Have a look at these folks. I would be interested to hear your views on how good you think this guy is. Looks pretty tasty if ask me. http://www.tommycarruthers.com/video.htm
These clips have been around for a while. Judging by the clips, I think he can kick ass and take names. People talk about him being too "telegraphic", I think that's bull-$hit! Many great fighters people would say are telegraphic, but they make up for it with speed and timing.
Oh shutup VTG, I know guys like you. You all sit on your asses watching clips picking out every single little fault. Why don't you get up and fight him and we'll see who has "wasted movements"?
Would love to be able to spar with him. he is fast and has potential to be dangerous. thing is i too can make my hands move fast, but that alone does not make me dangerous. His moves look like bruce lee's, but the ones from his movies. There are gaps which are for dramatic effect in films that Tommy has not really removed.
He also says that he does not teach sparring, instead he has this other method to teach "more realistically", so we do not see him spar. This makes me suspicious. His speed is great against one of his own students who is wrapped in his awe or to an unskilled fighter (won't say untrained as this are not necessarily the same), but against a skilled fighter I suspect his speed is not going to get him as far as people think.
"He also says that he does not teach sparring, instead he has this other method to teach "more realistically", so we do not see him spar. This makes me suspicious. His speed is great against one of his own students who is wrapped in his awe or to an unskilled fighter (won't say untrained as this are not necessarily the same), but against a skilled fighter I suspect his speed is not going to get him as far as people think."
If I remember correctly, he said that they wear protective gear and wear gloves and fight. He said he doesn’t spar, but he didn’t say anything about NOT practicing techniques, full force, on a resisting opponent. I think Carruthers "sparring methods" seem more realistic, because they don't bounce around and Box, like there are 12 rounds. Carruther measures rounds in 10 seconds. The main goal is to survive, and get out. I'm not affiliated to Carruthers and his JKD, but I do like his ideas, when it comes to real fighting.
Anyways, I hope to witness Carruthers, live, at the next seminar. I will post my opinions.
You are right Phases, he does have what he thinks is a more realistic training method. However, the reason why I am suspicious is that I do not think that creating an artificial scenerio will make any better at dealing will a real situation any more than good sparring. I do believe that it is useful to somtimes train in different environments to see how it feels. For him to set conditions of a fight to me is contradictory to training realistically.
In truth you can never train realistically unless you consider going into a real live fight as training. To me it just sounds like another sales gimmick to differentiate him from others.
Speed, timing, power, accuracy, balance, range and instinct (in my opinion key factors that a martial artist is developing) can be learnt from sparring very effectively. By setting up a scenario you can develop most of these things but I would question whether you would be confident at doing it from any position.
In the way I train I try not to think of set positions to fight from, instead I work on getting my body to do what I want whenever I want. There is a distinct difference in these approaches. One is trying to creat your own formula for each scenario, the latter is learning how to move with the aforementioned elements so that you can mould into any scenario.
The other thing is he says he does not do sparring. But how does he define sparring? This is unclear. I see it simply as two people training against each other. Does this mean, that only one person gets to do moves or that both people fight? If its the latter then it is sparring. If the former than it is stupid and contradictorary, period. You know it kinda reminds me of two man pattern sparring, but more random.
You see why I am suspicious? You will hear people talk, with seemingly irrefutable logic and show you moves that look great, but when you actually see them spar against a skilled fighter they look like the turd they are. The name Emile Bozestep springs to mind. JKD guy, talks smart, nice moves in the air or against a student, but looked like a school kid, when fighting a challenger. Hell this guy even thought it was good, so put up the clip on the net lol.
jack head over jkdwednite.com. Go to their forums, Tommy posts there . Also if you watch all the clips he would explain that he has his guys go all out. But do read his posts. and check out his website (I hope it's not down again at this time).
The main goal is to survive, and get out. I'm not affiliated to Carruthers and his JKD, but I do like his ideas, when it comes to real fighting.