Dog Brothers?

[Exorcist_Fist]

I posted this on the main forum, but I was wondering if any of the Jodo/jojutsu practitioners have had any interactions with the dog brothers?

[Kit LeBlanc]

I asked this once before in the Sword Arts section and no one even knew who the Dog Brothers were.

I think it would do a lot for Japanese MA, especially kenjutsu and jo, to experience some training with these guys. It would also be more like the JMA were in the old days..like back when kendo included attacks to all body parts, takedowns, and grappling.

[Kit LeBlanc]

Dan,

Search Sword Arts Forum for the "Old School" Kendo threads...lots of interesting stuff in there also relating to police kendo, which tends to be a lot rougher and includes grappling in the dojo, if not in competition.

[Exorcist_Fist]

Thanks Kit. My wondering really didn't extend that far though. I am not a stick guy. I was just wondering if anyone from the Jo community had any contact with the DB.

[Dan Harden]

Originally posted by Kit LeBlanc
I asked this once before in the Sword Arts section and no one even knew who the Dog Brothers were.

I think it would do a lot for Japanese MA, especially kenjutsu and jo, to experience some training with these guys. It would also be more like the JMA were in the old days..like back when kendo included attacks to all body parts, takedowns, and grappling.

_________________________________________

Or like the JMA are TODAY
We don;t need the Dog brothers. There are enough who include all of the above; including freestyle training and getting hit. Fear is a great teacher and motivator. In my Dojo there have been broken bones, knockouts concussions, hip separations, shoulder separations, bruises and surguries. NOW..........we don't train that hard anymore but have taken the knowledge gained into the reality or should I say fantasy of JSA and JMA training that we currently do.

Kata fan
I am a Kata fan. I will stand in counter to much of the nonsense written about the supposed insepidness of Kata in traditional JMA. For what its worth I have found the principles and in some cases the actual techniques themselves of two arts I know to be sound and viable in CQC. I taught people sword kata for years and out f the blue one day had them walk up to hard targets (trees-not grass mats) with an unmounted blade and had them cutting well right out of the box. I have seen Iaidoka who were rather inept in facing off with someone presenting a committed attack, become formidable with a blade. If kata had no value were did they learn the skill?

All in all I no longer believe it is about the art- it is about the artist. There are enough inept people in otherwise excellent arts to make the case for me. Years ago I watched a perfectly ridiculous session of Jodo that made me laugh out loud. Two profesional office type wieners about 140 pounds soaking wet who looked like they had trouble remaining vertical on a good day- presenting sticks to each other instead of hitting each other. It was an embarassment. Next up-a women who could have mopped up the floor with both of them.

Dog brothers
Freestyle anything has benefits and dangers. Too much freestyle you lose track of any semblance of established form or cohesive transmission. Not to mention that it has great potential to degenerate into nothing more than muscle based brawling-with or without sticks and pointy things.
Not enough Freestyle and you have great potential for producing Budo wankers walking through the motions and dreaming they are doing anything of value.
Where any of us are on that scale is interesting- most of us think that the later can't possibly be us.

Cheers
Dan

[Kit LeBlanc]

...don't hit back. LOL, just kiddin' (sorta...you know me :p )

I agree with you Dan, except that in general from what I have seen, in demos, videos of masters demonstrating, et al. most by far resemble the weenies you describe.

We have heard much about your own dojo and past training...suffice it to say that kind of thing is pretty rare in classical martial arts. I have some friends that have far more experience in different koryu, and frankly, it is the guys in koryu with serious combativea and/or competitive experience that most lament what passes for "bugei" in many groups today. The argument some make about the bugei being more dangerous, more combative, etc. may apply when it is at the hands of a Draeger, or a George Bristol (who writes about this sort of thing), both combat veterans in a hard core service AND with extensive experience in full contact grappling, but they are, I fear, a rare case. Dr. David Hall said here on E-Budo something along the lines that it would be rare even in Japan to find a teacher with an understanding of how to actually apply his art in combative circumstances.

This only underscores your point about it being the person and not the 400 year old, bred on the battlefield, soaked in the blood of warriors from centuries past, so lets assume I am just like them classical martial arts...of any culture.

Kata IS force on force training...sparring isn't.

