Loren W. Christensen has a new video out called “The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets” and it looks like another good one. You can get it here.
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Martial Arts, Self Defense and a Whole Lot More.
by Wim 2 Comments
Loren W. Christensen has a new video out called “The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets” and it looks like another good one. You can get it here.
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by Wim 9 Comments
One of the most common misconceptions of our day is the assumption that the camera tells the truth. We see so much television and movies that we become conditioned to believe what we see is all there is to it. Because “seeing is believing”, right?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
What you see in a video is never 100% what the instructor/demonstrator/performer/participant meant to show. Sometimes, he makes it so on purpose but in most cases, this happens because of the limitations of video as an information carrying medium. I’ll use my video, the one that started this whole series, as an example
A good camera man makes or breaks what you put on the screen. There are a multitude of camera angles and all of them have a different effect on how you perceive the action:
Depth perception helps you interpret the action you see:
Here’s the thing: [Read more…]
by Wim 8 Comments
In part one of “How to learn techniques from video“, I mentioned there are different kinds of videos. Let’s look at that a bit closer.
You can make three broad categories of videos: Live footage, demonstration, and instructional videos. These three are all vastly different from each other and that’s where the trouble starts: if you expect one and get the other, you think it sucks. If you believe instructional videos are “The Truth”™, then you’ll think demonstrations are bullshit. If you truly believe the best way to fight is what you see in live footage (because it’s “real” and the everything else isn’t), then you’ll laugh at instructional videos .
I believe these two sayings apply whenever you want to learn from a video:
Especially this last part is crucial. I’ve been reviewing books and videos for a long time and I have only one goal when I write them: Find the value in the book and who would benefit from it. Maybe the book didn’t do much for me, but that doesn’t make it useless. I always try to write something positive in a review and only rarely fail to find it. It’s a matter of picking the good between the bad and mediocre that may also be there.
It’s the same thing with watching a video: If you want to learn from it, whatever that “it” may be, start looking for the positive. If you only want to validate and reinforce your own ideas, that’s fine. But then don’t complain you can’t find any decent videos because you find them all crap.
Back on track, let’s talk about those three categories:
by Wim 31 Comments
I first wanted to title this post “How to learn fighting techniques form a video and avoid making a fool of yourself.” but that’s probably a bit too much. So I left out the last part but you know it’s there. :-)
I’ll get to “learning techniques” in a bit but I want to cover something else first. Namely, this post is a case of several random things coming together:
This is a rather old video, one I shot in LA a couple years ago with the help of some dear friends.
As I said before, I’m used to getting silly, stupid and rude comments on my videos and that’s fine. Somebody saying I can’t fight my way out of a wet paper bag doesn’t change my skills for the better or the worse. So why should I get upset about it?
However, when my teachers tell me I’m doing a terrible job, that’s when I bang my head against the wall in both frustration and shame. After picking myself up from the floor, I do all I can to fix the problem they corrected me on. But some anonymous person on the Internet? Fughedaboutit! ;-)
Anyway, “80KungFu” left the following comment on that video:
What are you talking about? The man (Wim Demeere), clearly says, him self, that he is using Tai Chi techniques! Grasp the birds tail and single whip fucking whip! Now I dont agree with his knowledge (mostly I think his Tai Chi skills and knowledge are terrible), but he stills says that he is using Tai Chi techniques! So what the fuck are? you talking about?
80KungFu actually deleted his comments after I sent him a mail explaining:
[Read more…]
by Wim 22 Comments
In the Karate vs Kung Fu post, Shane made an interesting comment I’d like to get back to now. Here’s what he wrote:
Hi Wim,
Great couple of posts. I’m not sure that I agree about beating a better opponent in a competition, or losing to a worse one. If you win you are better, if you lose, you are worse. Simple as that. The competition is the empirical test, for a given set of rules at a given moment in time. We sometimes are surprised by beating or losing to someone, and occasionally luck can play a part, but if we can’t use competition to gage relative ability, what can we use? Past performance? Maybe. Reputation or the color of the belt holding someones trousers up? I sincerely hope not.
I used to enter a lot of pushing hands comps, and a few karate ones when I was younger. I mostly lost, but through perseverance gathered a handful of medals over the years. On those occasions, I dare say some of the other guys thought they should have won. If they could have, they would have, hence they were demonstrably proven wrong
I hate the ‘what if’ game. You know, if I had just done this technique, I would have won for sure. If I was more mentally prepared. If I had lost a few pounds and gone down a weight. (Or in my case, if I had just spent less time sitting on my arse drinking beer, and more time doing nei kung) It’s all fantasy, and competitions are the corresponding reality check.
All the best,
Shane
Here’s how I see it:
For me, it’s not really a “What if?” game. There’s certainly a place for that as analyzing your performance after the fight is key to improving your abilities. But I’m not all that concerned about what I should have done. I’m usually thinking more about getting it right the next time. Fights are chaos in action and there’s just no way you’ll get it right every single time. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
By playing a constructive “What if” game, you use the experience in the fight you lost to your advantage. Instead of beating yourself up over what you did wrong, you get over it and focus on how to avoid making the same mistake. Of course, there is rarely a black and white solution for whatever mistake you make. Usually there will be a bunch of options you could have tried, each with varying chances for success. I think that’s just wicked cool. It means more learning during training and I enjoy that the most. But I digress, back on track:
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