DVD reviews, sifu Barry Cuda's Dynamic Kali

lonecoyote

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Hello all, just thought martial talkers might be interested in some DVDs I purchased just recently featuring an instructor that I first saw on martial talk. His name is Barry Yedwabnick (sifu Barry Cuda). His website is www.combatartsusa.com. I got interested in purchasing his videos because of his posts on martial talk, liked his opinions and general attitudes on training, realism, and martial arts in general, and I've always been interested in FMA. So I emailed him, gave him a call and ordered two videos: Dynamic Kali DVD series, volume 1 knife fighting, and Dynamic Kali DVD series Volume 3. boxing to trapping to grappling. I'm writing a review because I liked the DVDs and I think its great that martial talk led me to them.
 
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lonecoyote

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Both videos were packed full of content. There was no filler at all. They didn't go too fast, they were paced well, but there was so much stuff, plenty to go back over again. Nothing was held back, and he moved from one thing to another in a logical progression. He didn't leave any thing halfway done. He would go through a leg lock sequence and then go through a progression of options, going from one thing to another. Everything was clearly explained and clearly shown. The videos were definitely worth the price to me, and I'm not a guy with a lot of money to throw around right now. I've got a few martial arts instructional tapes, kenpo, shotokan, grappling, and though I by no means consider myself an authority, these are the best in my collection so far. I've worked some of the drills with a regular training partner and I find them useful, fun, and painful (have someone punch the bones in the back of your hand) which to me is a good thing. I can recommend these DVDs without reservation. Great stuff.

I'll describe what was on the DVDs:
Volume 3 Boxing to trapping to grappling dealt with some empty hand components of FMA. He starts off with kicking, which he says can be called sikaran or pananjakman. He shows low kicks and the logic behind using them by demonstrating Kali defenses against high kicks. He says its best to kick low where kicks are harder to counter. He shows about half a dozen low line kicks, some kicking drills and kick counters. He then moves on to boxing which he calls panantukan (sorry about my spelling if it's wrong) Its about arm and nerve and bone destruction-how to hit nerves on the wrist, bicep, and the bones on the back of the hand, there are some drills, also elbows and mixing kicking and hand techniques and western boxing
He then goes on to trapping, which he describes as a range, not just a set of techniques, its about functioning and fighting in this range, he shows entries, use of elbows, strikes, drills, and use of sinawali patterns from the stick as empty hand techniques, also there are head butts and gunting as an empty hand technique. There is some standing grappling, arm wrenching, standing arm bar, figure four arm lock (I've heard it called a keyhole) different counters to locks, and takedowns. He descrives the FMA takedowns as hard to impossible to breakfall against, and it certainly looks that way in his demonstration. As far as ground grappling, he shows a lot of progressions from lock to lock, chokes, how to get more leverage, he also shows leglocks, counters, and the pentjak silat "trophy position" takedowns vs. kicks to leglocks, double leglocks, whew!
There's actually more than this. The DVD is completely packed with action, and no information is held back.
 
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lonecoyote

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Volume 1: knife fighting

In getting started, he stresses the need for a trainer, and the philosophy that one must know the knife if it is ever necessary to against a knife. He talks about longer fixed blade knives vs. shorter folders, grips, forward and reverse, slashing patterns and thrusts.
He shows the single knife at long range slashing the arm, at mid range slashing while using a checking hand. Then he shows abecedario, different attacks counters, combinations to limbs and body.
He does a lot of flowing drills, like sombrada, and palusut, you can see everything clearly and he does explain that this isn't really sparring, but cooperating to learn the angles of attack, sensitivity and reflexes. He goes to locking and disarming and takedowns from the flows as well as feeding the knife back to your opponent.
There is a good section on double dagger, which he says increases your coordination for single dagger and empty hands, more flow work with two daggers mixing high and low lines, strips, the palusut, and then this section ends with empty hand vs. double dagger.
The DVD ends with empty hand vs. single knife and uses everything covered previously on the DVD, takedowns, strips, feeding back, but he explains you can take a couple of things and then work them from every angle.
Again, there is actually a lot more than this, I've just hit the high points. I like the DVDs. I do want to say that I have received no compensation, monetary or otherwise from Barry or any agent acting on his behalf. These opinions are solely my own.
 

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