[INFINOO]

I have been practicing Jojutsu for sometime and IMO Dog brothers tapes are a "must see" for anyone interested in real contact weapons training and are open to cross training. In one of there tapes they "fight" a JMA man with Bokken Vs double stick, also long staff, whip nuchucku ect... pretty cool. They have incorperated ground fighting BJJ into the equation(Stick grappling). I respect "anyone" who is willing to go out on the floor or grass and show me not tell me.
By the way, I agree Kata is the good stuff, it gives you/me a foundation to build on , so no argument from me there.
The key to understanding FMA is that training meathodolgy is tribal not hierarchical. And as a westener it corresponds to "my" value system. In the world of weapons every one is equal. Your value system mileage may very :D.
From my experience is that with this training meathodology one can learn/teach to fight with weapons egded/impact in hours,days or weeks not years or decades. Let the flame war begin :nw:.

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

[Kit LeBlanc]

Originally posted by INFINOO
In the world of weapons every one is equal. Your value system mileage may very :D.


Yer right...my .45 vs. your belt knife at 15 yards. Ready.....:D

[INFINOO]

Kit: I live in Canada so hand guns on the hip are a no no for me unless your RCMP, police or a criminal which leaves me out on all counts. 15 yards, hmm , gee thats a long way away . Iv never been in a fight from someone at that distance. Didnt the old stand by reactionary gap distance used to be 25 feet(surviving edged weapons). At any rate, most fights I have been in start inside of 15 feet, in bad light on lousy footing.
If your willing to conceed to a few conditions we can do this. My choice of time and place will be a Calgary winter when it somtimes gets -40 with a wind chill of -60 . I'll wear my a warm touque, winterboots with good grip , have on a bullet resistant vest and nice warms mittens, my weapon of choice will be a fixed blade in a quick draw kydex sheath worn on the outside of my coat. You can bring your gun into Canada(good luck) wear t-shirt and shorts and use the shi**y hoslsters the police around here use, covered by a long coat, and we can stand around for a couple of hours first so your fingers are good and frozen, still want to go?:p Just kidding my friend. I understand your point, do you understand mine.
Regards
Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[Earl Hartman]

It seems to me that "contact" between a DB fighter and a jo man would be painful, if nothing else.

From what little I know about them, the Dog Brothers look a lot like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) a medieval re-creation group of which I was an active member all through high school. We built our own armor and weapons (swords made out of rattan and maces made out of rattan shafts with a lot of padding on the end) and then proceeded to hit each other pretty much as hard as we could. In that process, in addition to some serious bruising, I nearly had my neck broken once (the dishonorable son of a bitch hit me from behind in a melee), and I broke the bones of a few other people (inadvertently) a couple of times (fingers, mostly). Concussions were quite common. After a while, the fighting got so dangerous that blows to the hand were outlawed (people were gettng their hands smashed too often) and helemts (which in the early days were often no more than reinforced saber fencing masks) were required by regulation to be made of at least 14-gauge steel.

Anyway, I am curious as to how blows are "scored" in DB fighting. Do they just whale on wach other until someone goes down, a person's ability to take pain being a large factor in determining victory? Are their weapons presumed to be edged and thus a single "cut" to the right area is considered to be "fatal"? Or do they just wade in flailing and then grapple until someone yells "uncle"? Their web site makes it look like they are a tribe of manly men who take pride in being able to bear a lot of pain in a manly fashion and then bond over beer and the sharing of battle scars. There is a great deal to be said for the ability to take a lot of pain IF the assumption is made that the weapon one is using will not kill or incapacitate the enemy with one blow. If one assumes, on the other hand, that a blow with a sword will be instantly fatal or incapacitating, then I don't see how this kind of endurance fighting (if I am correct in assuming that is what it is) could train a person to fight properly with an edged weapon.

Regarding roughness and koryu: my experience in koryu, meager as it is, indicates that, since kata is the primary form of training, the kind of bruising so common in kendo, for instance, is rare. In jo, of course, if you free sparred with wooden weapons, someone would be killed or seriously injured fairly quickly. In Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, paired training is done with fukuro shinai, and although I have been hit any number of times by virtue of just being a clumsy oaf, the only way you could seriously injure anyone with a fukuro shinai is if you stabbed him in the throat or the eye. The weapon itself is just not substantial enough to do anything more than raise a welt. It stings a bit to get hit, and I have had my glasses knocked off a few times, but compared to doing kendo with the cops (you know, kendo, that modern non-koryu sport, fake fairy patty-pat game with armor and fake swords) doing kata training with fukuro shinai is nothing, at least on the pain scale. Free sparring with fukuro shinai would be different, but even a fukuro shinai will hurt less than a standard kendo shinai (which hurts like a son-of-a-bitch on bare skin) becasue of the covering.

