Dog Brothers Public Forum

Looks great! I was afraid this was going to be just interviews... Don't get me wrong, that would've been OK as well, but it's way better with some action included as well, as there's so little footage of Sonny Umpad publicly available.

What Beatles song are you guys talking about? Or was it in the earlier clip? It's not there anymore...

Please put the clip on the main page as well, YouTube is not that great if you're not online, downloading the clips works much better for me.

- Marko

I've seen it, and I was ... well, not disappointed, because I didn't expect much, but it left me kind of numb. Very much hype and big words about how each martial art beats the others. I guess they did some scientific measuring, like measuring the force of impact on different strikes and kicks (using crash test dummies with impact sensors). But the methodology (at least based on what was shown) sucked. For example they had this big boxer guy hitting the dummy and a small wushu-guy hitting the dummy. Then they measured the force of impact and voil?: the boxer hit twice as hard as the wushu-guy, ergo: boxing has the ultimate punches. The same thing with the kicks, every guy gave their best kicks to the dummy, then the muay thai guy yanked the dummy from the neck and kneed it to the solar plexus. The winner! Muay Thai has the ultimate kicks. And guess what the ultimate martial art was? Ninjitsu (yes, with and i, not ninjutsu)! They had a guy sneaking on plumb blossom poles and hitting a "dim mak" strike to the dummy's chest.

On the weapons part they used torso dummies molded out of ballistic gel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is primarily used for measuring the impact of bullets on it? Well, they used edged weapons. I can imagine a torso molded out of gel doesn't quite have the feel of human flesh and bones. Then they had an Aussie taekwondoguy hitting it with a katana. Did I say hitting? I meant hacking. He obviously had no technique at all, he just hacked it to pieces. They did have footage of some iaido people doing tameshigiri, I wonder why they didn't ask them to cut it.

But, they had guro Dan Inosanto as well, doing some nice stickwork (should've had a lot more of him!) which kinda mellowed my reaction.

The show was about 1.5 hours long, they could have easily cut of all "what happened before the break" and "what will appen before the next break" bs and all the other hype and made it about 30-45 minute show with exactly the same content.

I give it 6 our of 10. Nice try, some interesting people. too much bs, too little science.

- Marko

Hi, I once saw a training device which looked a bit like wall-mounted makiwara (see pics
here and here). It had a board mounted on a wall, with about one third of a tire attached to it. It was light enough to be hung on the wall and taken away when not needed (needs to be fastened securely) and yet durable enough to take proper punishment from sticks. The only thing you need permanently are the hooks/whatever on the wall to hang it from.

- Marko

The article is the answer to many questions I've been meaning to ask, like

[*]Why haven't we seen FMA in the MMA arenas?
[*]How would FMA empty hand techniques/systems (like buno, dumog, panantukan etc.) fare against other systems in a cage/ring?
[*]How would it effect that the rules would deny most effective techniques (like biting, joint breaking, etc.)?[*]etc.[/list:u]I'm absolutely fascinated by the idea that we could actually see the answers to these questions in action.

I agree that the article is probably too long and detailed for BB, so it's great that we can read it here (and in the Eskrima Digest) in full length. Hopefully you'll put it online (with pictures) as well.

There's a Pinoy MMA forum I just recently found and haven't had too much time to browse through, but I think some of the questions could be posed in there as well, I think there must be some MMA people in the PI who have actually had some training in the FMA empty hand systems as well.

- Marko

Thanks, but like I said, I live in Finland and I'm looking for a local source. I'm planning on going to have a look at the masks and then decide. The price range starts from about 60 EUR, which is about 80 $ I quess.

- Marko

Thanks for the input. Luckily, I have a chance to check out the masks at local fencing club before buying. I also posted the question on a Finnish fencing forum, they recommended a 1600-series mask.  Most of them are FIE approved.

- Marko

Hi everyone,
I finally found a store in Finland that sells fencing masks. What is your recommendation for stick sparring use:
http://steffenpeters.de/store/index.php?cPath=37
I have eyeglasses which I plan to use at least in the beginning (no full contact sparring) under the mask. Is this a bad idea? Should I get contact lenses right away?

Thanks for the input!

- Marko

Hi,

what's the update on releasing your old tape series on DVD and/or new series? The most recent post I could find on the subject was pretty old and it stated that the work is in progress...
I brought this up in the Eskrima Digest list once, but I think many of the people here are not on the list, so: I think there are several advantages favouring DVD over video tape, as 1) it is a format that will used in the future as well 2) picture quality is superior 3) freeze frame, slow motion etc. are better 3) multiple language/subtitle/viewing angle support 4) you name it. The one thing that speaks against it is, of course, piracy. But, make the original DVD worth owning with nice covers, reasonable price, instruction leaflet, whatever, and people will buy it.

my 2 cents

- Marko