The Human Weapon

[Adonis]

They haven't aired the Krav maga episode yet. Just mauy thai, Escriima, Karate, Savate, and Judo.

I really liked the escrima episode, I used to date filipina women before nad have alot of filipoino friends. I would love to visit the philippines some day. Its natrual beauty looks wonderful there. However from friends who visit there I Hear the poverty level there in certain areas is really bad.

I really want to see the MMA episode, I bet Jason would be the one doing that.

[Adonis]

I mean Jason would be the one doing the fight at the end on the MMA show. At least I hope so.

[Sensei Rick]

I enjoyed the training in the karate episode. Working out with that big metal round bar contraption was cool. They used it effectively and diversely.... they will get better as hosts, but they are gonna run out of arts before they hit there stride. For instance in the karate one, they pretty much covered the okinawan (I know I spelled that wrong) styles. If they want to last, they need to not shoot there was straight away, and get a little more comparative, but I realize they have to make it interesting too and only a true MA would enjoy the minutia. I wonder if anyone not in the arts is watching.... Your thoughts?

[NightOwl]

I too thought about that. For instance, on the Judo episode they spent a lot of time on JJJ- essentially cutting it out of a future episode to itself. Also while I did like the karate episode, I did find that it focused to much on conditioning instead of techniques.

On the Judo episode:

Pretty good overall. There were times where the 'mountainsupersamurai' training got to be a bit much though, and in the end I wish they had gone over some more moves....that was a short review wasn't it?

[bushido_man96]

Hehe, yeah, short one that time!

I think that they can expand if they want to later on to get into the history of more of the offshoot styles, like you mention for Karate. I doubt that the show was going to run perpetually, anyways.

Besides that, they seem to be hitting regional areas, as opposed to simply styles. Like the Muay Thai episode included Krabi Krabong, which could probably have warranted its own show as well. However, it worked into the history of Muay Thai.

[NightOwl]

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=55004&display_order=5&sub_display_order=8&mini_id=54986

The upcoming Pankration episode looks pretty slick. Anyone seen it yet?

[bushido_man96]

The Pankration episode was great! My favorite one so far.

I thought it was interesting how they suggested that Alexander the Great, during his conquests, may have introduced some moves in his Asian campaigns that may have influenced some of the Eastern arts a little. Food for thought, anyways.

The fight at the end was good, but I was suprised at that particular organization's rules of not punching the face, while the other places they looked into didn't seem to have that restriction. Bill had a nice punch to the face, though! But the Pankratiast's opening round kick was nice, too. I like how the kick came straight up, like a front kick, and then turned over at the point of contact. Very nice.

[NightOwl]

I would agree, it certainly was a good episode! It was nice to see the full range of techniques and ranges applied in the art, and the beautiful locales were no detriment either! I find it fascinating how people examined old pottery and sculptures to try an recreate one of the oldest known martial arts, and while there is a VERY heavy influence of more modern MAs in the system, it still is very neat. It was also good to see bill fighting again, and he almost got off with that shoulder lock! If the episode could have been longer, I would have liked to have seen how they went about trying to recreate the pankration moves, however I suppose that would mean less screen time to fighting. : p All in all a very entertaining episode...and the pankration uniforms were pretty spiffy if I do say so myself!

[bushido_man96]

There are some books available on Pankration that may whet your appetite about the reconstruction of the style. Here are a few I can find:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=Pankration&z=y&cds2Pid=9481

Anything by Jim Arvanitis will be a good source; he is the ringleader in the revival of the art. I have also seen some advertised in Black Belt Magazine called Game of the Gods.

[YoungMan]

And as we all know, if it's in Black Belt Magazine it must be legitimate