I guess what I am saying is that it seems to me that in weaponless fighting the ability to bear pain and take a punch is extremely important, since unless one is an expert it is extremely difficult to kill a person outright with one's bare hands, or, at the least, more difficult than if one has a weapon. If one has a three-to-four-foot long piece of razor sharp steel, then bearing pain has pretty much nothing to do with it. In training in these arts, learning to deal with the instinctual panic that comes from the fear of one's imminent demise is more important. If inflicting pain helps a person deal with that, then it has value in training. If not, then it just becomes a sado-masochistic game.

The standard disclaimer, of course: the pain and roughness factor will vary from school to school and art to art.

[RDeppe]

Earl I like your post. Injury was my point in the general forum version of this. Once you talked the jo guy into going for it how do you keep him from killing someone. Now on the other hand, I respect the DB idea that serious reprisal can make people freeze-- but this is the whole point of fear/adrenine training.

[Earl Hartman]

Just checked out the "Wound" gallery on the DB website.

Apart from wondering about the purpose of manfully displaying one's manly wounds gained in manly combat with other manly men, my only comment is that that is pretty much what we all looked like after an SCA tournament back in the day. Bruises and contusions like that were a common and unremarkable fact of life.

[INFINOO]

Earl: I dont think they keep score of points. From what Iv seen on there tapes they fight for three minutes or untill someone says give. Masny of the fights go to the ground. Did anyone see the photo of "stinky stick tech" maby its not on there site anymore. Anyway from what I have seen the emphasis seems to be on "More power" and foot work. If your fighting with sticks(with head gear and hockey gloves) thats not a bad place to start if you ask me. By the way, I beleive they hooked up with a knife fighting based Kali art latley. So my guess is that they have the egded base aspect of the art covered.
My understanding of Kali is that it is an edge based system in the "first place" and the use of sticks is a way of fighting/training within the tribe, and not killing one of your own, there by making the tribe weaker.
Im surprised Im the only one who "admits" to having seen Dog Brothers Video's? If you have a chance do watch/buy or rent them do so IMO worth the time and money.

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combtives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[multiplehits]

Hello all
The Dog brothers approach to training allows one to apply their skills (if any) in a stressful situation. The hardcore training can be taken down a few notches and done in a matter of mild to moderate contact. Many so called stickfighters are exellent at preforming gracefull moves but lack the power to cause ones enemy to back off. One must move away from training with targets that remain in a static position and apply them into real situations are stay with the ostrich approach (head in the sand). I will however give a big compliment to people such as "Rogalski Combatives International" whos approach and training would benefit anyone looking to further their skills.
Peace
Multiple hits
Roelof Pleysier: ::D :D :D :D :D :

[Earl Hartman]

In DB fighting, are the weapons considered to be sticks or is it intended that they represent edged weapons?

If they are just sticks, then just whaling away on one another until someone gives up because it hurts too much makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose. That is, since the blows dealt by the weapon are not lethal, learning to bear a lot of pain would have real application in a fight with such weapons.

If, however, one assumes that the sticks represent swords, or bolo knives, or whatever, then training in that way makes little sense unless the fight is scored by a competent judge. One may well be able to grit one's teeth and take a shot on the wrist with a stick that hurts like a son of a bitch in order to be able to hit the other fellow in the head hard enough to stun him, let us say. However, one could not rely on such a technique with an edged weapon, since one cannot hit one's enemy in the head if the hand holding the weapon is lying on the ground.

[INFINOO]

Thanks Reolof , your support is appreciated greatly. I think you focused on a very important point and that is hitting/cutting a moving target. It makes little difference if you have a stick, Jo or a bowie knife if you "cant" make hard contact on a moving target "without" getting hit/cut yourself then your not paying attention. Call me a sissy but hitting/cutting without being hit or cut is what I strive for.
Earl:I think there is a spirital element to this type of of "training" that is beyond winning/losing.
I respect your point about the weapon hand laying on the floor. I prefer big knives like Bowie's as much as anyone, just ask multibal hits:D. But to assume just because there "sticks there not lethal" is a stretch. For instance they wear no protection on the throat, nothing on the spine and nothing on the neck, and many have on no elbow or knee protection. Im not suggesting that at the gathering of the pack they trying to kill or maim either other. However, that dosnt mean they couldnt. Consider the weight(heavy) and speed(fast) of the sticks used combined with the minimal equipment worn combined with the fact that many of the fights go to the ground hard(can anyone say broken neck).
From my own experience in real contact stick fighting with those in my own "little pack" I can say there is a real element of "grievous bodliy injury" in this type of training. I would say its not for every one but for some "the greater the risk the greater the reward". It somthing that need to experienced to understand. I would recomend this type of training for anyone who wanted to take there training to a higher level, but there are "real risk" involved, protective gear or not.

