Counter to the counter

[Buka]

Yeah, sure.

But so far so good. It’s worked for me for forty years. Worked for my students as well.
Even works in grappling….until you go against a much better grappler. Then it’s tap early, tap often.

 

[Flying Crane]

Is this video presented as a realistic option ...or as a parody of demonstrations of unrealistic responses to an absurdly overcommitted attack followed by an overly compliant (inactive) behavior by the "attacker"???

I have no idea who the fellows in the video are. I recognize this attack/response from the Tracy kenpo lineage curriculum. It is a self defense combination called “Darkness” (Kenpo curriculum is full of self-defense scenarios with odd names). What is not shown in the video is the rest of the prescribed combination. If done to completion, the bad guy ends up with…let’s see… broken spine in the low/middle back…a second spinal break in the upper back…a broken neck…a broken nose…two broken collar bones…face and eyes ripped out…concussion/cracked skull from the head slamming on the floor.

As a thirteen year-old kid getting my start in the martial arts in Tracy lineage kenpo, I thought this kind of maximum violence was evidence of the superiority of Kenpo. We didn’t waste our time with a mere punch to the gut or knife hand to the bridge of the nose, or endless, boring, drilling of the basics to develop solid fundamentals. No sir-ee! We jumped right into the good stuff. We destroyed the body. All of it. Every last bit. Breaks, smashes, rips, tears, piled one on top of the next and the next.

As I matured in my martial practice and gained new perspectives through training in other methods, I came to understand the ludicrousness of such a mindset in training. Overly complicated techniques that make huge and unrealistic assumptions about how the encounter will unfold, nevermind the criminal ramifications one is bound to face after turning a person’s body into little more than a smashed and broken meat sack. It just stopped making sense to me as a way to train realistic and useful martial material.

These things can look good on paper. In theory, sure, you do this and then that and then the next move…yeah, it could work…theoretically… But realistically, I think that level of theory is far removed from reality.

This has become a long answer to your simple question. The short answer is no, this is not meant as parody.

Master Ken is a real-life kenpo black belt and instructor. Now you know where he gets his comic material.

 

[geezer]

My first exposure as a kid was to the martial sport of wrestling. Perfect for me as a small skinny kid. But I was always afraid of striking arts as portrayed in the movies and TV ....so later I also got involved with a very complicated blended Chinese, Japanese and Okinawan art coming out of Hawaii. They called it a family system of kung-fu, but in fact, it was pretty much just like Kempo rebranded to ride the kung-fu wave of the 70s.

...So I totally get what you are saying.

Funny thing, after a couple of years of that style, I switched to Wing Chun, which I found refreshingly direct and practical. Then I got into escrima and thought that added another dimension of practicality. Then, of course, MMA came onto the scene and has gradually changed the whole perception of what works.

These days I look back at my early experience wrestling as probably having some of the most useful material I ever learned ...with a bit of modification. Unfortunately, I'm now at an age where I really can't do that stuff anymore without hurting myself worse than the other guy!