[Heretic]

Originally Posted by bennett

Heretic (or others) - I keep getting emails from "Captain Chris" Pizzo of Close Combat Company - I guess he promotes a street fighting style (?) taught by video. See links for example: http://closecombattraining.com/cctraining/cctbribe.html , http://www.closecombattraining.com/ . I don't know much about this, having very limited martial arts experience. Do you think this has any value?

I have only just looked at this guys site so bear with me if I misinterpret his art through my lack of in-depth study on it. This guy is promoting simple pugilistic techniques. He avoids the what if scenario by observing concept alone. The concept is an easy one, or at least a basic concept to the intermediate artist. I think this is how he can say that just one hour of it can change the way you consider an attack.

This concept is to use violence and not just defense, which in my eyes is what every self defense class does anyway. Pain is the great equalizer, not size, weight, or even knowledge. Anyone can do the basics if they just devote a little time to learn the concepts, and apply them with at least SOME technique.

There are tons of concept based arts, but I just call them philosophies under which any art can be used in conjunction with. Jeet Kune Do is a philosophy and a strong one, but by itself it is worthless. The better and more diverse your system is, the more powerful your Jeet Kune Do will be. Bruce Lee built it on top of Wing Chun Kung Fu and it would “look” different under a Shotokan Tiger system.

Pugilistic systems are based on accupoints even though some arts don’t observe them enough. If you like the nervous system, accupoints, and how to use it in the arts, I would suggest Dim Mak as a good study because it is a system based on accupoint targeting holistically. The same points can be used for healing and damaging a person.

This guy is simply teaching a very basic ridge hand striking method, which is GREAT for novices, but to me lacks a lot of discussion about stance so I hope he talks about this later on in his courses. He is selling quick and easy, and that’s probably all you will get out of it, and that’s all you may want out of it so it’s all good. Just don’t expect a well rounded experience out of this art. He also hawks his wares like a snake oil salesmen which just turns me off to start with, but that is a subjective observation and not a technical one.