[plasmagoat]

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 shit so it's alright.

[Yrkoon9]

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.

[Fantasy Warrior]

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

[Ryno]

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.

[Yrkoon9]

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.

[Gezere]

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 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. I always thought Vunak had some good ideas but like plasmagoat said he bases alot of it on assumptions.

[Ryno]

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.

[Anthracis]

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.

[plasmagoat]

Originally Posted by Ryno

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.

[Feryk]

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.