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[multiplehits]

Hello Earl
I see your point,however, the dog brothers incorporate blades and also grappling. One can learn alot about yourself when engaging in battle that is not based on points but vital targets. The game relies on honesty from your partner in that if a slash or poke is felt in a legitimate (vital) area than the fight could be stopped and one could look at what may have allowed this to occur. i want to also make note of the enviroment that we train in, the dojo in a sence spoils us by providing sufficient lighting and a smooth or semi smooth surface. I beleive that by training at different times , weather conditions and at different locations (grassy park,concrete parkade ect) we would further skills by allowing ourselves to adapt to these situations. My suggestions are not to judge or mock any training styles who train a certain way but to open our minds to opportunity and situations. Ps The dog brothers also incorporate hands into battle, I do not agree with all their hand to hand ideas but i feel that by incorporating some of their ideas and training ideologies one could learn alot about battle and most important ourselves.

Peace
Roelof Pleysier:cool:

[FastEd]

Originally posted by INFINOO

But to assume just because there "sticks there not lethal" is a stretch. For instance they wear no protection on the throat, nothing on the spine and nothing on the neck, and many have on no elbow or knee protection. Im not suggesting that at the gathering of the pack they trying to kill or maim either other. However, that dosnt mean they couldnt.


Well then I would love to hear the answer to the question "DO" they (the Dog Drothers etc.) allow hits to the neck, spine or throat? If there are rules what are they? Every full contact sparing activity I have seen involves some trade off's.

[Earl Hartman]

What Fast Ed said.

This conversation has come to the point it always comes to: the tradeoff between trying to recreate the intensity of a real fight and the concern for preventing really serious injury.

I saw the kinds of "wounds" sustained in DB fighting, and like I said, it looks a lot like what used to happen in the SCA. We wore very heavy head protection, since we didn't want anyone to get killed, but very often people would go into fights wearing fairly minimal padding elsewhere; the result was a lot of broken hands and head to toe bruising.

In the old days, the way we handled the theoretical "lethality" of the blows was pain, pure and simple. If you got hit in the leg, and it hurt like a house on fire, we figured that the blow "counted" and that our leg had been cut off. If we got clocked in the head and wound up looking through the earhole of the helmet or if we took a shot anywhere on the body and the pain/impact was suffifient, we were "dead" and the fight was over.

What we did NOT do was just beat the crap out of each other until one guy gave up from the pain. Theoretically, if you hit somebody with a sword in, say, the collarbone/guts/ribs/head hard enough, one shot is all you need to kill him. The fight would be ended at that point when the fellow who was hit would agree that the blow was "fatal".

My point is not that training with the real possibility of injury or, at least, severe discomfort, is not effective. It is. I practiced kendo with the riot squad police in Japan, and people would be bounced off the wall pretty regularly. It hurt like hell and I was scared to death most of the time.

The question is how that concept is used in training. If a guy in the DB has a higher pain threshold than his opponent, does he win the fight even if the other fellow hit him repeatedly and cleanly and if, had it been a bladed weapon, he would have been killed or maimed? That's really what I want to know, not how "tough" everybody is. I am quite sure that they are, but I'm not terribly interested in that anymore. Getting my bell rung by the cops for 18 months was enough for me.

[INFINOO]

Earl: I see your point. For instance At RCI we train with short sticks 16-20 inches to simulate bowie knives. If you get touched by the other guys stick/bowie,what he ever is hit is gone. Clearly, the type of wound that a Bowie knife is capable of producing dictates to me at least, that if you where to take a clean slash on the hand, elbow leg, that limb is out of the fight. We continue to "play" ,just without that limb. For instance a leg shot means your mobility would be severly restricted so now your limping, if not on the ground. Get hit in the right hand, now your fighting with your left. For us first contact dosnt mean the "play fight" is over mind you. We just acknowlege the realites that a long fast and sharp edged traveling at over a hundred miles an hour could do to the human body with no armour. For us this "keeps it real in the context of play".By no means is this playing for keeps. But the sticks are heavy enough and hurt enough that there is real motivation(pain) not to get hit.For us this is an aceptable trade off. We use this training as a learning tool to help develop timing, range, targeting, feinting and use of naked hand, ect..
I was taught if your competing even in the context of developing attributes there always has to be somthing on the line.

