experience with the DB's, we really are fiends at the end of the day."
Rick - Nice catch. See how a simple typo can really change the tone of an entire post? I have changed "fiends" to "friends" which is what I had intended to write.
Grateful that a nice summer that has allowed me to spend time with my children is coming to a close. I am ready to get back to work, and the fall will bring with it answers about what space will end up being my first commercial school.
Grateful for a long, silly phone conversation with my best friend that lasted late into the evening.
Guide Dog's REAL Advice (I had posted a sarcastic list of ideas in this thread as a goof) to New Fighters:
1. Send in your liability wavier. 2. (MOST IMPORTANT) Show up about an hour or so early to the Gathering. The showing up part is so very important. As a full DB with two little kids, last public Gathering we had a strep throat scare in my house, and last Tribal Gathering, my son brought home a nice stomach flu that got me, my daughter, and my wife. I've been out for a year, and am actually coming off Gathering withdrawal. When Guro Crafty uses that Woody Allen quote that 90% of life is showing up, it actually turns out to be true. 3. Do NOT do the solitary, sullen act. Most of the people I have met in DBMA, whether tribe member or not, have actually been really nice people. Most of the folks I have met at the Gatherings have had really great senses of humor, and that is very important. Don't take yourself, or fighting with sticks, too seriously. Do give it your all without reducing anyone's IQ, but try to have fun. Brand new fighters might not have ANY idea what I am writing about, but you will. 4. Take a knife fight and consider it your warm-up. When you finish and get back to the waiting area, do not dwell in any kind of result from that fight. If you "killed' you opponent in simulation, great. If you "died", whatev's. We all have holes in our games that we are always working on. 5. Take a single stick fight with either a fighter that has some experience, or a newbie who seems to be of a like mind. What I mean by that is an experienced fighter can work with you and whatever level is manifesting when you step out. By having a conversation with another newbie, you can gauge what sort of a mental state he/she is in. As long as you both share an understanding of what the fight should look like, I think you will be okay. I am not suggesting that you plan for a "pillow fight", but if your prospective opponent/partner is talking about the "nobility that comes with surviving a coma", you should politely suggest that your partner is at another level and would best be served by finding someone else. Experienced fighters should be able to say something to put you slightly at ease, and newbies of a like mind should be able to reflect your apprehension in a manner that allows you both to honor what you are feeling and get on with it. (Slight addendum for this point) - as far as sticks go, have your first fight with whatever is your MOST natural weapons configuration. Most prefer single stick, but if you are a siniwali fighter/stick and dagger fighter/staff fighter, go with whatever you are the most comfortable with. The rest of what I wrote still applies, regardless of with what weapon(s) configuration you choose to fight. 6. Unless you actually sustain an injury that ends the fight (and I believe most won't), when you get back to the fighters area, slow your breathing, and immediately take/set up another stick fight. Don't out think yourself here. You're in it. You just learned what it is. You will never be in a state of not knowing again. Go out and fight again. 7. I would suggest you take as many fights as you can, and that MOST people have one more in them when they believe they are done. Once you mentally make up your mind your day is over, take off your gear, and be present. Watch the rest of the day's fights. 8. Don't worry about ascension. If you are meant to be a DB, just show up and keep fighting. It will happen eventually. 9. Enjoy your first day of fighting. You never get another one. 10. Figure out how to take back what you have learned in the adrenal state to your regular classes/training group.
In my experience with the DB's, we really are friends at the end of the day. I look forward to meeting you and hearing about your day and your journey/ transformation.
Grateful for another evening of mentally saying, "Man, I would rather do anything than teach tonight", that turned into me walking in my house afterwards, mentally saying, "I love martial arts."
I'm glad you liked it, guys. In all seriousness, I think it's the average tribe member's sense of humor that is unique to this organization. I have laughed harder at DB Gatherings and events than at practically any other martial arts event. There's another piece of advice to all new fighters: smile and laugh once you get in your first few fights and your nerves settle. It's really important because once you get out of your own way in terms of nerves, or any ego-related issues, stick fighting is fun!
