Vunak's Top 50 Combat Secrets Ch. 29

Chapter 29 : The Great Eight

When people ask me over the years why Dan Inosanto’s students move differently from other Jeet Kune Do factions ? The empirical answer is they are better athletes. Long answer, gets into why… In martial arts as with any other sport there are specific techniques of the game that enable us to differentiate between football, basketball, mma, stick fighting etc… When these techniques are given to a cross section of people, regardless of what sport or martial art style we are talking about, then the quality of these people at the end of the day is determined by the better athlete.

So out of a 100 people, you will most likely have 5 that excel to the top of their game, additionally you will most likely have 5 that have extreme difficulty doing basic stuff, and the other 90 folks, are on a floating DNA scale. And their success, in their chosen sport or art, has been pre-determined by their respective level of attributes. This includes but not limited too, speed, power, timing, coordination, lateral footwork, conditioning, line familiarization, etc…

When I met Dan Inosanto in the mid 70s, he explained to me how he figured out how to work around this genetic conundrum. He explained, that if we practice our techniques out of drills that involves movement and resistance, that not only will be learning the techniques but we will be improving our attributes simultaneously. As opposed to practicing our techniques out of some lapel grab, or fake punch. Over the many years of training with Bruce Lee and other Filipino masters, and out of the 30 years that I have trained with Dan, there are 8 such drills. Each one of these drills brings out a different set of attributes and a different type of movement.

1. Hubbad
2. Chi-Sao
3. The Thai Clinch Drill
4. Pummeling
5. The Lop-Sao Drill
6. Sumbrada
7. Numerada
8. Serrada

These 8 drills combine, weapons with empty hands, Kali with Wing Chun, single direct attacks, attacks by combinations, PIAs, etc… These drills are purely magical. I have witnessed Dan, and I have myself made athletic street fighters out of clumsy mild mannered people.

These drills like anything else can be done at a very basic level, where folks are just repeating the shell of the drill. Or each of these drills, can have full contact sparring, (complete with eye jabs, face bites, and jiu-jitsu) intrinsically woven in to the confines of the drill. The reason why these particular 8 drills, create a functional fighter, is complicated enough to fill 5 encyclopedias. However for now, suffice it to say, that by returning back to each drill, in between our very lethal techniques, this returning back to the shell of the drill, is extremely difficult and requires exceptional athleticism. Standing in the middle of the ring and duking it out takes very little other than a set swinging, conversely when two people are duking it out for a few brief seconds, and then they must return back to a specific drill say, chi sao, this returning back to chi sao, enables a fighter to forever protect his centerline for the rest of his life. The returning back to Hubbad on the other hand gives one the ability to angle or zone. Returning back to sumbrada say with a stick or a knife, gives one the ability to flow without thinking. Returning back to serrada out of full contact stick sparring, gives one the reflexes of a startled mongoose etc, etc…

In conclusion when we give our students these 8 drills, and then teach them our agenda out of these drills, not only are we guaranteeing the functionality of our students, we are also keeping it fun, which guarantees the functionality of our check book.

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