2012?
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Interview with Guro Marc “Crafty Dog” Denny of Dog Brothers Martial Arts.
Part 1:
HENRY: First of all Marc I would like to say thanks for taking time out of your schedule for the interview and also thanks to Guro Liam McDonald for hosting these wonderful series of Seminars. Hopefully I am going to discuss with you where the Dog Brothers are now and where they are going forward. The Dog Brothers are pretty much recognised in the Martial Arts world for Full-Contact sticking fighting and the creed of “Higher consciousness through harder contact” ©, but one of the most recent evolutions I would like to talk to you about would be the DLO or “Die Less Often” material, and I was wondering if I would like to talk about its origins.
MARC: Sure. I’d like to begin by distinguishing between the “Dog Brothers” and “Dog Brothers Martial Arts” (DBMA). The Dog Brothers are a band of sweaty, smelly, psychopaths with sticks dedicated to the proposition of “Higher consciousness through harder contact”. I am the “Guiding Force” of “The Dog Brothers”. Dog Brothers Martial Arts is the vehicle through which I do my teaching and is a separate thing. I earn my living through Dog Brother Martial Arts. In “the Dog Brothers” nobody pays any money, you don’t have to train DBMA, it is open to all people who have good spirit and heart.
In Dog Brother Martial Arts, DLO is one of three main categories. The first category is what we call “Real Contact Stick Fighting”, the distinction between “real contact” and “full contact” dating back to Tournament Eskrima, which was having these tournaments with padded sticks, padded people, padded everything. We use the term “real contact” to distinguish from “full contact”. As best as I can tell the organizers of the Full Contact eskrima tournaments chose the term in an effort to capture some reflected credibility from the “Professional Kickboxing Association” which was the first step beyond the tournament era of karate . They used boxing gloves with kicks above the waist only. Anyway, the first area is the “real contact stick fighting”.
The second area of DBMA is the empty hand and our sub-system that we call “Kali Tudo” ™. With American pronunciation rhyming “Vale” and “Kali” the name becomes a bad pun on blending “Kali” and the Brazilian term “Vale Tudo” (the latin root being “Valid Total” i.e. “Anything Goes”). Vale Tudo is what was done in Brazil before the UFC and in the early days of the UFC. Vale Tudo is the crucible in which Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was forged. I respect Vale Tudo greatly incorporate those parts of it which meet the criteria of our third area in DBMA, which I call “Die Less Often” which is why the word “Tudo” appears in the name.
My impulse to develop “Kali Tudo” had its origins in a pretty big brouhaha in late nineties on the internet which crashed into Guro Dan Inosanto’s forum. There was a group of people who were part of the “Live” movement that said the Filipino Martial Arts were a bunch of “Dead Patterns”.
Some people said to me that there was a group talking “smack” about Guro Dan’s teaching on his forum, So I went over to see what was going on, I looked at it…How to put it..mmm…Yes there are people who knew these patterns that do not fight, absolutely true. But my thought is that unlike America if we look to the Philippines these patterns and training methods were not practiced by people who didn’t know anything about fighting-they already had the fighters understanding be it from stick fighting in the cockfighting pits on Friday night, from real fights, or from war itself.
Let me give you and example with regard to war: Grandmaster Leo Giron saw a lot of close quarter life and death combat with the Japanese soldiers in the jungles of Luzon, during WW2.
As a matter of evidence of what I’m saying I would draw people’s attention to our DVD “The Grandfather’s Speak” wherein there is a 28 minute piece on Grandmaster Giron based around with an interview I did with him in his basement in the early 90s -- there’s some remarkable footage in there as well. He spoke of General McArthur and being in part of the “Bolo Battalion”, 1st and 2nd “Bolo Battalions” which were formed in California from the Filipino Community living there. He was trained I believe in Australia, and then because he was originally from Luzon he was sent to Luzon. It was like something from a WW2 movie: the submarine comes up at night; the rubber dingy rows ashore; and so forth. He was part of a squad which was sent to observe the Japanese and to report back to General McArthur and to harass the enemy. As part of harassing the enemy, there were in many engagements at close quarters in the jungle.
