IGX

Video/Audio: Very high quality video and very high quality sound production. Tom took his time to get these right.

DVD Organization: Well organized and easy to move to each individual exercise through the DVD menu.

Content:
At a high level, there are two parts to this DVD.
(1) S&C
(2) Combat Applications

The combat applications give you a taste for how the exercises in the S&C section and the corresponding attributes they develop apply in 'real life'.

*S&C Drills, Tips, Tricks, etc.
There is some very good stuff in here. Tom takes his MA experience and has developed some interesting exercises. This is not about routines and progressions for base conditioning as much as fine tuning your body for injury prevention and specialized strength/endurance development.

Can you press a lot? Great, but do you have good ROM . . . Tom can show you some cool stuff to do with a stick to help this. His X Press is very interesting and hits the shoulder in a different way. Are your legs strong? Tom can show you how to take some strength/endurance drills for the legs that will open up your hips, improve flexibility, and teach you how to connect your body together for martial application.

Some of his groundwork such depak and sembok squats, burlesque bump, and lunge walk are quite different and felt really good on my hip flexors and hip joint. The knee walk I had to be careful with but it is something I'm going to try out.

*Combat Applications
i was quite familiar with most of what was taught in this section but it was interesting nonetheless. Tom knows his stuff and it shows.

*Who should get this?
If you're an MA guy who pursues S&C as a means to improve your MA game, this is a good DVD to have.

I sort of feel like this is MA conditioning + Resilient-like exercises + an introductory exposure to SE Asian MA.

I've seen Resilient and learned a trick or two, but Tom's stuff was so good I immediately changed up my joint mobility work to revolve around his stick JM demonstrations. They were that good and they seemed to get the areas I've been missing. (I normally do a lot of JS work and Tom's stick stuff was every bit as valuable IMO) The 'flexibility stunt' is awesome . . . something worth doing a lot of for shoulder ROM.

Tom's around 50 I think, and as such he's learned a lot about keeping your body working and strengthening it against injury. There is some great stuff in here along those lines.

For me, the DVD was absolutely worth the money. My hands, shoulders, and upper back feel better right now and I've added to my bag of tricks things that will keep me going.

Tom's X-vest and spider crawl bonus material gave me some good ideas as well.

Is it for you? It probably depends on why you train and how you train, but you can learn a lot from this DVD. Tom did a very good job with this and I'll definitely buy his next one.

Does this mean the video is available to purchase? Where?

Fanx.

I'm having trouble finding the link to buy it. There's a pic on Tom's blog, but it's not a button. I'll keep looking in posts here.

GDG!

Aha! Thanks, the URL on the blog page was missing the /index after the /articles. Great!

GDG!

I have now watched it 4 times, and it is really good, best training vid I've seen in a long time.

The way he integrates MA and Fitness is a step in the right direction,and he has alot of unique KB drills, and some neat KB adaptions of DB and Machine moves.

The quality is excellent!

Full reveiw later, I am pimping this vid to everyone I know that trains and does MA.

Wow! Coming from a Boyd Anderson street kid to Aikijujutsu adept, and NB protege, this is incredible praise. Thanks Dylan.

--Tom

Ordered it today. How long does it normally take to arrive? I live in NC.

I usually print the label and send the next day. All arrivals seem quick by USPS. Ray Floro in Australia got his very quickly. I believe that was the furthest other than the Euro's in England, Finland, Sweden, etc.

--Tom

I know mine came in less than a week.

BTW Tom, you suck. I did 2x53KB kneeling cleans today. It was hard.

GDG!

Word!

Those kneeling cleans were the low point of that day. Just me, my producer/cameraman, about 90 degrees, humid, and dehydrated. I am thinking in my head,....I feel like gagging and throwing up. I went through about half a gallon of water at that point. I got up early, loaded ton's of bells and gear in the Element, then picked up Mike and loaded in his gear. We went to the soccer field, unloaded, and shot for 5 hours. I would set the reflector, Mike framed the shot, then I made up stuff to say ;-)

I told him,...make sure you get this, 'cause I don't know how many of these things I am capable of! The kneeling cleans happen real fast and they are shockingling quick when you try them. Great for applications like kneeling grappling or Silat work like Harimau.

They will NOT give you "Gorilla Like Traps" however. --Tom

FYI, suckful Kneeling Cleans aside, I'm liking the stuff from the DVD I've been doing so far. Bit by bit, trying to incorporate it.

I've been doing the stick warmups (finger walking, etc) and the shoulder stuff the longest, and my shoulders are definitely much "smoother." Dislocates are pretty slick now.
Next I want to do some of the leg and foot work and see what effect it has.