Now if your real contact stick fighting like the Dog Brothers I would say that getting hit to give one better happens and probably be a good idea in there training methodology. For instance taking one on the outside of the arm to give a shot in the temple, helmet or not, "might" make sense. From what I understand a power full horizontal temple shots knock you out helmet or not. From what I have seen via the net and video's those Dog Brothers at the pack are tough as nails and just might not mind getting hit as long as they get in a better shot for there trouble. But really, who knows why they do what they do at any given moment and any given fighter. It could just be fun.

Fast Ed: Why dont you go down to a gathering and find out what they do first hand, be sure to let us know what you find out:D. Remember "Protect your self at all times";). Or, you could phone them and ask. Sorry to be a smart a**. Do let us know if you get more info.

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[Earl Hartman]

Gregory:

OK, now this makes more sense. What you are doing sounds exactly like what we did in the SCA except that you are postulatng different weapons, a Bowie knife instead of a sword.

In the SCA, if you get hit in the leg, you either go down or hop around. If you get hit in the arm, switch the sword to the other arm, etc. Very much like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, except if you lose both arms you can't try to kick the other guy.

If you are postulating sticks, then taking a shot on the arm in order to prang the guy in thead to knock him out makes sense. While there is supposedly a saying "You cut my skin, I cut your flesh, you cut my bone, I take your life" to indicate that in the final analysis you should be prepared to take a serious wound in order to kill the other fellow, I just wonder how many fighters, DB or otherwise, would actually be prepared to sacrifice an arm or a leg in order to kill the other fellow. Of course, convincing ther other fellow that, yes, you really ARE that crazy is the key to winning, or at least one of them.

[INFINOO]

Earl: Your right there is that saying.:rolleyes: If you ask me its in the same catagory as the other saying if you "get into a knife fight your going to get cut", Yep, they both get thrown around for sure, If you ask me, if a knife fighting instructor makes statment like that I would consider training somewhere else. Personally I think its a "lousy idea" to get cut to gain an advantage and given the correct attitude, distance and training combined with the right equipment, not nessesary. On the other hand, I hope the next guy I get into a knife fight with thinks like that , because I will "do my best" to sacrifice the other guys peices, while kepping mine in play, just like chess:eek:
I was going to write further about this subject on this post but I decided to delete it as this "is" a Jo forum. But if your interested you could Check out www.coldsteelknives.com ,there is IMO an excellent artical on the very subject of "cutting without being cut:)".And while your at it. I "noticed" they(cold steel) also have some really cool so called "unbreakable staffs" from china, 6 footers no less. Cut those bad boys down a couple feet and "wala" I got a jo and a 18 inch stick that I can "pretend" is a bowie, and still have a six inch pocket stick to spare. If I remember, they didnt cost an arm or a leg either:D.
By the way, and this is realed to this discussion is that I heard first hand at a Bowie knife seminar in New Orleans as well as seeing photo's on cold steel web site that the president of Cold Steel Knives Lynnn Thomson is reported to been at a Dog brothers gathering and got in the "first telling blow" using Bowie sized trainers on one of the Dog Brothers, go figure.
That link I gave, isnt coming up as cold steels web site ?

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[BillRandal]

The whole dog brothers thing seems antithetical to koryu in general. In jo, the idea is not to raise whelps and bruises while whacking at each other to simulate "real combat," but rather that you're facing a swordsman, and if everything is not done exactly right, you're dead meat. A jo IS the weapon, not a simulation of a weapon (i.e. a shinai or some such), and the way it's used is meant to cause severe to deadly damage. Such freestyle training, at least from the get-go, could only result in sloppy and ineffective technique where the jo is concerned. Koryu snob, signing off,

Bill Randal

[Earl Hartman]

Agree. I already dealt with that upthread. As a method of training, "free sparring" with a jo is impossible, unless keeping your students alive and uncrippled is not a high priority.

