Ralph Grasso a legit authority on WW2 combatives? Don’t think so lol.

[Dallas Williams]

[Damian (Instructor)]

First Dallas, I would probably say he is. He’s at least knowledgeable about the facts and history – anything anyone could find in a book.

This however is NOT combatives. It’s FMA. To the best of my knowledge Ralph trained in Escrima under Professor V.

That being said, I have no idea why this video was posted and what it demonstrates. I know baton twirlers that could do this after a day or practice. From a self defense stand point you wouldn’t sustain anything more than a bruise if you walked straight into it.

Bear in mind, I don’t consider myself an “authority on WWII Combatives” even though I have more than enough knowledge regarding is AND the SDTS is rooted in that work.

I feel that later when Fairbairn and others started writing books, they too offered too many complicated techniques that rarely worked. This was because Japanese Jujutsu in the 1950’s was like MMA is today. So in order to sell books they padded it with a lot of other fancy moves.

Add to that there was no REAL ground fighting component in the WW2 stuff and that needed to be developed for the SDTS.

Does Ralph know a lot about the who, what, where and when, sure he does. Is what he doing here combatives – not by SDTS standards, but if you look in various cane fighting books at the time they probably had this in there as well.

The REAL question is – does this technique have any real value for self defense – NO.

[Dallas Williams]

I agree and before I discovered the Self Defense Company I used to be pretty big into FMA too and at the time thought it was good practical effective stuff. I used to watch and train Dan Inosanto’s material compulsively thinking I was actually learning self defense and giving myself the upper hand in a potential conflict. While I will say the physical activity was healthy and improved my physical conditioning once I stumbled upon the SDTS and saw how simple, easy to recall and train under duress, and effective against all variety of attacks and scenarios all while improving one’s physical conditioning and functional strength as well. I guess the point I was trying to make about GrASSo is it’s kind of hard to take a man seriously when he uploads videos of himself in pajamas over 100 pounds overweight doing a damn baton twirl drill lol. This looks more like what my sister did as a baton twirler in grade school than anything I’ve seen in fillipino martial arts. :cool:

[Damian (Instructor)]

I too studied FMA and Wing Chung. PEople think I fell off the turnip truck or something.

Believe me, I’m NO fan of Ralph, having known the man personally (not well, just personally) and yes – I have no idea why he posts this stuff.

FMA – the majority of knife grips and stabs don’t work when you actually stab something and it gives FAR TOO MUCH credit as to the effectiveness of the Escrima stick. I have been hit full force (by accident) in training and suffered nothing more than a bruise.

You could walk straight into someone doing sinawales and just get bumped and a little bruised.

[Dallas Williams]

Not to mention with a stick you’re a lot better off attacking with thrusts/jabs like we do in module 9 because for one you’re opponent is expecting you to swing like a golf club or baseball bat so he will be less likely to know what’s coming and be able to evade or counter. And second you’re can do just as much if not more damage like that as you can with a swing because you’re concentrating a lot of force into a smaller impact area.

[Damian (Instructor)]

You got it.

[Anonymous]

Man looks like an authority on Carbohydrates…

[Author]

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