ok so i did watch this..
first thought,,,your hands are down for almost every sequence and you distancing range for the stand up never changes you are at a constant outside range.
at 2:54 your doing boken stuff on the heavy bag,,,looks cheesy.. sorry,
in a lot of your strikes, both hand and weapons you are really over doing the follow through movements. trying to understand why you would let your arms and body posture open up like that.
what makes what you are teaching combatives? it looks like common martial arts mixed together.
i am not trying to bash, just looking for a comparative to what i do.
I'm not sure that the OP is going to come back… and, as the initial videos in the first post are now not viewable, I'm going to go through the above linked clip with a fairly fine-toothed comb to highlight the mechanical issues (and others) that I was seeing in the original clips, as they're present here (along with a number of others)… this may take a bit…
First comment: the vast majority of times when I'm watching a clip here, I have my sound running through my system… which also has my TV etc running through it… which means that I, most commonly, watch the clips without sound, and base much of my initial comments on the simple body movement I see. If it's something I feel I need more clarification on, then I watch it again with the sound… which is what I did with the original clips. Now, in those clips, it was slightly illuminating (although did nothing to assuage the problems seen), however this clip has no audio from Joe, just a rather annoying song throughout it… pity.
Okay, to the actual content itself…
From about 0:09-0:23 (yeah, I said it'd be a fine toothed comb…), we get a look at some basic stepping drills. Okay, fair enough. However, I note that the body simply isn't moving with the legs, leaving a larger than necessary amount of time out of balance, and unable to move should an attack be launched. Additionally, there is little in the way of solidity to the stepping, with your weight being held back and too high, which leaves you susceptible to being rushed and overwhelmed.
0:23-0:29, you're showing a hammer fist, first simply with your hand (light), then with a slight (but mis-timed) drop, and an increased penetration, overly emphasised by you dropping your own hand out of the way… which, frankly, shows little to nothing about any power generation at all, or any improvement that you're offering. The third example is a step, drop, and strike… again completely mis-timed and poorly co-ordinated, with an overly exaggerated drop, leaving your head wide open, and without a guard. Sure, if you hit, it'd have some effect (not as much as you think), but if it missed (and, with the wind-up, the lack of speed, and more, that's likely), you're wide open to be hit back. In other words, you're contravening all the basic principles of how to hit in the first place.
0:30-0:53 "Strikes With Every Part Of The Body"… well, firstly, you're not using "every part of the body"… but we'll let that go, you may teach striking with the earlobes on the full DVD… and we'll just focus on the actual striking methods shown. They're terrible.
Every single strike is done in an overly committed fashion, leading to poor balance, lack of control, lack of defensive capabilities, and lack of power on the strike itself. This is coupled with the poor distancing seen throughout (both too close and too far), a lack of ability to put power into the strike, leading to it coming back into your body. In the kicking actions, there is a tendency to again have no defensive aspect (guard) at all, as well as a tendency to not transmit your body weight into the strikes by holding your hips back. All of this leads to poor striking, lack of power, and more.
0:54-1:19 "Many Different Takedowns Minimal Body Contact" Hmm… again, a myriad array of mechanical issues, from poor positioning to weak grips and so on…
1:20-1:40 "Ground Work Designed For The Street". Uh… nope. The whole thing. Nope.
The first thing you do is a forward break fall… which has your hands out to the sides (leaving your face free to fall straight to the ground if more force was applied), your knee impacting the ground, and more. Do this on concrete, and you're going to potentially injure your knee, elbows, and face… so… maybe learn to fall first? The rear fall you follow with is not quite as bad, but would still lead to potential injury to your hip and elbow.
I like the idea of a ground fighting position to kick from… but your position is fairly easily passed, due to the way you're holding your high leg. And, with your position, you'd be in some real trouble. Next is you rolling over an "attackers" ankle… look, do I have to point out how silly this is? A simple step back from the guy above would stop that pretty easily…
1:41-2:10 "Just Get Up" Er… huh? The first sequence has you give up your back for a choke almost immediately, and, even when you do manage to stand, you're still trapped with one leg clamped between both of the opponents… maybe learn what you're doing first? We then get a series of actions from between a persons legs (not really a guard), which is wonderful if someone's just lying down and not, you know, fighting you… When we do move onto a position where you're in your opponent's guard, it's frankly terrible. The legs are too low, which makes your escape easier, but unrealistic, and robs the opponent of the actual control that position affords. We also see the half-kneel that drop bear was commenting on… not only are you open to a sweep, you're too high, which gives you some balance issues, your right foot is flat on the ground (rather than being up on the ball of the foot), which leaves you in a less mobile, less powerful position, and more. Really, this is all fairly useless.
