|
When I review a book or DVD I want to go beyond the basics. For some people the basics are enough. What is shown in or on the product? Do I like or dislike it? Describe briefly "why". For me as a reader this may be enough if I am tempted to buy something and want to know what reasons there might be for NOT buying the item. Such a "basic" review may give me enough information to make up my mind to move along without buying.
However, reviewing something in that manner is, to me at least, a bit of a wasted opportunity. Such a product, unless it's a quick money-making rip-off, is after all an expression of a whole "philosophy of combat", complete with often unspoken assumptions and inherent strategies and tactics. Aside from the techniques being depicted, that is.
To really get the reader of the review to understand why you do or don't like it, it may help to go into some depth. Sure, it's not always necessary. For instance, I bought a TRS product on the "Art of the Gladiators" featuring Chris Clugston a few years ago and I really only need a paragraph to summarise that.
Something like : "Chris Clugston is, in my personal opinion, a mediocre martial artist with a oil-tanker sized ego whose techniques might well get you killed. Here at Piper Central we occasionally bring out some beers and spend the evening rolling around on the floor with tears of laughter, whilst watching his stuff. So, for that, we will be eternally thankful. And, of course, for clearing up for us what the gladiators actually used on the day!"
Scott Babb deserves way more than a paragraph, or even a few paragraphs. About half a year ago Nigel and Lloyd started telling me to check out the clips of one "Scott Babb" on You Tube, who, I was told, had put together a system called "Libre", which was as aggressively straightforward as our own Piper. I had a look at the clips and saw what they meant with that and liked what I saw.
What's not to like, when someone has so many commonalities with you? We tend to like those people who are most like ourselves. That's not exactly a newsflash. Why this is pertinent is that, in so far as you are different from the likes of Scott and I, the opinions I express here may be difficult for you to understand.
Anyway, Scott and I hit it off straight away. Aside from both being tall, bald and handsome, we seem to share many of the same attitudes, beliefs and character traits.
OK, what in heaven's name am I going on about? As mentioned above, there are certain underlying concepts, principles, assumptions here, call them what you will, if you do not find yourself in agreement with them, then the actual techniques and drills that follow from them may well be a waste of time as far as you're concerned.
So, assumption 1: Fast, aggressive forward-driving motion is the best strategy for getting things over and done with as quickly and safely as possible (so, if you "believe" in the Aikido idea of waiting for the opponent's energy to come at you fully committed before doing anything, you are already in the wrong place. And yes, I have met one or two rare aikidoka who don't subscribe to this, before you e mail me).
Assumption 2: When weapons are in play, it is often better to keep moving your whole body as opposed to doing a lot of complicated "if he does this I will trap like that and then he'll do that and then I'll…" type of thinking. As a matter of fact, anything that is too complicated is likely to get you killed.
Assumption 3: If you are a martial artist, the street efficiency of your art is your primary consideration. Everything else follows as a very far-off third.
These are just some of the basic underlying .assumptions here.
Why I'm mentioning this is because, of late, I have started to split my reviews into two separate components. First, I look at the material to be reviewed from my own personal vantage point. As is always the case with martial artists, I like this technique or that drill, but in my style we do it a little differently, like so….and of course, in my heart of hearts, I believe that this "little difference" is just a tiny bit superior, at least most of the time.
Then I step back, become this "objective, wise sage" (lol) with forty years in the arts, I try as far as I can to drop my personal feelings and beliefs and I look at how the DVD or book and the system it represents are congruent within themselves.
In other words, if I accept their basic operational premises unquestioningly, then does the DVD show me how these come through congruently and effectively in what is being taught and how it is being done? Even if I don't personally believe it to be workable, does the internal logic hold true? Is it possible?
There are a number of questions here. Would a system like "Libre" (or our Piper, down here in Africa) be the right option for you? The answer to that can ultimately only be found within yourself.
Are you looking for a no-frills, aggressive, stripped-to-its-bare-essentials method of slicing and dicing your neighborhood predator into bite-sized pieces, if necessary? If the answer is "yes", then this may indeed be the system for you. For sport, try Judo, Tae Kwon Do or wrestling. For stress relief, flow through your Tai Chi form like the Yangtze river. For combat survival, Libre would be a great option!
The next question is whether the DVD achieves that which it sets out to do. Does it successfully teach the basic techniques and concepts of Libre? There are those that claim that you cannot learn from a book or DVD. I don't agree at all. Having the corrections and feedback from a teacher who is present and focused on you will always be better, of course.
However, if you are motivated enough to work hard at it, I believe it to be possible. How experienced are you in the martial arts and how close is your experience to that which is being shown or taught here? If you have a strong Judo background and are trying to learn Capoeira from a DVD you may struggle more than if you had a background in Tae Kwon Do or modern Wu Shu, for instance.
I have learnt lots of skill sets from videos and DVDs over the years. I learnt the "Old Yang Style Tai Chi" form from an Erle Montaigue video in the mid-eighties, for example (when I received corrections from Erle a few years later, in Manchester, it turned out that I had got it more or less right, btw). I learnt a reasonable facsimile of Hubud from a Bob Breen/ Dieter Knuettel video in the early nineties. The list goes on, but you get the point. If a DVD shows the techniques properly, you CAN learn from it.