At night they would have a bolo in one hand and a revolver in the other hand. As much as possible they did not want to use the gun, because the flash from the muzzle could give away their positions. They would much rather the Japanese stumble around in the dark jungle at night while they killed them with the bolos. In the interview GM Giron tells of how they had a “triangular three man formation” where the best man points at the Japanese line. The Japanese officers would say “The enemy is over there somewhere. Go get them”. The Japanese had long rifles and with long bayonets
HENRY: Yeah, I’ve seen some of them (the bayonets) almost half the size of a katana; a lot of reach with it as well.
MARC: Yeah, it must have been scary to have that charging at you in the heavy jungle at night! GM Giron said “Well yeah, there was this one time I miscalculated on my parry with the bayonet, see this scar here on my palm, and so I cut his arm off at the elbow” (smiles) and the idea was that even with the forward momentum even though he hadn’t finished the kill, is that he would send him to the man behind either to the right or left to finish the kill. In my opinion this man has earned his opinions, and simple fact is that the methods he taught as part of Largo Mano Arnis were methods he used to sharpen his skills between engagements. I can’t picture telling such a man that he practiced “dead patterns”!
He wasn’t looking to go out on a mission all “banged up”. Having weaponry fighting as part of the training method would have meant his trigger finger could get “dinged up” or worse-these are training methods for men who were already warriors-- this is the bottom point.
On the other hand, as the Art came to the USA (principally via Filipino agricultural workers in the central valley of California, centered in Stockton) a lot the people who were attracted to the Filipino Martial Arts were not really the fighting end of the spectrum. People in the USA who wanted to fight were in boxing, kickboxing, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu etc. so a lot of the people doing the art when it first arrived, I’m speaking about the Americans, wanted to play these drills and games.
With the Filipino culture being the way it is, nothing was forced upon them; after all “Why would anyone want to get hit with sticks right?” (Smiles, laughs)
So it was in this context the Dog Brothers came into being. We had read the stories about war and about the death matches and were wondering what really happens. We wanted there to be Truth in our Art.
So with that as a background, let us return to the brouhaha on Guro Dan Inosanto’s forum. I said all of the best fighters in the Dog Brothers have this training and that is the simple fact of it. People who try to bypass this simply fight on athleticism and just didn’t reach the higher levels.
We had been approached by the early UFC when it was still “Eight men enter, one man leaves” about being a special event between the semi-finals and the finals, but when they really saw what we do, they turned us down for being “just too extreme” so it was hard for the other folks to say we lacked fighting credibility.
The conversation went back and forth and somewhere it was part of the conversation, the matter of the assertion that the movement of the hands are like the movement of the weapons came up, and someone said “Why don’t we see this movement in the Cage or the UFC?”
Now, I had been following the UFC since its beginning; I had started Machado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in 1990-- about three years before the first UFC. When Eric (Top Dog) and I worked with one of the SEAL teams in 1991 in the run-up to the Gulf War, we took Rigan Machado with us. In short I was aware of what was about to happen. In the aftermath of the UFC going to a format where judges were required I was razzing Art Davie about some of the judges they were choosing. He agreed and said to me “Hell, you guys are already doing this with sticks, you’d make a better judge.”
“So, Art, make me a judge.”
And so he did!
And that was how I became a judge at UFC 10 (Mark Coleman took the title from Don Frye) I have a story sitting in the bar with Tank Abbot the night before UFC 10. Scary Guy!!!
The point being from the beginning I have had a pretty rounded sense of what that type of fighting is about. I have always respected it. I know how good these people are!
I know some people tried answering this question of “Where’s the Kali?” with “I’d pluck his eye out, I’d grab his throat. This is too deadly for a combat sport!” but in my opinion that answer tends to be an evasion of the truth. In short, it seemed fair to me to ask why we were not seeing this in the cage.
It would have to be modified in certain respects to stay within the context of the evolving rules of MMA, but to my way of thinking if we could not a form of modified Kali that did measure up in the context of MMA, then there was a problem with the claim.
So I decided to begin researching this.
. At this time I was about 52 but I was still in pretty decent shape (I had fought Dog Brothers until I was 48) so I started training at a gym called the R.A.W Gym (Real American Wrestling) with Rico Chiapparelli, Vladimir Matyushenko, Frank Trigg, and a young Lyoto Machida. Rico was two time world wrestling champion under Dan Gable, Vlady had been wrestling champion of Russia and went the distance with Tito Ortiz for the UFC title, Frank Trigg went three times for the UFC middleweight title, and Lyoto was up and coming. In other words this was a very serious MMA gym, with serious amateur as well as professional fighters.
