Elite Jeet Kune Do LLC

"State of the Union Part II" -Paul Vunak Interview

(November 8, 2001)

UncleVoo

I’m glad to see my post stirred up such a healthy debate – it appears by the sheer numbers of people that this is clearly a subject on the forefront of people’s minds. However, when this thread is finished, I can assure all of you that it will be OFF my mind. Hopefully, the points contained within were simple, clear, and concise. As Dan would say, if you got them, they’re yours; if you didn’t, they’re still mine. At the ripe old age of 41, I would like to think that I’m a little bit wiser than when I was 31. When I say or write something nowadays, I try to weigh my words as carefully as possible. The purpose of this final thread is to help clarify some final points that I feel were missed, to show people that the majority of what they’re arguing about is apples and oranges, and to put this subject to bed once and for all…

POINT 1: Loyalty, humility, and respect are real big in my book. When I said it would be disrespectful to place Matt, Burt, and Erik in with those other folks, I meant it. And I think perhaps that myself and many of my seniors feel that WE have been unceremoniously lumped in with many of the other JKD guys who do not understand aliveness (or combat, for that matter).

POINT 2: My friend Steve Boyd makes the point that the self-perfection drills done at the SBG are more functional, because those drills more resemble the actual motions that one would do within the confines of NHB. The concept that Steve is referring to is called “sport-specific training.” Steve is absolutely correct – the notion that lop-sao drill, chi sao, or hubbud is somehow better (for NHB) than doing a sport-specific drill such as pummeling is absurd. Lop sao drill, chi sao, and hubud were made to fight a wing chun man who occupies centerline. These drills are highly sport-specific for that. Whether or not anyone is interested in developing their trapping hands to such a level that they could defeat a wing chun man (at his own) game is academic. Please let’s not regress back into the argument, “Does trapping work?”

But the simple fact is, because these drills relate to so many “other” things, they are the three most popular drills worldwide. The development of dexterity, coordination and sensitivity that those drills promote is unparalleled. Allow me to share some of my clients/students worldwide that consider these drills their bread and butter: The DEA, FBI, INS, Delta Forces, police departments, counter-intelligence teams, and the Dallas Cowboys. These individuals have absolutely no desire or need for NHB sport-specific drills such as pummeling. Once again, any person, team, agency, organization, company, etc. that would have any need to improve their dexterity, coordination, and sensitivity eat these up. The simple fact is most of the free world is not interested in training NHB sport fighting stuff. (Those who are, I would refer to specialists such as Matt.)

POINT 3: Weapons self-perfection drills. (Sumbrada, serrada, numerada) Please understand that, in order to make these drills “alive,” they must be done by someone who knows what he’s doing. Of course these drills appear dead when performed at their rudimentary levels. I can assure all of you that when numerada, sumbrada, or cerrada are done at their very highest level, with proper gear on, throwing in fakes, counter-attacks, half-beats, HKE, etc. they are very sport-specific and very alive. Picture two guys flowing, doing sumbrada, and they break off for anywhere from 2 seconds to two minutes sparring each other full contact, all elements, and then find their way back to sumbrada!

Why do we return back to the specific drill? Simple, folks, it’s a teaching device. It blends self-preservation with self-perfection. It makes the game more interesting…different structures, different drills – like the song goes, different strokes for different folks! I know this is difficult for many of you to understand because you simply haven’t put in the flight time teaching the myriad of types of students I have worldwide. But I can assure you, for example, when I’m in Italy or Germany teaching a seminar of 250 people, if we didn’t return back to these drills, it would be absolute pandemonium – it would look like a Chinese fire drill!

As far as the notion of these self-perfection drills not helping body mechanics for kickboxing, I beg to differ. I have taught numerada and sumbrada to boxers, kickboxers, Thai boxers, shoot fighters, etc. These are guys who do sport-specific training all day, yet when I put a stick in their hand I’ve been able to double their body mechanics in a matter of weeks. Nobody’s pissing down anyone’s back, these are just simple facts.

In closing, I would like to sum up my original thread by articulating to everyone my final feelings on this matter. When I’m done with this I will no loner be addressing this subject. Undoubtedly it will still rave on, so I ask you to please refer people to my web site if any of these subjects are brought up again anywhere. I must put this debate behind me and move on, as I have more important things to do. I will leave you with these final thoughts…I believe I am the best at what I do, and I believe Matt is the best at what he does. To compare PFS with SBG is apples and oranges. If anybody were to come to me to train them in NHB, it would be my duty to refer them to Matt. I pass the baton to someone who specializes in that field. To Burt Richardson, and Erik Paulson, Matt and all the Straight Blast Gym folks: You have my respect and friendship.

Peace,
Paul

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