I'm in the mood to take my inner smart-a$$ out for a walk, so please indulge me. For those new folks planning on fighting in September, just show up and be mentally present. The rest will take care of itself. What follows is me just being silly; please don't take any of this seriously.
Guide Dog's Advice for "Winning" at a Dog Brother's Gathering
1. When you arrive at the Gathering site, be sure to push a few people in line out of the way, even though Pretty Kitty or who ever is working the door will usually stop the line for the fighters. Does anyone really remember Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies? No way! We remember Mr. T's Clubber Lang, and why? Because he was an a$$hole. Act accordingly.
2. When Guro Crafty is giving the same pre- fight speech he always gives, make sure you are listening to your I-pod. After all, the day is really about you and you alone.
3. When the camera comes around to you and you have to say your name and your age, make sure that you use your title of "Super Grandmaster Founder" before doing so.
4. Before the fighting starts, make a point to not speak to anyone, especially the other fighters. This will really cultivate your air of mystery and cause everyone in the room to fear and respect you.
5. Be sure before your knife fights to specify that your opponent is not allowed to use any grappling, slashes, thrusts, punching, kicking, lead switches, or fakes. This is after all a simulation of a knife fight! If you score a lethal shot in exchange for your opponent scoring a lethal shot a half second later, that is a major victory.
6. Be sure to inspect any potential opponent's stick(s). First, measure the weapon, then quickly run it through an X-ray filter. Demand that your opponent provide the name of the manufacturer of the stick, as well as the forms to indicate that the weapon(s) cleared customs in a legal fashion if the sticks were not made in America. Once the weapon(s) has/have been deemed legitimate, escort your potential opponent to the restroom where you will verify his/her weight and height, and obtain a urine sample. Do not take any fights with anyone who weighs more than five pounds than you do, or is more than three inches taller than you, as doing so is simply NOT how it is going to be in the street. After all, MMA has weight classes, and MMA is as close as it gets to real combat. If the urine sample comes back positive for caffeine, call off the fight. You do not associate with people who use performance enhancing drugs.
7. If someone does manage to make it through your screening process and you agree to a stick fight, be sure that when on deck, you are drawing as much attention to yourself as possible, almost making it impossible for anyone to watch the fight in progress. You are, after all, NEXT, and everyone better damn well know it. Be sure to say some really personal, inappropriate, profanity-laden comments about your opponent just before you put your mouthpiece in and fencing mask on. Dog Brothers is all about stress testing; your opponent will thank you for pointing out that his wife is a fat whore, because that will cause him to really lose his temper and if he still happens to be breathing after your fight having come in seething with rage, than you have given him a great gift.
8. If you do score a shot, and your opponent waves you off to indicate the fight is over, by all means, hit him/her as hard as you can anyway. STRIKE HARD! STRIKE FAST! NO MERCY, SIR!
9. When the fight is over, if your opponent attempts to give you a hug, ESPECIALLY if you are male, eye-jab the prick! Let all the ladies in the house know that you are STRAIGHT, STRAIGHT, STRAIGHT. Even though you just got done doing a real contact stick fight, hugging someone of the same gender sends the wrong message. Showing that you are a nice person gives you about as much street cred as a 10 year-old girl showing off her Kelly Clarkson CD collection.
10. When the day's fights are over, immediately demand that you are the first in line for a tribal ascension, particularly if it is your first day fighting, and particularly if you only had one stick fight, did not sustain any injuries, but decided to call it a day as a "favor" to the other fighters.
11. At each level: dog, C-dog, and full DB, the moment after Guro Crafty asks you to rise, make sure you shout, "Where's my fu&%in' belt?!!!!"
12. When you do make full DB, demand that Top Dog go back to simply "Eric Knaus", because it's pretty clear that you are the real Top Dog in the group.
13. Each day, send Guro Crafty an E-mail reminding him that you are still waiting for your Tuhonship in DBMA, and as a mere Guro, he needs to get moving on that sh&%!
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