I agree about the BS, but would not refer to anything at this site by the term, "bullshido". That board has come to embody the very things they claim to disparage. I had a run-in with one of the moderators on the Bullshido board once, got his personal info, and threatened off the board to run him to ground and kick his little faggot TKD ass. When he was confronted with the actual threat of physical harm, his keyboard fell silent, mainly because he was an ignorant little p#ssy motherf*cker. Sorry for the rant. Everybody on this board is cool. I never learned so much about FMA as the short time I've been visiting this site. I have a very high regard and respect for everyone who posts here. No comparison with the Bullshido board where half of the people don't know what the heck they are talking about, but just like to flame and troll anonymously from the safety of their home or office. Most of them seem to be white American martial art wannabe's who think they have a God-given right to say anything they want about anything at all or anyone just because they own a computer and live in America..

I couldn't agree with you more. Bullshido.com is trollville. The site meant well and should stick to what it was designed for. But the trolls are allowed to bash any system, any instructor without the benefit of knowing what the system is about and the instructor in question. There are nuggest of information around that site but you need to swim through the oceans of feces just to find them. It's really up to you if it's worth finding them.

As for FMA bullshido itself, it's easy to spot them. If you study under a legit school or teacher, you will somehow, instinctively "know" if it's BS or not. I'm not even talking about claims of lineage, etc. I don't put a lot of stock in that anyway. My goal is to learn to defend myself. The rest may or may not matter to me.

Part 1 - Let's ignore most of the ridiculous photo montage of overly posed stances in a suit (his "everyday dress attire") with long blades (NO ONE'S "everyday dress attire"). I do need to make mention of the first photo of Po with an 'opponent'. Unlike most good filipino martial artists I know, train with or have studied under, Po chooses to stand directly in front of his opponent. While his 'alive hand' is theoretically protecting his face, does anyone here believe that it would stop his opponent's straight left? Unlikely. The more realistic outcome of this situation is Po gets dropped with clean shot to the temple.

Part 2 - Single "stick" - I need to mention a couple of immediate observations of this portion of the clip. First, the "stick" he's using seems to be the metal shaft of a golf club, so it's unrealistically light, which allows for the ridiculous flailing. Second, most of his strikes are aimed around shoulder height, not a particularly effective target for a fight ender. Third, at no point is he grounded while swinging any of what I can only assume are his power shots. Indeed, he is often in the middle of some sort of spastic jump. Again, not the best power generation techniques.

Okay, let's look at his actual movement. One, although he rarely stands still, he's not fluid in the sense a true fighter is fluid. His footwork, instead of smoothly transitioning through his movement, seems almost spastic. At many points in his 'carenza', he is off balance and his legs are splayed out in deep stances that leave little room for mobility. I've scored vicious knee shots on folks who have far better footwork than Po. Po would be crippled through the legs if he actually tried to use this footwork to fight at a Gathering.

He also has a very bad habit of leading with his head. This is bad for fighting in general, extremely bad for filipino weapons fighting. I would expect most masters in the FMA to know this and never make such a basic principles mistake.

Lastly, the purpose of the alive hand seems to have entirely escaped Po's understanding. The alive hand is a tool for either the defense of the head, a stroke's power assist, a follow-up check/grab after a strike or lastly, a counterbalance for his other hand while striking. Po's alive hand does none of these, seemingly busy slapping his own body for sound effect or simply flailing around uselessly.

Part 3 - Siniwali - Simply a poor demonstration of the most basic of coordination drills done with double "sticks". Present again is the ridiculous jumping, the off balance footwork, the mock fluidity/spastic flailing and the inability to generate power thanks to poor body mechanics.

Part 4 - Latigo (whip) - More of the same, with the addition of the unnecessary and highly ineffective 'combat roll' (~2:36). Aside from all the same problems as his single stick demo (with especially bad head leading), none of his whip attacks seemed targeted towards any fictitious opponent. I heard no true whip cracks, and all the attempted snapping seemed either directed at the floor or above his head. Maybe if he was fighting earthworms and pigeons, this might be considered a viable tactic.

Part 5 - First opponent, knife in hand - Holy crap, here we go. Class, what's the first most glaring problem with these scenarios? That's right, freeze frame fighting!! Opponent attempts single thrust/stab then loses all ability to move aside from slowly deflating towards the ground.

There are very few simulated thrusts in that "exchange". Most of Po's attacks are slashes, very sloppy slashes, half of the time done with the BACK of the blade. Unless Po regularly carries a double edges knife (illegal in most states IIRC), most of those slashes would do little towards stopping your opponent. And with a real blade, at that speed with that lack of control, Po would likely be down a few fingers at the end of the encounter.

