Since this forum is only meant for trolling and spamming, I'll just delete this little irrelevant post of mine. Takes the whole thread out of context, but apparently no one gives a **** so it's alright.

Personally I don't have much to argue against what Vunak is saying. Much of his wisdom is based in reality. He does however seem to be romanticizing his sacred cow, the straight blast, a bit.

But keep in mind, he took the Gracie Challenge in the early 90's. And lost. His perspective changed at that point. And now he readily admits his weakness in this area.

Likewise, if confined to the specific context, his comments are pretty safe.

Not everyone regards Vunak highly. I'm not a big fan personally. He seems very drill happy, doesn't have a lot of intensity in his stick work, and gets WAY too much into theory and talky talky, rather than really training people. As you have noted, his knife work looks like a game of tag, doing this sportive dueling thing, which isn't at all what you'll encounter in real life. I haven't seen too much of his empty hand, but if his weapons work is indicative of his skill, I'd be hesitant to put much faith in anything he says.

So basically your presumptions don't neccessarily correspond to his presumptions and therefore you have dismissed everything that was quoted above?

Hmmm. Okay.

I may have a lot of skepticism about his methods, but the words he wrote seem pretty good to me.

A fellow soldier at my first duty station was really doing JKD and had a colleciton Vunaks tapes, one that I borrowed and forgot to give back :eusa_whis Well the tape in was the Straigh Blast one. Funny tape it starts off with police sirens and Vunak coming out in a leather jacket. My friend SWORE by the straight blast but I thought it was overrated. You'd have to catch the guy really off gaurd for it to be effective. But everytime he did it when we sparred I used a foot sweep and down he went where I could pounce on him. :qleapfrog I always thought Vunak had some good ideas but like plasmagoat said he bases alot of it on assumptions.

No. Vunak makes a decent point. Ring fighting can be different than street fighting. Accepted.

I was responding to the first sentence of plasma goat's post "Paul Vunak is a highly regarded instructor."

Vunak talks a good talk, but I haven't personally seen him walk the walk. What I have seen wasn't all that impressive. Taking this into account, his excessive dialog amounts to nothing more than commentary from the peanut gallery, even if it does make some sense. Respectable sounding observations? Sure. Something to be taken as fighting gospel? Nope. I question his fighting ability, so he's not going to be a self defense pope in my book unless I am convinced he can fight.

I have attended one of the seminars he presented to us in the Navy and his techniques work well. Although, you do need to cross train in other arts. It is my opinion that no one art will prepare you for everything. It is up to you to prepare yourself for encounters you think you may have to encounter. That is why in the military we have many different instructors that come and train us in a variety of different arts. Among others, Duane Dieter, Paul Vunak, Gracies, etc...have all presented h2h techniques to our unit. In my opinion, this is the best way to train.

No. Vunak makes a decent point. Ring fighting can be different than street fighting. Accepted.

I was responding to the first sentence of plasma goat's post "Paul Vunak is a highly regarded instructor."
Well, that's been my impression of him. The martial arts world is heavily divided so he might be respected in some circles (RBSD?) and ridiculed somewhere else.

I'm no expert on 'Street vs. MMA' debates, but I would say the contradictions you pointed out would give me cause to doubt him.

I know nothing about Vunak, except that he's trained some good fighters. But that doesn't make him right or sane.

The last ten years of martial arts have seen more growth and progress than the previous fifty, because of the INSURGENCE of the many no-holds-barred tournaments occuring worldwide.
I didn't like the way he uses the word INSURGENCE to describe NHB tournaments. It makes NHB guys sound like terrorists. :qright5:

What happens when two people try and do the straight blast at each other simultaneously ? is it like when matter meets anti-matter ? do they repel each other like two poles of a magnet, or is this Wing Chun concept of 'rolling jabs down the centreline as fast as you can with both hands' actually a mistranslation of the chinese characters for 'shitty boxing' ?

What happens when two people try and do the straight blast at each other simultaneously ? is it like when matter meets anti-matter ? do they repel each other like two poles of a magnet, or is this Wing Chun concept of 'rolling jabs down the centreline as fast as you can with both hands' actually a mistranslation of the chinese characters for 'shitty boxing' ?
I guess that would be a case of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

Vunak: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Me: What?
Vunak: Don't cross the chain punches.
Me: Why?
Vunak: It would be bad.
Me: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad?"
Vunak: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Me: Total protonic reversal? Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Mr Vunak.

I see a number of problems in this story.

1. Vunak failed the first part of street self-defense by marching towards danger for no good reason (I don't think alcohol is a really good reason), instead of avoiding it. He knows that he's heading for trouble, but keeps going anyway. In fact, I don't think Vunak even talks about avoidance and prevention in the entire book, even though the book is called "Anatomy of a Streetfight." A streetfighting expert should know how to avoid danger, I think. Why go to a biker bar if you're not a biker?

2. The wrestlers used the wrong tactics and, while they would have been succesful in an NHB tournament, they just couldn't handle the streets. Well sure, but neither could Vunak. He was in intensive care and took most of the damage. Why didn't his streetfighting save him? Does it matter? 20 opponents is simply not a fight that you can win, streetfighter or not. He could have avoided it, however. He had plenty of time to observe how the situation was developing, and could have walked out at any time.

3. He tries to argue that NHB-style fighting is not good for the streets because the three wrestlers fucked up. However, they were wrestlers, not NHB fighters. The year was 1990, and today NHB fighters are versatile, they know how to strike as well as grapple. Vunak even says so in the first quote. Simply put, he's trying to discredit modern MMA fighters by saying that three wrestlers failed againts 20 attackers in 1990! The wrestlers even had Paul Vunak - a street fighter - to train them, yet they still did nothing but wrestle. Does this speak highly of his training? Well, maybe they hadn't been training for long.
What an awfully long post. I'm just going to pick one section and harp on it:

1. Yes Vunak failed in self-defense. That's what he's telling you -- that he made some assumptions and that they wre wrong.

2. Read above

3. He didn't really get into detail about what the wrestlers did, aside from taking people down. Were they hitting those people? Maybe. The manner in which they chose to deliver their attacks, however, was in concordance with the way that many NHB fighters today would.

My main complaint with your reaction to Vunak's statements is not that they're wrong, per se. You make several good points; although they don't necessarily pertain directly to Vunak's own. You'also re making me do a lot of non-Archie Double Digest-related reading, which unfortunately makes me grumpy.

What an awfully long post. I'm just going to pick one section and harp on it:

1. Yes Vunak failed in self-defense. That's what he's telling you -- that he made some assumptions and that they wre wrong.

2. Read above

3. He didn't really get into detail about what the wrestlers did, aside from taking people down. Were they hitting those people? Maybe. The manner in which they chose to deliver their attacks, however, was in concordance with the way that many NHB fighters today would.
I think it's safe to say that your average MMA fighter wouldn't grapple people like a robot, he'd evaluate the situation and react accordingly (which, in this case, means running very fast). I don't think Vunak was saying anything about making a mistake, he only used the story to illustrate the differences between sportsfighting and streetfighting.