Given my age the fighters adjusted their level of physicality to me, they were very good with me. But at the same time it was active play, so I began doing these strange things in sparring, so when you first go out there and start doing these weird movements the whole gym stops and looks,…you see some expressions saying “I didn’t know they still made idiots like this” and you know if you go out and look like a fool they will be telling stories about you for the next 10, 20 years!
But fortunately there were some moments which seemed to go pretty well and I became encouraged and began exploring further. This was the beginning of ”Kali Tudo”.
One of the main reasons “Kali Tudo” seems important to me was what it offered for the third area of DBMA: the interface of Gun, knife and Empty-hand, which we call “Die Less Often”.
Most young males who come to martial arts are looking to compete (young male ritual hierarchical combat), whereas my motivation originated in growing up in New York City. I remember those three guys who smashed my bicycle, or when three junkies were trying to corner me on the subway in the Bronx after dropping off Yolanda. This was more my motivation for the martial arts-- street assaults with the possibility of uneven numbers, and this what brought me to Kali.
In those types of situation there is typically not enough time to discern whether that hand coming at you has weapon.
I experience that in the spring of 78 when I was down in Mexico with a friend. We were travelling near Chiapas which is close to Guatemala ande picked up two American girls with blonde hair. Some of the local Mexicans were excited by these girls, wearing no bra’s underneath their shirts, we got into trouble, we went to the police they ran away and could do nothing..it’s a great story. There were broken coke bottles, if you don’t know what to do you don’t know what to do… We wound up spending three exciting days in the State Prison
Henry: Yeah, the “Fog of War”…
Marc: Indeed! Fortunately everything worked out in the end. In these kinds of situations you can’t say “Oh this is a fist so I am going to do an empty-hand response” or “Oh he’s got a coke, bottle, a knife, car antenna so I’m going to do a different response.”
In my opinion there is a profoundly important advantage of having one idiom of movement whether there is a weapon or not. This thought has been my central drive towards developing “Kali Tudo”.
Furthermore I think It offers real advantage to serious MMA players. Of course you have to have the other skills too in the game (ground work etc.), but having tested this idiom of movement in the adrenal state they can go on to use it in Die Less Often situations.
This, at long last brings me to the answer to the question of why we have not seen Kali in the Cage-- you will only do in the adrenal state that which you have tested in adrenal state. For those who have seen our DLO DVD Vol 1, there is a scene with a BJJ black-belt watching knife versus empty-hand scenarios working, then he came up to me and said “couldn’t you just use a double leg take-down?”
“Well”, I said “Lets find out”.
The camera recorded his liability waiver and my permission to use the footage, and there he is with his t-shirt emblazoned “Tap or Nap”. So we went into the scenario with the knife, he executed a magnificent double leg takedown-he also got stabbed 8 times in the neck with the training knife. It makes you wonder how anyone could be so clueless, actually watching the scenarios and it still occurred to him to do the double leg takedown and the answer is this…that is what he had tested in the adrenal state and he was supremely confident in this, and this I believe people will do what they have tested in the adrenal state even if it’s a different context.
HENRY: Yeah, I have the DVD at home and one of the things I like about it is the whole problem solving approach, where you look at something in the “true light of day” and then try to assess the problem and if the crap literally hits the fan you have a follow on strategy or an exit strategy .
MARC: Yes, exactly! Sorry for jumping around so much, but to summarize, people will do in the adrenal state what they have tested in the adrenal state, so if someone has great Kali skills and has not tested them in the adrenal state they will not use them in an adrenal situation, that’s the first part of the answer.
Still, we have a bunch of people who have fought Dog Brother Gatherings and fought in MMA, but when they fight in MMA they are using their Kali movements. If we are to be honest with ourselves we must say this presents the question “Why?”
In my opinion, the answer why is that they fought single stick and single stick movements make a lot less sense in a mixed martial arts fight than double stick movements.
In my particular case starting around 1995 I shifted from being a single-stick fighter to double-stick, I think I was much better as a fighter and much more successful as a double-stick fighter, so I had tested double-sticks in the adrenal realities in the Dog Brothers fights and had hit people with it. So, I Started experimenting in the RAW Gym and it continued forward using those same movements with my arms and hitting their arms as a way of getting to them.
