Killer Chicken Wings - Advanced
Eric Paulson
Buy it here
approximately 55 mins

I really enjoyed this video. Eric is a good instructor, clearly demonstrating the technique and packs each display with a lot of the little tips that make a difference. Hand placements, hip movement, every little thing.

The video is more advanced than the first doing chicken wing/kimura attacks from the guard; top and bottom position. Rolling moves into the chicken wing and of course being Eric Paulson some defense against leg locks and some variations into leg locks when the chicken wing doesn't succeed.

The video is shot like a small seminar. Eric displays the moves and really defines the important parts of each. This is well captured with steady camera work and good angles. After each set of moves are displayed the tape breaks into a training the techniques section. In these parts the small group of people practicing are shown doing the moves. It is apparent that skill levels are different in the group giving an idea what various scenarios arise while training. All the while Eric is moving about and coaching each pair through the technique. This is invaluable as I am sure I have run into the very issues that Eric is helping these people through. A great idea.

If I had to pick something that wasn't the best, it would have to be sound quality. At times it faded somewhat but never enough that Eric can't be heard, I did have to turn the volume up twice to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Well worth the investment. I play this one a lot.

Ultimate Fight Night on Spike TV

I love Spike TV.

Leben vs Rivera
Chris Leben wins by convincing punching over Jorge Rivera. Whatever, I still don't like the guy. Not the kind of person I like to see representing the sport. Maybe his TUF persona was an act but it has coloured my opinion forever, first impressions and all that. It is getting hard to ignore his winning though.

Josh Burkman vs Drew Fickett
Burkman by guillitine choke ove the not quite so masterful Ficket(on this night anyhow). This match lasted just over a minute. That's two quick ones, I am holding out to see Jason von Flue on TV tonight. Two wins and Burkman is blabbing about 'his' title, thought saying he respects Matt HUghes and really wants Diego 'Dirty' Sanchez.

The historic hype announcement is coming. Going to shake the MMA world they say. If it is the Royce Gracie rumour that is floating around the Internet, I can really say I am more interested in Spike TV's new Blade series. Couture -Liddell 3 is getting the full treatment. But another mega fight is coming. Dana introduces the 'greatest weltterweight of all time' and the country music plays as Hughes wanders down to the cage(wonder how BJ Penn feels about that). His opponent appears to chimes of the original UFC theme, "the greatest fighter to ever step into the octagon" Royce Gracie. Blah. He is right, he did build the house but is it his anymore? Or did he forfeit on the mortgage by staying away so long? When does Blade start?

Bonnar vs Irvin
Maybe I'll get to see a flying knee knockout, that would make my night. Bonnar is okay, I like his interviews and he does fight well but for some reason I just don't care when he fights. Bonnar pushes Irvin up to the fence and takes him down. Some half guard scrambling takes place, a few light punches from Stefan and a Kimura/jujigatame attempt leads to Irvin springing up to his feet, only to be brought back down. Bonnar sinks a scary deep kimura/hammer lock and butIrvin won't tap, finally he does and Herb Dean stops the fight, probably saving the arm serious damage. Followed by another good interview by Stefan.

Goulet vs Ludwig
The lead in for this match lasted longer than the match itself. Goulet came right out of it after his head bounced off the floor. I thought at first it was stopped a little early, Bang landed hard but I thought Goulet would have been able to fight. His legs buckled and hit fell hard though so I guess it was fair. I expected better from Goulet I guess, oh well, more of both please. Especially if I can get a chance to hear Bas in the corner.

Sylvia vs Silva
Interesting move for Silva getting into a guardlike position with his back against the fence, making Tim hold both their weight up. It has to be stopped as Tim's pants are falling off. Lots of clinch work stops the long arms of Sylvia but nothing interesting happens. It gets separated again. Tim flurries and even jumps in with a knee, twicw. Lots of straight knees in the clinch. Silva absorbs it all and the fight goes to round two.

Silva opens with a spinning back kick to no avail. Silva continues to take shots from the outside and trys to bait Sylvia down to the ground but its a nogo. Silva gets inside and lands some good punches, cutting up Tim. again intot he standing guard move. When it breaks Silva is confident and it shows. Tim's reach keeps him honest though. Tim gets his own spinning kick and Silva nods. Tim gets a take down off a kick, off to round three.

another big spinning wheel kick for Silva to open. Silva is a little more offensive than Tim at the beginning. he is having a hard time getting inside though. Silva gets in and gets suplex position, Tim cheats and holds the fence. Jumping guard to make Tim hold the weight again. It gets broken up to the middle again. Silva lands the spinning back kick and gets a minor takedown that Tim recovers from quickly. Tim wins the last of the round by staying outside. Is it enough to put him over in the judges eyes?
Yep. 30-27 in two judges eyes which confuses me somewhat, I thought he won but not that convincingly. Arvloski is next.