2:11-3:00 "Offensive Weapons Defensive Weapons and Disarms". I'm going to break this down to individual weapons…
This section begins with some parts of the original knife clips… beginning with some supported stabbing actions. Look, I'm not going to go into detail on an open forum as to exactly how the issues I see can be fixed, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I will point out the problems as I see them. This thrusting action, for example, are very shallow, with minimalist penetration if the other guy is wearing anything remotely heavy (such as a jacket, leather or otherwise), which will lead to more superficial injuries than anything realistic. This is followed by a "hooking" action, and a "pushing" cut… look, in certain circumstances I can see a use… but those situations are highly specific, and again, there is a sacrifice of a powerful response to allow for such actions.
Next is some stick work… and, again, it's frankly terrible. The strikes are whippy, which is good for speed, however they're kept far too close to your body, leading to no power, no penetration, and little effect other than a sting and an annoyance. The fact that you combine shortened strikes with an over-reach (leaving your body and head exposed and open) is impressive… you've both under extended and over extended at the same time… and what the hell is that helicopter lunacy at 2:39?!?
Weapon defence… you start with a knife defence that sees you ignore the knife in favour of some low-level striking, and getting stabbed for your lack of awareness (seriously, check out what happens at 2:43… no control of the weapon or weapon hand, and you wear it…), followed by some pistol disarms… hmm. You do get that one of the main things with a pistol disarm is to get the barrel pointing away from you, yeah? Cause you rather constantly pull it across your body, or point the thing directly at your face… that, combined with the fact that your not moving against anything close to even a realistic threat with a gun, and the way you have no actual disarming principles other than "pull it out of his hand" (badly), and I would heartily advise that anyone watching and thinking about your product base their assessment on the fact that, when it comes to the most serious of situations, weapon defence, everything you do would get you killed. Often by your own hand.
At 2:54 we see you using a bokuto (wooden sword) on a punching bag… dude, put the thing down, you're embarrassing yourself. You have no idea of grip, posture, cutting mechanics, or anything related to sword usage… and what do swords have to do with modern combatives anyway?!?!
3:00-3:10 "The Evolution of Combatives" Uh… nope.
So, with a three minute video so replete with problems, issues, and more, and with your rather odd belief that what you're presenting is in any way new, an improvement, or even good in the first place, I went back to your website to see what exactly your background was, and honestly, the entire thing screams "beginner". Why you think you're in a position to offer something of major value is beyond me… but, for the record, here is your list:
Trained and Certified In:
Jeet Kune Do (mostly self taught, 1 year class taught)
Judo (green belt)
Tekken Ryu Jujutsu (green belt)
Ninjitsu Mind Techniques
Multiple Types of combatives
The Self Defence Training System (Professional Instructor)
Wing Chun Kung Fu (Level 4 Student, Level 3 Instructor)
Pressure Point Defensive Tactics (International Coach)
Open Circle Fighting Method (Coach)
WW3 Combatives (creator)
So, what do we have here? Someone who is "mostly self taught" in JKD, holds a beginner's rank in Judo and Tekken Ryu Jujutsu (itself a modern creation), certified in three systems that look to be weekend seminar certifications, trained in "multiple types of combatives" (whatever that might mean), some Wing Chun (which again appears to be rather beginner in rank), and… had to save this to the end, because, seriously, what the hell?!!?… "Ninjitsu mind techniques". Dude… what?
All of this is them combined to make your own combative system… not a good sign. Of course, there is more than you added to create this concoction… and one thing that leapt out at me is this: Ancient Swiss Medical Qigong. Once again, seriously? What the hell?!?! Ancient SWISS Qigong? Dude… is there any part of you that believes this yourself?!?
That's actually the one thing he said I would agree with, at least to some extent. Even within FMA, or perhaps especially in FMA, there is a tendency to add and add techniques so they can say "we have that also" whenever someone posts some flashy video. And, there are certain FMA systems, and certain camps within other FMA systems, that have gotten pretty darn flashy in their knife work.
His stuff is not the answer, at least from what I can tell since he made his videos private (bad form BTW), but that particular premise is not too far off in my view.
Except he wasn't talking about the methods of various systems, he was talking about knife fighting itself… hence the question as to his experience and understanding of what knife combat actually (realistically) entailed itself...
