Starting review of DLP beginning with DVD #…7?

[John]

I'm smack dab in middle aged life. Love it. Nothing greater than family, children, and work. But multiple responsibilities tend to carve into an ability to isolate a regular amount of free time. Work deadlines, family necessities, etc tend to make attending a class regularly very difficult. With my background in Silat, and specific study into body mechanics utilized in internal arts, cane (stick) work, and study of knife defense, imagine my gob-smacked happy grin when I found the AKTS distance learning program. An entire curriculum for a very low price, that covers internal mechanics, silat (and the style I studied no less), the blade, and Kuntao to boot! Goodness gracious, I was a happy camper. I was sold there. Then I saw the progression of the DVD's. This is exactly how you must learn:1) Isolation exercises...the foundation that is used to make you good. Straight up silk reeling, drills, shadow-boxing, etc. 2) Solo Practice - Forms. A library of material so as to ingrain proper mechanics and to have the encyclopedia of movements within your system. This in itself is easily a lifetime of practice. How is this form with a blade? A stick? What if I isolate the pulling motions? The pushing motions? Internal mechanics? External mechanics? What if I isolate just the elbows from every form? How about thrusts? How about throws? 3) Kembangan. Shadow boxing. Your expression of what you learned. Your combos and movement to explore your work.4) Two partner drills. This is how you get better. Cooperative drills, that scale up the spectrum to non-cooperative. Learn the "tells". Minimize your tells. Get used to punches flying at you. Learn to trust your art. Learn distancing, timing, etc. 5) Practice Groups - This is how you isolate what works. Your creation of drills to work with the students will allow you to ingrain even deeper, what your partner drills will teach you. I taught for a number of years. If done correctly, your abilities will grow commensurate with the time you invest. "But you can't learn from videos!"Really? Visually seeing something, and having it explained to you, with a progression on how to practice it with partners, and a resource like this board to ask questions, and you can't progress? Folks, this is more than college has going for it. Do a form. Video yourself. Watch yourself side-by-side with the video. How do you look? Having trouble with a technique? Slap it up on youtube and ask a Guru for advice. Or ask the folks on this board. Or practice it some more and explore. Or visit a Guru or go to a seminar for a tune-up. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of schools have TOO many people to correct and isolate individual mechanics. Or its in their financial vested interest, to let you struggle with it so they can make rent on the studio. Or the teacher is petty and doesn't want you to accelerate. Or the teacher wants you to figure it out on your own anyway since they had to struggle with it. Or the teacher doesn't care. Or the teacher shows the techniques to his senior students, and you learn from them as they figure out the technique for themselves. Folks, it comes down to time invested, and a well-laid path, and this DLP has it. A logical progression with all the pieces to the puzzle. I can't wait to see more.Here it is. An entire system laid out. Wow. This is my chance to look at each video quickly and get an overview of the entire curriculum. Then I start at square one. So being a logical person, what did I do with this? First, I put them onto my iPad so I can study the videos and take notes. I want to learn it. And so I did the logical thing. I skipped to the part that interested me the most (instead of starting with the beginning like I should have)...square one comes NEXT round.I jumped to the Serak DVD #7. Wow. Let me say something arrogant first. "I was very pleased to see that Guru Chas said a lot of what I believed about the system of Serak". Its easy to say with a straight face, because his POSTS on it shaped my understanding of it, years ago. He and Sigung Gartin were the major resource out on the net that spoke of the history, background, purpose, and specifics of the art, openly. This provided me with a giant "cheat sheet" when I'd go into class, and really accelerated my knowledge and learning of the art. And this DVD gives you the keys to the kingdom. A quick synopsis of the forms from Guru Chas through 8, with his incredible depth of understanding and explanation. The guy is an encyclopedia on these arts, and he gave me new insights into these forms. But here's the nifty part. 🙂 You get to see 18 Serak Djurus from (I believe) Paul's Lineage. Then you see what I believe are 18 Tongkat djurus from Victor, and then Victor's 18 Battle Djurus (his expression of the Serak djurus with a Pukulan emphasis). You also get to see "Monkey Foot", which some called "Nempel Khaki" (or Sticky Feet), and body sticking exercise for the feet. Multiple flavors of the art, done by multiple people. This is a true treasure.And boy is the sequence just great! Guru Chas' explanation showing people to look beyond the Pukulan (striking) and see the throws and MYRIAD of options available really whets the appetite when you see the later forms. "Oh man, what can I do with that?" Makes you wanna go find your favorite Murid Mati (training partner) and really explore. Now all flavors of Serak are great, and slightly different. I speak only of the US and European versions, as I hear its done rather differently in Indonesia. But our versions (from the Dutch Indos) has a grouping of forms (18), and an emphasis on the triangle. Aside from that, different lineages/branches have different curriculums (and last I counted there were at least 7 of them). Each lineage will interpret moves differently, have different stick work, etc. But the >CORE< is the 18 forms, which are discernible by at least the gross motor movements. And you get it, right here, in one tape. I wish I would have had this resource years ago. Don't let the differences of the lineages bug you. Look at boxing. You have point fighters, and folks looking for the knock out. You have counter-fighters, chargers, anglers, and runners. You have power hitters. And you'll have different mixtures of everything I said. And even then, they'll have a unique flavor. Its all boxing. To dismiss the efficacy of boxing because Mike Tyson fights differently than Ali or Sugar Ray would indicate a set of priorities that I don't understand. At the end of the day, can you fight with it?Now just to put forth a few thoughts...1) Most folks group a few djurus on a single video for about 40 bucks each. So maybe 3 per video would equate to 6x40 or $240 dollars to get a nice record of all 18 djurus. . This was all on 1 DVD (out of 8...) for $200. Folks, it don't get better than that.2) The video was DENSE. Rather than 6 or 8 moves done 4 or 5 times (slow motion, regular motion, middle speed, etc. etc.), this had a lot of material. Guru Chas's 8, another Guru's 18, what I believe were Tongkat's 18, and the 18 Battle Djurus. My oh my. >AND< they had their students do Djuru Satu. So you get to compare the Kuntao expression of some of the movements, and see the parallels and differences, by different people with different body types and capabilities.The video is not a Hollywood Production. Its put out by people with a love for the art, who have a greater investment in seeing the art spread, than in making money. The material is visible, the audio is understandable, and its a DVD that allows you to go over each section at your own pace. For people like me, its also a treasured glimpse into the history of the art and seeing its expression from different perspectives. The footage is culled from over a decade's worth of video, and probably more than 2-3 decades in the entire series. A personal history lesson, seeing the folks in the prime of their youth (no grey), and in the prime of their mastery (grey...). Gives hope to a middle aged codger like me. This get's a giant A+ from me. I'll be going through the other videos and hopefully posting reviews as I go along, so I do hope to have a quick summary of these videos up eventually. But what a great resource. I can't wait to see what else they have in store.If I mistake titles or spelling, forgive me. I don't have a lot of time, but I do enjoy this stuff a lot and wanted to share my perspective. I'm sure I sound biased. But here's the thing. I >CHOSE< to come here based on the art and skills of the teachers, resources, and the DLP. >OF COURSE< I'd like it. I knew what I was getting. So if you're on the fence, consider what I say and see if it makes sense and seems logical. If not, call me on it. I'll be glad to elaborate. I'm sure you've been able to figure out by my posts so far that I just love yammering' away. :)John

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