In our recent discussion, we mentioned several folks who do silat, and I allowed as how I was less than impressed with one fellow's claims that he does what we do, since, not to put too fine a point on it, he doesn't.
To be fair, however, I should include one of his videos, to allow the viewer to judge for him- or herself.
So, here. A flow drill, to see how he handles attack.
Thus:
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18 comments:
Looks like spouse abuse. :)
Seriously, if you don't demo on someone bigger than you, it won't be taken seriously.
You're going to have to disinfect your blog after posting this one.
So sad.
If you don't demo on someone at least your size who at least looks like they're actually trying to hit you, it's hard to take seriously!
OK, what was that supposed to be? Wing Chun with bad structure? Aikido with no body mechanics? How to push around petite women half your size? Tango for really, really White people?
It doesn't have diddly to do with Silat.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Yeah, he shouldn't have called it Serak. It ain't.
This is a lockflow off of a highly modified hubud. It looks like they've cut out most of the repetitive parts and left only the more unusual bits.
It may look bad, but think about what Hernandez is getting out of all this. Her main sparring partner since the late 90s or earlier is an enraged moose. Against most street attackers, I can't imagine she would go down easily at all.
Simonet should really find someone better to demo on. I'm quite sure he can clean house but it does just look so awful. I don't want to rag on the guy but I always got the feeling he's not all that brilliant.
If you want to counter any kind of misinformation Simonet is putting out, you might encourage Guru Plinck to put out a whole slew of DVDs.
I'm selfish and I want them myself.
In the interests of what the lawyers call discovery, I must admit that there are other videos of Simonet demonstrating various aspects of his art, and some of these are against guys somewhat larger than Addy Hernandez.
That there are several using her as an attacker strikes me as passing strange. Big weightlifter guy tossing a smallish woman hither and yon? I doesn't seem to offer much of a demonstration of skill per se. He ought to be able to do that with no training -- that would be the default expectation.
Now, one could make the point that he is trying to show that Hernandez is tough and well-trained, and that he is offering her a compliment -- she is skilled enough so that she presents a real threat, and thus this is why I am using her.
She isn't a girly-girl, she's a kick-ass woman.
I can buy that, but it needs a set-up to sell it. Him slinging her around isn't it.
A better presentation would be to have her tossing and thumping him about, of course. Everybody expects the big dog to beat the little one, and showing that skill can overcome size and strength is -- in my mind -- a better way to go.
If your art is based on skill, you should be able to demo it thus. If it is mostly based on power or speed or size, then such a demonstration doesn't work when the defender is half the bulk of the attacker.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall; but it is also true that the bigger they are, the harder it is to *make* them fall. If Hernadez was slamming Simonet down hard enough shake the camera, then that would be impressive.
Other way around, not so much.
Good example would be Mr. Blackgrave. Does not move like a "man his size" at all even though he could.
Say, let's have the Silverback demo with him!
Also, does Simonet's knees bend beyond 15 degrees?!?!
Hey Steve, wanna make a demo vid? Who can say how it'd be perceived... she's half his size, he's twice her age...
Sure. You attack, I defend?
I dunno, when I can hold my arm out parallel to the ground and my attacker can walk under it without mussing her hair? When I'd have to get down on my knees to be low enough to block your highline attacks?
If you were a sumo wrestler instead of a slip of a girl, maybe. Otherwise, since Simonet has shown what it would look like, maybe not ...
VH -- Speaking of Blackgrave, what happened to his blog? Last time I checked, it was shut down.
"think about what Hernandez is getting out of all this."
I dunno, Anon. I have to assume things are different when they're actually training rather than performing for the vid, but-- On all of the tape I've seen, she never gets to perform technique; she loses every encounter. You can only do so much of that without it soaking in, which means in effect, she's training to lose.
As for a training video with Steve and Irene, it might not be all that convincing but the repartee would be worth the cost...
If you watch the Simonet tape, at the end you see Hernandez tearing up a mook jong, and as I remember (not sure) there are some scenes of her making Simonet tap.
I don't think the guy's a rat, I just think he wasn't too smart about how all that looked.
>"If you were a sumo wrestler instead of a slip of a girl, maybe."<
Goddam, Steve. You're just not happy unless the hornets are enraged.
He is showing a lack of flow in this video. The transitions seem to be stiff, not slowed down for teaching.
"at the end you see Hernandez tearing up a mook jong"
So, training to lose _except_ against mook jongs? Not much of an improvement :)
Thing is, the Paladin tapes came out several years ago (I don't remember either whether there were any scenes where she made him tap, but there sure weren't a lot). Apparently no-one's pointed out to him yet what bad marketing this is. (I'm assuming the clip Steve found is recent.)
I dunno how recent the vid is, but it was shot at Wind & Rock up at Lake Chelan in WA, and they haven't been doing those save for the last eight or nine years. The vid was put up seven months ago.
Oh, and here's a link for Bobbe to a vid from ten years or so back. Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah-3xM7Bq8s
The, uh, for-Bobbe vid link, BTW, which shows Victor de Thouars leading a class with Joe Simonet in the b.g. was put up by Simonet. I expect it was posted in public to gainsay the claims from the de Thouars camp that Simonet was never exposed to Sera(k), that all he learned was Tongkat.
For those of you who don't know, Sera is a long-standing classical art; Tongkat is Victor's personal art, which has elements of Sera in it.
That's Victor doing his version of Sera(k) Djuru #1, and some other Sera-like stuff, right here in front of God and everybody, and Joe standing right behind him aping the movies in slomo with the rest of the class.
I don't know how much more Simonet got after that. I have spoken to some of Victor's ex-gurus, and once they left the fold and were no longer having to follow the party line, they were a bit more forthcoming.
From one of them whom I consider reputable, the story is that, yes, indeed, Sifu Joe was shown the Sera(k) djurus, and given videos of them to study, but once he had the vids, he soon after produced his own video, purporting to be the essence of the art with all the fru-fru stripped out.
This did not go over well, and he was declared persona non grata in a hurry in the VDT camp.
Simonet was one of Victor's students, and into Tongkat training fairly seriously. He claims a 2nd degree black belt in that, and the VDT used to admit to that. Look at the tattoo on his right shoulder, you can see it on the Ki Concepts website under his bio.
What was was supposed to be essence of Silat Sera(k) demonstrated in those first Simonet vids wasn't anything like I understand it to be. I don't claim to have mastered the art, nor am I anywhere close to doing so; but I have been watching a master do it for what? thirteen, fourteen years? I know what it is supposed to look like.
Simonet is big and strong and probably a bad ass fighter. He's not doing Sera.
And, come to think of it, I believe that Joe was one of Bob's originally, wasn't he?
Bob Vanatta, from all accounts a nice guy, who was the heir to the VDT lneage before he got cut loose, too.
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