One of the things which I think DBMA has developed and which many people see to find value is the art and science at getting to the true range at which a fight begins, entering into the inner ranges. In the science of closing are the certain thought processes integrating the ranges, triangles, the theory of the 7 ranges and so forth. Basically I was using that in the context of Kali Tudo. I started sharing that info, with people who started reporting back this guy is giving me problems. Of course you can use this to help you prevent someone closing on you too.
HENRY: Yeah, following on from that regarding range, I recently came across some footage from an old film from the 1980’s called “Surviving edged weapons” with Tuhon Leo T. Gaje and Guro Dan Inosanto, and talking about the 21ft rule, a lot the interrogation which you demonstrate with Gabe Suarez involves within speaking range, has the emphasis changed or Police officers or LEO’s more willing to accept these tools to their “Tool-Bags”, i.e. the idea of the use of empty-hand before deploying the weapon? Are they becoming more open to these ideas.
Marc: well first of all I’d like to state tangentially myself and Gabe Suarez are no longer involved with each other, which has been the case for 4 years now. Currently, I have recently teamed up with a man by the name of Frankie McCrae (Raidon Tactics) who until recently was the advanced firearms instructor for the special forces at Fort Bragg.
Frankie has seen a lot of action in this world within recent years. We’ve been exchanging. He’s taken stance I’ve been using for shooting (even though I’m a poor shooter). You’ve got the isosceles stance, the weaver stance, “Hell” he said “Why not name it after you?” So he named it the “Crafty Dog Stance”. So he’s now using it in his pistol shooting classes as he feels it offers better recoil absorption, things for work when a person is in combat e.g. access to his rifle, knife, etc.
Just getting back to the 21ft rule and trying to solve the knife and drawing the gun, in DLO Vol. 2 that was one of the themes, you can see you cannot solve the knife attack and draw the gun at the same time. You’re either drawing and moving but there comes a point if you’re too close for that, you simply have to solve the knife attack, to the point where you have sufficient angle, you can’t do both at the same, its problematic.
HENRY: just going back to the Kali-Tudo, is there any up and coming MMA stars training with you for this or do you have a stable or group of fighters from DBMA working on this?
MARC: I’m working with a number of people. Right now, I’m working with Pedro Munhoz.
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=813.0 and
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/12/18/2643481/pedro-munhoz-mma-10-world-mma-scouting-reportAlso I have a bunch of my guys which have done very well and been successful in the amateur contests. In the Kali Tudo DVD 3 the guest instructor is Kenny Johnson, who is the wrestling coach to BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, the Noguiera Brothers, and others. These are all top flight class names in mixed martial arts.
The way the connection with Kenny came about was that I knew Kenny through the RAW gym and running into each other at Rigan Machado’s place. (I received my BJJ brown belt from Rigan) I was having problems with two wrestling issues. There was a positions which I was working with which I had learned from Rico Chiaparelli and, people were getting squared up on me and also my underhooks were really bad, I said “hey Kenny, can I get a private with you and see if you can help me with these position that are difficult for me. In the context of this lesson and what resulted he was very interested in what I was doing.
So this is a guy moving with Athletes of the level I just named, and he felt that he was very intrigued, so that’s how we began collaborating and I brought him in on Kali-Tudo 3 because one of the potential weaknesses of the Kali Tudo is that it’s so strong on the high-line is that we might be vulnerable to somebody who drops and shoots on the low-line, and If I wanted our people to have good sound foundation in basics such as the sprawl and so forth, and in making sure that they would not get into trouble against this particular type of counter.
I would like to point out that we use more than the sprawl for countering the shoot. Sitting with me here at the moment is Dog Matt Tucker, I was just showing him the Kali Tudo response to the “drop and shoot” but that has not been revealed yet to the general public, it’s actually from Lameco Eskrima. People on whom I’ve done it have been very surprised.
So getting back to the question, are there any upcoming players? Kali Tudo has merit, but is it or Kali a complete MMA game? No it is not.. you need to have what I call the “Joe Generic” MMA game, you need to able do Muay Thai, you need to able to do the basics of Greco-Roman and wrestling, the basics for Jiu-Jitsu, you need all of these other things too. But if you have those basics I think it can add in a lot MMA.
End Part 1
