Dog Brothers Public Forum

Wiffle bats don't last long,    but they are cheap!

Sonny Umpad makes light rubber sticks for apartment practice (noise reduction) saying they won't last for sparring but we've used them for light sparring, hand targeting / sniping for ten years and they are still fine. No protection is needed.

We also use the padded sticks from Edgar Sulite, but they hit much harder and last longer.  

I bet they can still be bought somewhere!

Hi Tony,

I sense your concern but I'm still not in your loop. Here are your quotes:

...trained in a vicious Filipino martial art in which even beginners learn lethal knife thrusts.

Detectives plan to interview a Manhattan martial arts expert who trained Umali how to kill with a single knife wound, sources said.

And

The brothers are also schooled in the warrior art of Eskrima, in which knives are a key component, sources said.

Where is the untruth of these statements? Is not Eskrima a warrior art and are not knives a major component? Does not everyone during their first 6 months of training know how to cut and kill with a single wound?  I started my practice in FMA because these things were true!

The only word I take opposition to is "viscious." An art can be viscious (not flowery, dancy or airy-fairy and dedicated to the death of your opponent) but usually the practioner is not viscious.

IF the defendant did in fact cut like he is described to have cut, after the length of time he had been training, then he knew he had jeopardised the life of the bouncer, and probably, did that on purpose. That is, imho, a viscious act.

As a player, you will be and I believe, should be held to a higher standard of responsibility in such cases. If you object to that, you need to put down your sticks and knives right now.

It is not the art which needs to be white washed but the players that need to show obvious social respectability and responsiblity. Lesson plans from your club should be available to the prosocutors that show when and where adomonishements against using a kill shot were taught due to social and legal considerations.

And always remember:  "If you cut someone with your knife, two people are cut; if you kill someone, two lives are killed."

I'm curious about this:

...trained in a vicious Filipino martial art in which even beginners learn lethal knife thrusts.

Detectives plan to interview a Manhattan martial arts expert who trained Umali how to kill with a single knife wound, sources said.

I reiterate that this was a horrible event, but now I am starting to wonder:

What can we do to change perceptions about the arts we study?  

Doesn't all knife training include killing techniques?  Doesn't every teacher of knife skills mention vulnerable spots on the body, whether to warn that if cut they will cause death or, if the need is to cause a death, how to do it?

Isn't the nature of fighting (not sparring, not even with 'realistic contact') with a stick or knife in combat, 'viscious'?

The only perception that has to change is the perception that only viscious people (ie, psychopathic killers) train in stick and knife styles.

I think that we must accept a high responsibility for being players, practioners and teachers of what is inescapably a deadly art.  Being casual with the outcome of the use of your skills or casual about the responsibility involved in choosing carefully who you chose to teach, will cause the backlash we fear, not by trying to pretty it all up as an innocent game of tag.