[BillRandal]

I should've read a bit more carefully, but alas, I skimmed. I agree with your original post as well, Earl. In addition, I can't help but be a bit skeptical of what appears to be a combination of the UFC, Fight Club, and the SCA. I can see where it might be fun, but otherwise, I dunno... *anticipating angry challenges from all quarters any moment now:(, or depending on my level of confidence, :p*

P.S. I hope that last joke made sense. It sure was a chuckler when I thought of it.

Signing off,

Bill Randal

[INFINOO]

Bill Randle: Differnt strokes for differnt folks, I say. Could you explain why you feel "real contact" stick fighting would make you sloppy, novice or not?
No one learns how to swim without getting into the water. And no one learns to develop speed, power and proper mai and gets used to making contact unless they "hit somthing". I invented a steel padded mobil training dummy to get my contact for this very purpose. I used to do more real contact but for some reason I kept running out of partners:rolleyes: Swinging your staff in the air makes for great swishing sounds but if thats all you do, it leads to bad habbits and a false sense of security. Making contact prepares you for well, making contact. It dosnt have to be on another human , it could be a heavy bag, your own versin of a training dummy, or a rubber Bob, what ever. I understand if real contact stick fighting isnt for you and thats cool. But Bill what have you got in the way of training meathodologys from your tradional staff system you would like to share with the rest of us?
Just remember no one said Dog Brothers where a tradional koryu. But so what, what does that prove anyway? Its not like the japanese invented stick fighting is it? What about europeans, chinese ect...Anyways, I agree training in Kata and paired practice is a good place to start. But at some point, I prefer to have my own experiences and find my own truth. Incouraging students to do the same is the RCI way. Relying hook line and sinker on what the "master says" can be a dangerous and somewhat limited, if one is seeking true knowlege. So this is why, I hold the Dog Brothers in high regard for there work on real contact stick fighting, stick grappling, cross training and martial spirit. I respect anyone who is willing to show me, not tell me when it comes to fighting.
For instance you said the Jo was developed for fighting a man with a sword right, so taking on a man armed with short sticks wearing the merest of protection should be no problem, right?

Funny you mentioned the fight club A.C.A and the UFC, not a bad mix IMO. By the way, did you read the UFC letter on the Dog Brothers site, where they where turned down for being to violent.;)

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

[multiplehits]

Hello All

Everyone has ideas and everyone has the right to opinions in regards to training and approach. But i feel in my own way of training(not better or worse than anyone here) That "to see is beautiful but to feel is to beleive" take it as you will.
ps in regards to different pain tolerances being the reason one perhaps won is really missing the point of freestyle..if we fight a certain way and someone is able to gain hits on us obviously we left ourselves open so rather than complain and whine about what ifs let a little pain be a motivator to reassess our approach to fighting
Infinoo once again your knowledge is easily reconized and respected

PEACE

Roelof Pleysier
:cool: :D :D :D :D

[Sochin]

I just wandered out of the Gendai area and look what I find! Dog Brothers!

I love those guys - and for anyone who believes they are just untrained Neandertals with clubs, please rent their Dog Brothers volume one on Power and after the 2001 intro, Top Dog does a fantastic (kata?) display of stick prowess that I show my karate students - it takes your breath away.

My misssion these last few years of training has been to explore taking the art back to the fighting root.These guys have done it.

Every full contact sparing activity I have seen involves some trade off's.
Ed Chart

Hi Ed - they don't do "full contact" fighting - they call it realistic contact. Their concern was that a fully padded helmet and gloves made fighters too willing to take a hit to trade for points. So, no points are given and no trophies, no winners declared. People who fight get to judge their own success.

I saw some fights of escrima against the jo and bo and the bokken - and I think the short stick took them all. The bokken did the best by getting in a straight thrust to the rib but didn't know how to follow up (lack of aggressive practice) and lost the fight. The bo and jo tried to use the extra length to stay safe rather than to attack and once the short stick cleared their tip and entered, they were toast.

I really wanted to see someone who trusted his bo or jo, who had practiced such scary fighting at home (to minimize the adrenaline stress failure) and who could use it close in (or who at least had the foot work to avoid the quicker stick on the rush) because I think that the jo and the bo should beat the shorter stick.

Gregory,
like your posts...:)

[Jack B]

Is that stuff on film? Was the Jo guy SMR trained? Obviously, in a koryu thread, we're not going to lower ourselves to contests. But it would be interesting to see how the Jo gets beat, tactically speaking.

By the way, my CQC buddy says the Dog Brothers are "good guys, with good stuff".

Jack Bieler
Denton, TX