To cut to the chase, this DVD certainly shows the techniques properly, unless you are a complete martial arts novice. Scott has clearly put a great deal of time and effort into putting together this DVD. The techniques and concepts are shown clearly, the editing is "tight" and care has been taken to give as complete and well-rounded a picture of Libre, including its underlying philosophy, as possible.
From the music to the street scenery to the archival material of demos done by Scott over the years, you get a good sense of what Libre is all about, how it is taught and why his senior students seem to have stayed with him.
After watching the DVD, I would summarize Libre's technical base as follows: it combines boxing skills with efficient, ruthless blade work and street survival tactics and techniques.
The base skill set of Libre, both in terms of movement and in terms of toughening up the students, is boxing. Boxing basics are shown, such as basic stances, punches and combinations. Each technique is shown a few times. Basic covering techniques are taught. In looking at the interactive focus mitt drills and the student's sparring, one can see that both the offensive and defensive techniques have soaked in, i.e. that the students have made them their own.
The full range of defensive possibilities, including slipping, ducking, bobbing and weaving are shown. What Scott terms "defensive sparring" is what I learnt from SBGi's Matt Thornton as the "Wall" or "Corner" drill…one person with the back foot against a wall, using every defensive possibility, the other person attacking.
A great deal of focus mitt work is shown, as is the use of something really nice, which I have never seen on sale here in South Africa. Scott calls this the "catch and return" mitts, a combination of boxing gloves and focus mitts in one.
Libre practitioners say "thank you" every time they are hit by a training partner. "Thank you" because any gap that is not eradicated in training can get you killed in the street and your partner is helping you with this. I feel that this alone also opens up an as yet unexplored market segment for Libre within the BDSM community, but have no idea whether Scott intends to follow up on that or not.
Scott shows how he uses a "punch counter" whilst the students are sparring so as to track their progress. I have come across something similar in the full contact karate schools of my close friend Hoosain Narker. Instead of having the kids fight full contact, they fight a light semi-contact with these "clickers" being used to see who "wins".
To chip in with the nearly obligatory "but in my style we do it this way", the way I teach my students, we also do most of the boxing shown here, but limit the defensive work to covers and the wall drill only. Piper's natural range lies between boxing and the clinch and unarmed, if they can't flee, I want my students to charge into as close a range as possible and elbow, knee, headbutt, tear, gouge, push, pull and rip as quickly and viciously as possible until the situation is resolved, one way or the other.
That, however, is merely my preference and does not take away anything whatsoever from Scott's DVD.
A number of technical options against sparring partners are illustrated, such as the "diamond-back", "angle-bait", "bait-and-switch", "throat pluck" and "pendulum".
These are shown once or twice, but not taught in any great depth, Scott has a second DVD out and a third one to come and I think that is where those might be taught in some depth.
Carry positions for various types of blade are shown. Basic grips are shown, as is the flipping from reverse to forward grip and back. Personally, and this is my opinion only and is perhaps based on Piper being a "reverse-grip" system, I would be nearly as hesitant about switching grips in the middle of a "life-or-death" adrenaline soaked chaotic "clusterfuck" of a fight as I would be of using a "flying chest pass" to get the knife from one hand into the other under similar circumstances.
Again, that only says something about my preferences and beliefs and nothing about the DVD or what it teaches.
Next, the "five pack" of attacking options are shown, both using the hammer grip and the ice pick (reverse) grip. If you attack like "this", he usually has, say, two options. He can do "A", to which you respond as follows. Or he can do "B", in which case you do the following. Thankfully, these are kept as simple and straightforward as possible, as I otherwise usually break out in hives every time I see multiple trapping and re-trapping sequences shown on some advanced JKD DVDs.
The underlying idea here, though, is to streamline and simplify, as opposed to adding lots of "cool and complicated" stuff.
We are next shown how to read the enemy's stance and the position of the arms and hands. Is he in an "open" or "closed" position? This is followed by the actual cutting and stabbing techniques. Some really lovely stuff here, such as the "Q-cut" and the "re-in forced cut".
Scott goes over footwork possibilities and over "open position" entries, both for the hammer grip and ice-pick grip.
Self defense techniques in somewhat confined spaces are dealt with next, including some techniques for people who wear peaked caps…I don't, I don't want to hide my handsomeness in that way, but if I did, these would come in very useful!
The last section features a selection of photos and video clips illustrating Scott's developmental path. It's always interesting to see how someone got to where he is today. I remember enjoying watching Tony Blauer doing something similar way back in the day, or Roy Harris writing a book-length post about his growth as a grappler and I have always valued that kind of thing. The interviews with the senior students at the beginning of the DVD also enhance this aspect of the DVD.
So, Libre…and the Libre DVD. A great deal of thought, work and care have clearly gone into both. That the training will produce results and that these results will work well on the street, of that I have no doubt.
There is a bit of a "trade-off" here. There is a tremendous amount of material shown on this disc, there are plenty of instructors who would have spread this over three DVDs of this length. This certainly stops it from ever becoming boring and is quite sufficient to allow someone to learn from it, if they have SOME previous experience in the martial arts. If this is their first experience with studying martial arts, some of it may be difficult to learn directly off the DVD.
I have a feeling that this is intentional, though. If someone wants a DVD that teaches the jab, hook or cross and the body mechanics thereof in excruciating detail, there are already plenty of DVDs out there that do exactly that. So why waste time on that?
So, the only question that remains is why you are still reading this review and are not already buying the DVD here!
|