Overall a great show. It's free and had good fights. Did I mention I love Spike TV?

True Life: I am a Muay Thai Fighter.
~45 mins.

I grabbed this tape from a friend of mine. Originally aired on MTV I guess as the True Life series is labeled as such. The show follows two fighters from Master Toddy's gym in Las Vegas as they prepare to fight a bare knuckle match in Thailand. Kit Cope and a fellow named Ben train hard for a great adventure.

Being an MTV production the quality and editing etc are great. This is not a homemade video. Good musical score enhances the tense fight sections etc. Overall, this is a plus for the show.

I only know about Kit from this show and his recent appearance vs Ken Florian in the UFC. The guy does come off as an asshole, really he does. However as the show goes on I really found myself liking both of the fighters. I think alot of the machismo is for show and getting himself hyped up.

I thought the training footage of Master Toddy's gym was interesting. Maybe someday I'll actually take that trip to his weeklong training camp I have been day-dreaming about. I'll have to get in better shape first, they didn't pull any stops getting ready for the trip.

The fight section was a bit of a letdown. Kit's fight was short and honestly it didn't look like his opponent was all that good. I have watched plenty of matchs from Thailand and have seen much better fighters than this guy. However maybe Kit was that good that his opponent looked bad. It could happen. I wish however they had spent some time introducing the opponents and why it was valuable to be able to beat them. As far as I know it was some guy who hadn't fought in 5 years and recently underwent hernia surgery. Probably not but the point stands.

Overall I found the show entertaining and any martial art fan should take the time to watch it. Look for the reruns.

Thai Boxing Dynamite: The Explosive Art of Muay Thai
Author: Zoran Rebac
116 Pages

First thing you'll notice is this is a skinny book. Because of the small number of pages there isn't a lot of room to be real thourough in covering the art. Like most books on the subject it has sections on history and origins of Thaiboxing, basics of stance and attacking weapons. Just compressed into a small space, affording only a page or two to each topic.

The print is very small in this book, the chapter and section headings are so similar to the body text it is extremely hard to tell when one section ends and a new one begins. Also the descriptions in the text refers to the pictures, in some cases these pictures are on other pages. Sometimes the page ahead and other the page behind. This inconsistency makes for another hurdle for reading clarity.

There is good info in the book. Tips on when to use the techniques, some rudimentary items on setting up combinations and sparring information. Also the pictures are quite clear and have captured some good action.

It is an older book and though I just recently purchased it via Ebay, I could imagine in 1987, when this first came out, it would have been a breath of fresh air. Now, it is really a second tier book when compared to other newer titles. Buy it second hand or from Amazon.com cheap if you are a collector, otherwise check one of these two books: Distinguished or Legacy.

Muay Thai: The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting.
Authors: Panya Kraitus & Dr. Pitisuk Kraitus
244 Pages.

I bought this online here: www.dcothai.com/product_info.php?products_id=186
It was 12$ US there, shipping seem a lot at first but added up it was still cheaper than getting from North America. I can't remember exactly what it came to in Canadian dollars, but who cares buy it anyway. Shipping took about 3 weeks.

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said. Pretty much the most thorough book on the subject matter ever produced. I'll get to that but first that bad news.

Unfortunately this book suffers from some awful production quality. The text's font changes in mid paragraph and for no apparent reason. Sometimes it seems as though it is for emphasis but other times it just appears to be a whim. It is quite distracting in some cases.

Adding to the distraction is the sentence structure etc.. The book was clearly written by someone who speaks English as a second language. Much better than my Thai so who am I to complain? However in the sense of learning and understanding the work it is a negative.

Once last thing pretty much the only colour, glossy pages are advertisements. Yep in a book, a few sections of ads, that look like they belong in a magazine. Pictures of past seminars are one thing but some are obviously paid for advertisements. Not normal for a book in my experience. The rest of the pages are plain paper, black and white but all very clear photos and fonts (with the font change exceptions).

On to the good, and there is lots. Like many books on the subject, this one starts with history, ceremony, equipment and the Wai Khruu. It is very thorough in these aspects and the pictures are very interesting. The comprises about 90 pages of the book afterwhich the gem of the volume is discovered.

