I received the following video this morning from “Nodan”, who talks about himself in the third person:

I don’t have any problem whatsoever with a person practicing karate, breaking boards, etc., for fun. I did it myself years ago. But please don’t claim any of this stuff will work in self defense. Showing a gun defense from long rang where you dodge a single shot and respond by punching the attacker in the ribs is downright stupid. It will get you killed.

As Bruce Lee famously said, “boards don’t hit back”. Not only do they not hit back, but they don’t move! No attacker is going to stand and do nothing, allowing you to punch them dead in the face. The fact that this guy refers to himself in the third person, has the voice of an old woman, and talks about demons doesn’t help. It’s sad that most of the comments on the above video are positive. Come on people!

EDIT: Apparently this mystery man, “Nodan”, went on a DVD sending spree in 2005…sending DVD’s to martial arts schools with no return address or info on who he was. Here are two posts on the subject if you’d like to waste a little time.

I’ve been meaning to re-design and update the entire Hertao site, add more video, blog posts, etc., but have been too busy lately. I was asked on the Bullshido forum if I could find a version of sumbrada that was done at an “acceptable level”, and will post the results of that unfortunate search here. First I want to be clear that with the following videos I’m not suggesting that any of these guys can’t fight or defend themselves with a stick…only that the way they’re training sumbrada is not realistic. On to the videos:



The block with the checking hand that you see in seconds 6 through 8 will not work in reality. The only reason it works in the above video is because the “attacker” is holding his stick still in mid air. If this were reality, the “defender” would have his hand smashed by the stick as it followed through. The stick WILL follow through in reality, as you can see here. Only a cooperative partner will stop his stick in mid air so you can put your hand on his hand.

The same “defense” is done again at the 15 second mark. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if the attacker really swung hard and followed through, the “defender” would have a really messed up hand and arm. The rest of the video is more of the same. Here’s another:



It’s hard to say which of these videos is worse…but I’ll go with the second. These guys are playing stick patty cake. They’re tapping their sticks with ZERO intent, stopping them in mid swing, putting their hands in places where they’d get nailed in reality, etc. Seriously, this is stick patty cake. The guys move into Pekiti’s “thrust on tapping” drill and also into hubud. All of it is done as if the target is in the middle of the air. Another:



This one looks a lot better on the surface, and to many people not familiar with real stick fighting, it’s impressive. The guys are moving all over the place, and going relatively fast. However, the footwork is not done with a purpose. It doesn’t help with evading, entering, etc. The “checking hand” positions will not work in reality. The only reason they work in this drill is because the practitioners are stopping their sticks in mid swing.

I should add here, there’s nothing wrong with stopping your attack in mid-swing in order to do a drill like sumbrada. The problem is when that action stops you from realizing your technique will not work otherwise. When we trained sombrada we often stopped our sticks in mid-swing also. The difference is that our checking hand position was either out of the way of the follow through, or would have stopped the swing itself. For anyone who hasn’t seen our sumbrada video, here it is again:



Notice the details. When the checking hand is used (in the case of the inside swing or #1 for example), it checks/stops at the wrist, not on the hand. Checking on the hand will not stop the swing. It will follow through and nail your hand.



I think this was the best video I found, but still not very good. In general these guys have “better” hand positions, and sometimes they’re even almost realistic. Take a look at second 2:18. This obviously will not work, and that’s the checking hand position used against the #1 swing in the majority of the video. The idea/position at second 2:23 is far better than at 2:18, but I seriously question whether the structure of that check/grab would hold up under a full power swing. The swing goes directly against the weak part of the grip.

Some people may argue they know all of the above, and the poor checking hand positions are only used in training. But why? What’s the point of training positions that will not work, when it’s just as easy to train positions that will work?!?!?!?

So why are people training sombrada this way? I have no idea. But just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean it works!

I’ve added the new video above, along with a page with more explanation here: Wing Chun Trapping.  I think the video turned out well, but may give the impression that I think trapping has less application than I actually do.  In the coming days I’ll add more techniques to the Wing Chun page along with additional applications of trapping.

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:

Click here to read more »

Michael Blackgrave wrote a great post yesterday titled Martial Minions. Many Asian martial arts are supposed to be about a search for the truth, often referencing philosophical elements of Zen, etc., yet promote the exact opposite. It’s common to see everything from entirely ineffective techniques that are trained over and over again without thought, to identically clad robots who move exactly like their instructors, to teachers with cult like followers. Although the Filipino martial arts have slightly less pseudo religious dogma, they’re full of camouflage wearing wackos who idolize instructors that talk about chopping off heads rolling with eyes still open, and the like. Click here to read more »

I’ve just added a new video on sumbrada, along with pictures and a description of how to do the drill correctly. Sumbrada, along with hubud and other pre-arranged patterns, trapping, etc., has been the subject of much controversy over the years. In 2000 I had a long argument on the old Inosanto forum, and another in 2002 on the old MMA.TV forum with Burton Richardson and Matt Thornton in which Marc Denny (Crafty Dog) also chimed in. Actually, most of the video I’ve posted above comes from a DVD I made to send Denny in 2002 after the MMA.TV discussion. Click here to read more »