Besides the freeze frame foolishness, as a "executive security specialist"/bodyguard, why the massive attention spent on the attacker? Drop them and get the client moving out of there. Not to mention that overkill of that magnitude would likely result in arrest and prosecution.

Part 6 - Opponent, empty hand - Again, opponent throws single punch and conveniently freezes while Po gets to throw 7 billion butterfly-kiss punches.

Additionally, the FMA are famous for the use of elbows, knees, low-line kicks and sweeps/throws. So why in that full exchange did I see 4 crap kicks, 3 vaguely pantomimed elbows and 1 clearly pantomimed elbow out of the nearly 666 strikes Po threw? At least his opponent, literally, gets the last laugh in that sequence.

Part 7 - Blurry matrix speed - So fucking ridiculous I can't even talk about it

One question that keeps popping up in my head about the Master Po thing is that if his skill really sucked so much, how was he able to attain the rank of Guro in Panandata? His former instructor seemed to even back up that piece of info. Unless Po just bought the certificate off the old teacher, but it didn't sound that way. Oh well, not really any of our immediate concern anyhow.

A little backgroud on Bob Rivera, the legendary Master Po.

Pananandata: Po, was one of Marinas's oldest students. Master Spencer Gee and Po were Marinas' longest tenured students. Spencer has a Master's ranking in Pananandata. Po, Bob, does not. To get a Masters ranking in Pananadata you must master and hold master ranks in 5 different weapons and write a book or several articles. What Bob does have is 4 master ranking in weapons in the Art of Pananadata given to him by Marinas, which I have seen and have seen Marinas award and renew these rankings. The 4 weapons are single stick, yantok y daga, rope fighting (his best weapon by far), and side handle baton ( I think). He does posses a Guro ranking from Marinas that is out of date.

Marinas Split: Money! That was the reason why they split. Bob/Po put on a camp for Marinas and agreed to pay him x dollars. Long story short, the camp wasn't as big of a success that Po thought it would be, he lost money on it. When it came time to pay Marinas, Bob told him that he couldn't, he didn't have the money, he lost money on the camp, blah blah blah. That whole thing spun out of control and bam, they split.

A couple of factors:
1) No one to train with. When Bob was with Marinas, he had other high level practioners to train with. In the last 10 years, who did Bob have to train with? No one! Skills erode over time if you don't keep them up.

2) Arrogance. Bob feels that he is to good to train everyday. He is a ninja master in his own mind.

3) For some reason, Bob always makes the worst videos. That crap that you see on You Tube, he always does that. He thinks he has to put on a big show. Looks like a drunken baboon. But that's not how he fights.

4) Your perception of what Arnis/ FMA should look like. Alot of what see has been tinged by the Lacost/eInosanto lineage and or your own parent art. Pananandata approach is different from that lienage. So what you see as drivel and trash could be more than that from a different perspective. To you it looks like flailing, but to me it doesn't. I understand what the intention is. I also understand that Bob's skills have greatly eroded....

5) There is NO Dumog in Pananandata. Any grappling that Marinas shows, which by the way is very little, is from Aikido. Marinas has a black belt in Aikido but shows very little of it if at all, Marinas doesn't believe in grappling when it comes to his art. Marinas' believes his art is a weapon art and if you want to grapple with him he will stab you silly or beat you with his stick. Tying up opponents that have edged weapons in their hand is big no no. Marinas told me, always hit the weapon hand first, defanging the snake, and then take out the rest. That's why there is 0 Dumog on Pananandata.

Bob can't grapple worth a damn. He knows 0 bjj, very basic Aikido and jiu-jitsu.

Video #1 of Po vs a XM Radio Opie and Anthony Listener with no training.
To win, the listener had to last 30 seconds and he did.
Hilarity. It is quite obvious Po has no idea what proper dumog technique is.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=...ideoid=19741303

"If you ask me, it is the only effective answer to those graplers who choke and take you down-- biting and gouging."

Any good grappler will make you pay dearly for biting

haven't you seen kino mutai volume 3 nosyac ? it's Vunak's specially designed program for the over sixties, he recommends that the elderly carry two back up pairs of dentures - one in each pocket. This way it can be a 3 way flesh feast, Granny Grapplers beware !

hahahahaha... salamat pare! I didn't realize that Paul V actually trained them to bring in extra dentures, just in case...

haha no sorry nosyac made that one up completely, hold on maybe I'm starting to see a trend