Two reviews of this seminar from the Warrior Talk forum:
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My background: approximately 2 years of JKD style training, to include Kali, Silat, Boxing, Muay Thai, and BJJ. I know a little bit of everything, but am certainly not an expert in anything.
My familiarity with Guro Marc Denny's material, prior to attending this seminar, was from his "Die Less Often" DVD, as well as reading things he had posted and watching videos on the Dog Brothers site.
Titan Fitness was an excellent facility for the seminar. They have considerable amounts of floor space, including a lot of mat space, which is helpful for any evolutions that involve going to the ground. They were also very close to lodging and multiple eateries. (These, at least for me, are important considerations!)
Guro Denny, aka "Crafty," started the seminar on time at 10:00am, Saturday morning. We began with a fun warmup, which Crafty referred to as a "prison yard riot." It got everybody moving and having fun at the same time, which is often a difficult thing to do. After that we did some stretches and moved right in to the instructional block of material.
Crafty started us out with some very basic footwork drills, but obviously footwork is the key to fighting, and I appreciate that greatly. All of Crafty's footwork is straight from Kali/Silat paradigms, however he has a different perspective on it. Further, he's used a different naming convention more in keeping with the Dog Brothers mentality. Instead of calling things "triangles," they're called variants of "teeth." Additionally he introduced the "Kali Fence."
We built upon the initial footwork drills, and as the instruction continued, it became apparent that what Crafty was offering was an "entry system." The remainder of the seminar confirmed this hunch. Crafty's specialty, at least during this block of instruction, was getting from the outside range and into real engagement distance. Crafty referred to it as "filling in the vowels in the alphabet." He said that most styles teach you what do to once you've gone hands on, but many of them fall down when it comes to closing the gap.
Crafty is a fan of taking a later lunch, and the first day we didn't break for a meal until 1:00pm. For those of you who eat every few hours, I recommend you bring a protein bar and water or similar. His instruction style and scheduling is a bit more informal than some other seminar instructors, so be prepared for a more "flexible" schedule. Based on what I saw, you may have regular breaks, or not. You will likely end each day closer to 5:30pm than the scheduled 4:00pm. I was fine with this, but some people don't like that sort of schedule. You should simply know about it and come prepared.
During the afternoon of the first day, Crafty went into his "Die Less Often" material. For those of you not familiar with it, it is a system to deal with very agressive knife attacks on the forehand line. What Crafty taught during this phase was exactly what you get in his DVD. He went into the "Dog Catcher," as well as all of the nuances that make or break this technique.
The beginning of the second day was more of the DLO material, and then some of what Crafty calls Kali Tudo, or the implementation of Kali and Silat principles into armed and unarmed fighting.
As the day progressed, we started working with stick fighting paradigms. Once again, Crafty was teaching entries, this time with single and double stick. Prior to this point, everything had been quite simple, and, as near as I could tell, everybody in the seminar had no problems grasping what Crafty was teaching. When the sticks came out, however, things changed quite a bit.
While the stick paradigms that Crafty was teaching were still basic, many of the seminar attendees had very little experience with singel or double stick, and so they were having problems. I'm left to conclude that a seminar is, quite possibly, the worst place to try and pick up single or double stick.
Overall I had a great time at the seminar. Crafty is very engaging, and more than willing to entertain questions about any aspect of his instruction, training, past, philosophies, etc. He continually mentions and gives credit to other instructors from which he has learned, most especially Guro Dan Inosanto.
Throughout his instruction he is actively discussing the problems he's trying to deal with, as well as jokingly referring to some of the techniques that he plays with: "oh, that doesn't work, does it?" He is very reality based, and he talks about the differences between the ring and reality quite a bit.
I enjoyed the seminar and would highly recommend it. One of the things I really appreciate about what Crafty teaches is the fact that you can plug it in to just about any other martial art and make it work. He has spent a considerable amount of time researching and playing with the area that I feel many martial arts don't deal with so well, and I believe with a bit of practice, the things I learned from Guro Crafty will be a part of my standard repetoire from here on out.
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Really good overview of the seminar. I'm going to add my two cents or so, from a rather different perspective.
The first time I trained with Crafty is pushing 11 or 12 years ago- his seminar format (and content) has evolved quite a bit over that time. I would guess that I see Crafty something around every two years (though that will likely as east coast appearances are on the rise) so there is definately an evolution in progress. 10+ years ago the emphasis was on the stick and on preparing for and then playing "real contact;" an early model impact based force on force if you will. If I had to sum up "Seminar Crafty" circa 1995 or 6 it would be "here are some variables you must plug into whatever you do if it is going to work under pressure."
Moving forward, today's Crafty is teaching a very coherent series of modules which dovetail nicely (one underlying theme for the weekend was similarity of footwork grids and final positions relative to the opponent regardless of the particular tool being used.
There was also a very real sense of the material being developed beyond simple fight strategies and pressure-testing. Crafty has a very well-developed theory of violence and agression and weaves this through the various blocks of instruction. A very refreshing part of this was the frequent warning that America is a gun culture, and that one is as likely to be dealing with a firearm as any other type of weapon.
The only real negative in Jayman's review was the observation that quite a few folks had some degree of difficulty with the stick material. This certainly was the case, although I think part of the difficulty may have been that, while Crafty is known as a stick teacher, this event was not so much a stick seminar. Perhaps is the sticks had come out early on day one rather than late on day two there might have been less brain fade...on the other hand I really enjoyed the new material.
As anyone who reads his posts knows Crafty is a pretty analytic fellow- his seminars are honestly worth it just for the thoughts and ideas one can pick up. His material is evolving and growing, though he does always make a great effort to give credit to his sources, teachers, and inspirations. This was the first time I had seen him since he really started collaborating with Gabe- I think the exchange of ideas is working well for both men.
The short conclusion- if Crafty isn't on your short list of people to train with you should re-think that list.