Also, that "Old Chinese Man" shoulder flexibility "stunt" looks suspiciously like part of a Bujinkan (kukishinden ryu) sword kata. Don't know if it relates to any weapon technique in SE Asia, but there it is. I've been doing that as part of my shouilder stuff as well, BTW. the stick is 19" long!

GDG!

I just watched the S&C part:

Very good stuff. I learned some things as I tried things out as the DVD went along, and I saw some things I'd never seen before (or thought of).

I found the "grounded mobility" stuff to be a very nice refresher. I have lost ROM in my knees due to general abuse and them being beaten up, I've actually been working in that position on a daily basis to improve them, and it's been going well. Tom's material added a lot of other dimensions to that other than just working the ROM and doing that "skier stretch" thing from Resilient.

The stick stuff...even though I know tons of shit to do with bands and sticks and straps, I found new stuff to try. The "flexibility stunt" was completely new to me, and I can see how an old Irish reprobate would find that trick handy. The X-press, as noted above, was a nice trick.

Tom's open and acquisitive mind certainly is able to fuse material from myraid sources together and focus them to a specific purpose.

Overall, it was a very nice DVD, just from the S&C standpoint. I don't really feel qualified to comment much on the MA portion, though the above comments indicate it was of the same high and innovative quality.

A very late in coming review. I got this DVD when it first came out and watched and thought it was good but I wasn't overly impressed (Sorry Tom).

However after working with Tom at our Cincy workshop in August & seeing Tom in action I decided to re-watch it, especially after I started having some shoulder issues. Tom told me to try the stick work to help with the shoulder.

I just finished re-watching it and I must say that after the 2nd viewing I am MUCH more impressed than he 1st time around. I have a much greater appreciation of the material he covered: Some good & unique ways of training with kbs & sticks for both strength, power & rehab. In addition the applications he shows for some of these exercises is great. It really brings home the WHY of doing the work from an MA point of view instead of just doing it to be doing it.

Tom also made that point in Cincy. I opened it wih my standard JM routine ala Scott S & Steve M and afterwards he showed some of the practical MA applications to what I had shown. It was cool.

The only thing I would have to say that comes off as un-professional is his usage/pronunciation of 1 word. By now he's probably heard this already. The shoulder joints are called roTATor cuff not rotor cuff.

Its not a big deal but it is important in these types of presentations to use correct terminology & pronunciation. Just imagine if Pavel had said handleballs instead of kettlebells :)


Great DVD Tom. Anxiously awaiting the next (several).

All the best information takes a while to set in.

Fat Cat wrote:All the best information takes a while to set in.

Yes, indeed. And sometimes I found that what seems to be really great stuf on 1st viewing can turn out to be crap upon closer inspection

The only thing I would have to say that comes off as un-professional is his usage/pronunciation of 1 word. By now he's probably heard this already. The shoulder joints are called roTATor cuff not rotor cuff.

That's the "Pittsburgh" in me coming out.

Dan Inosanto,.... "Anti-Aerobic"

Larry Hartsell,.... " Periffreral Vision"

I'm in good company!

I also revisited this DVD a short while ago, and I had forgotten some very nice movements and tips from when I received it.

Still good stuff. The shoulder stick mobility work is very ugly for me. I used to have a lot more flexibility in my shoulders.

Shaf wrote:I also revisited this DVD a short while ago, and I had forgotten some very nice movements and tips from when I received it.

Still good stuff. The shoulder stick mobility work is very ugly for me. I used to have a lot more flexibility in my shoulders.

That has been the main thing that I took from it so far. Worked out well; my shoulders are more mobile and quiet now. I am taking a new look at it for more knee stuff now to start with some of that.

I was reading your log, actually, and couldn't remember what the drills were.

He's got a shitload of them on there, but what I've been doing are:

whipping the sticks back and forth for forearms, and then for shoulders to warm them up
bungee dislocates
"backwards" dislocates with a long stick
The "Old Chinese Man" trick with the stick where you bring it from behind to in front. I'm down to 15.5" now and it's approaching the length of my forearms, so it's getting ugly.
Sometimes after other training I do the isometric/PNF stretching with the stick

This is all over very quickly and has remarkably improved the ROM and smoothness of the joints. What I have also noticed is that I've drifted away from doing the various "Kelso" shrugs with presses, pullups, dips, etc and so I also don't have the shoulder stability I had. I know there's some tradeoff but I think I can get back some of that stability and strength if I add back in the Kelso stuff.

The Kelso stuff is easy to add in if you think about it. Generally, at the end of each set of the appropriate movement, you add the Kelso shrugging moves.

Bench -> Bench Shrug
Dips-> Dip Shrug
Chins/Rows-> Them shrugs
Etc.

The trouble is you forget about it, and hard sets don't lend themselves well to it.

You can set up a quick circuit if you have the equipment and go around the entire joint (chin shrug, push up shrug, dip shrug, inverted row shrug)