How NOT to Blast: From Vunak’s R.A.T.
I learned Paul Vunak’s Rapid Assault Tactics (R.A.T.) directly from him in 2000, during two days of semi-private classes after a seminar of his in Long Beach. Precisely due to that experience, I’m surprised to see this video of him performing the “blast” portion of R.A.T. in such an ineffective way:
The “theory” behind R.A.T is solid, and has three phases:
- Entry/Inflict Pain
- Pressure/Blast – to keep the pressure on
- Terminate/Headbutts, Knees, and Elbows
The problem with the above video is that Vunak ignored the first phase. Attacking any decent boxer after he throws a couple of jabs with a wing chun style straight blast is a great way to get knocked out. A decent boxer will slip and hit, drop and hit, etc., etc. If Vunak would have followed his own past advice, and kicked the opponent in the balls or finger jabed him in the eye before beginning his blast, fine. But to go straight to the “pressure” phase without an entry that puts your opponent a step behind the curve is not a good idea…if you’re idea of pressure is a wing chun style straight blast.
2 Comments
Dude, they were training. You can’t take a segment of training and claim he wasn’t “doing it right”. He was working different aspects. It is like saying, “He is doing it wrong, he should have took him down and choked him out.” He is not emphasizing that right now.
Also there is a thing called “passive entry” which means you don’t intercept or destroy but follow in the attack and go right into the blast. It is done all the time.
Either way.
Hey Johnny,
No doubt Vunak can handle himself just fine and I don’t mean this as a critique of him. However, what he demonstrated in the video is in my opinion a poor way to train. It may very well work against the average opponent, but not against a person with decent boxing skills. Vunak has many excellent videos demonstrating all three phases of the blast that can be used against nearly any opponent. If you’re going to train entering against someone who is jabbing, you might as well do it in the most effective way possible.