Chapter 23 shows clear drawings of the Mae Mai and Luk Mai. To me this is the greatest part of the book. Some of the techniques can be hard to follow at first but well worth the time to reread until you figure out what is going on. This section proves there is so much more to Muay Thai than round kick and teep. Buy the book for this section and everything else is a bonus.

The last half of the book is dedicated to the different attacking weapons of Thai Boxing. Lots of good pictures with plenty of description of when and how to use the attack and how to defend against it. I found it had quite a lot more variations than other books on the subject, the elbow and knee sections among my favourites. One thing missing, like in other books, is the clinch.

This book is considered "The" Muay Thai book for good reason. Really no practioner, or even fan of the sport should be without it.

Check out this related book : Legacy

Ultimate Randy Couture

This video is about an hour long and picks up with Randy's last fight as a heavyweight, his broken eyesocket bone and coming back to fight Chuck Liddell.

Randy talks about his thoughts on his punching display in the fight against the Iceman and his head-faking the takedowns. Great input from Randy but I saw this fight before, I have it on tape to watch the whole thing if I want to, I don't need to see so much of it again. The first third of this show is about this fight.

At about 16 minute mark the show picks up. Enter Tito and the training footage and hype talk starts. That lasts maybe two minutes and we watch recaps for the rest of the twenty-five minutes given to this fight and Randy's comment on the spanking wasn't worth the wait.

On to Vitor Belfort twice. Not as an exciting opening to the segment as the last but just a replay of stock footage used in the PPV ads. Eventually works its way back to the second fight and Randy's insights. Unfortunately there was even less of Randy and more replay of an old fight in this segment. I almost hit fast forward. I saw this before and Randy's comments were about the colour of his shorts not the fight.

I consider Randy Couture an ideal person to use the term Ultimate Fighter, this program just did not live up to him. My verdict is unless it shows up in WalMart's discount bin don't spend money on this. If you can borrow it like I did from a chump friend who buys all PPVs, it can't hurt to watch.

Muay Thai: A Living Legacy
Authors – KatPrayukvong & Lesley D. Junlakan
~300 pages
$40 US or $62 Cdn cover price

I picked this book up in a Barnes & Nobles on a recent work trip to San Jose . You should be able to find it anywhere, including Amazon.

Right off the bat; this is a great book. I rank it tied for first with my other favourite Muay Thai tome, The Most Distinguished Art of Fighting by Kraitus et al. Both are wonderful books for slightly different reasons.

Where A Living Legacy stands out is in production quality. The back of the book credits at least twenty people as part of the team. A mixture of consultants, models, photographers etc. I am sure others books have large teams working on them to but this group did a wonderful job.

Absolutely beautiful full colour pictures and maps adorn pretty near every page and a pull out Wai Khru poster is included in a rear pocket. Those combined with clear, well formatted text makes this book a joy to read and one that hasn't made it onto my shelf yet. It takes a preferred location on the living room coffee table where I can pick it up and browse and even share with friends who know little of martial arts.

The book opens with a great history section. The first four chapters are devoted to giving an understanding of where the art came from and gives a small glimpse into why it is so important as the national sport of Thailand. I like this part of the book, and though I have read some of these legends before they are presented in a fresh, clear style that makes them among the best tellings I've seen. Three full colour, pictures show the differences in equipment used in the traditional, modern professional and amateur aspects of the sport the some wonderful pages on the various rituals involved with different aspects of the art lead the reader into technique.

Three chapters, about 150 pages of this book is dedicated to technique. This section begins like many other books with discussions on warm-ups, stance, target areas and hand-wrapping. A stand out in chapter 6 is a three page foldout depicting the movements of Yaang Saam Khun, forwards and backwards.

The book moves smoothly to a collection of basic moves. Each type of move; punch, kick, knee, etc is given its own section. Good lead in paragraphs contain tips and tricks for each weapon and then pages of detailed photos and descriptions follow. There is a lot of basic stuff here. That isn't a complaint, I have been doing Muay Thai for a few years and still found these pages captivating. I always feel I can learn something when seeing it from a different perspective anyhow.

There are a few things that a beginner may not see for a while in class, like the jumping round kick and the infamous Jerakhae Faad Hang spinning kick. Mostly though this book contains a good solid base of simple techniques with the added bonus of having the techniques named in English, Romanized Thai and Thai Script.

The last chapter is called Basic Plus and is a quick look at putting combos together or defending and countering. The version of this book I have is labeled Vol.1. There are other hints that more books will be on the way. Hopefully they will pick up from Chapter 8 and show us more of this material and more on the Clinch.

The last line on the back cover is ...No lover of the martial arts can afford not to buy this book. I agree.