Chris is a level 3 instructor in Commando Krav Maga. This is not the pretty stuff Krav. Not what we sometimes refer to as "health club Krav", although he does in fact run one of his classes at one. This is Moni Aiziks Krav, a confirmed bad ass http://www.commandokravmaga.com/
If you make it through one of Chris' reality based classes you have right to feel tough.
I was waiting to post here about Chris till he started fleshing out his blog we set up. It seems Chris is just plain too busy training and teaching to bother with that though I'm sure it would be fun.
When Chris walks in the room you feel the Alpha Dog immediately. I'm sure his Blog would be just the same - no BS.
We met about a year ago, struck up a friendship and Chris was eager to learn more of the sticks and swords. He knew weapons, knives Guns clubs, ect. Let's not even get into the fact that he was guiding hunters as the wise age of 8 for razorbacks. But I was able to do things to him with the sword and knife that I guess made him realize he had a gap in his large palette of skills (Krav is not the only thing Chris had done well over the years including what his Cherokee Grandfather taught him).
Eventually I think he got caught by the FMA web too. Those of us can't really define it, it just draws us in and we gave up fighting it.
Fast forward, it's been a year now and about 6 months ago Chris expressed an interest in going to John Bednarski's Pacific Island tournament and having a go.
Now I wasn't teaching Chris how to "spar" with sticks. In fact I wasn't teaching him much of the sticks at all. We trained with them but it was primarily Navadisha sword curriculum. We'd often transfer concepts over to the knife as that was a good way for him to make the connection to Commando Krav Maga (CKM).
So, I had to put him on a real fast track of getting ready. We broke things down into specific striking drills that would train his attributes for the tournament and key Silat footwork that would work. (When I gave him some WEKAF sticks he broke a new one on the 2nd strike of a low key drill we did, there went $2.50).
A few months ago I turned Cole loose on him. Now if that wasn't a great learning cauldron. Cole doesn't fight like anyone - the style of no style we say. If you can learn and score on Cole, you're doing alright.
We were apprehensive that Chris might foul out due to excessive contact. His knife work is pretty overwhelming and you might get a point but he will woodpecker you into 6' bloody block of Swiss cheese.
Well apparently Chris took all of this to heart, stirred it up and worked his ass off.
At the tournament Chris went undefeated and I can't tell you how THRILLED Mushtaq and I are. Sure Chris is a born fighter but really he's a born skull smasher. Translating that into the ring too some real work. First place in adult heavyweight continuous sword and point knife.
Watching the sword division, you can see he pretty much parried everything and rarely got hit before the round ended early.
8 comments:
Are we watching the same fight? We were there too and it looked like Mr. Renfroe was tagged often while only tapping his opponent's stick in return. That was of course until his opponent suffered a vertigo attack and Mr. Refroe's zombie attack was launched on him. Oh well, opinions vary, congrats to Mr. Renfroe and like the Cubs, there's always next year.
Great job Chris!
I'm not sure what the other guys issues were but I would say that Chris had alot of good body shots and the last 3-4 head shots did him in.
I was there too and I thought the fight was a great one for both guys until the other guy got TKO'ed.
what a great job for the 1st of many fights to come!
Nice to see how well that headgear protects against temple shots.
I accidentally tagged a fellow student on the temple once while we were sparring and saw him go blank and then down. When he came back, it brought up one of my favorite ever corrections: " "Watch the fucking mandibular!"
I think we’re both viewing the fight from the same viewpoint – that of an instructor seeing the accomplishments of their student.
However, I also saw the judges scores and the fight was judged based on that and was overwhelmingly for Chris. We still had Chris fight the looser of the first fight as it just didn’t feel right for him to win after 30secs.
I will admit a bit of hubris in describing what strikes landed on him, I should have said “he parried frequently and seldom got hit."
This is one reason I don’t blog as frequently as some others, I rarely express myself properly.
I was only referring to his performance with regard to the sword fighting strategies we use when I said “see the outcome”. Not John’s unfortunate vertigo. I am sorry for the unintended reference, I was posting at the last minute. I have great respect for John and Brandon coming out and representing Bandalan DP by fighting.
The taps to the stick are considered an effective strategy in Navadisha (which is why I was so thrilled to see him use it). They throw off the opponents timing and negate attacks as well. No, they are not intended as scores but also setups much as wittiks could be considered. We fight tip out for just this reason (and others).
I did not see Chris execute a zombie attack at the end of the fight. He has described from memory to me exactly move for move what he did. And this was following up being chased with a zombie Plancha attack by John.
When Chris realized all was not well with John you can see him let off with his snap strikes.
Watching the fight prior to this I see Chris landing the first strike slightly ahead of John most of the time and several slicing parry attacks to John’s hand not stick.
Agreed opinions vary sometimes in judging tourneys, something I’ve often been on the loosing side with DP judges in WEKAF events. I’ve had to stick in there and find ways to win anyway. This is why we have recognized that more specific reviews of examples of correct scoring need to happen prior to next year’s funfest to continue to improve.
And yes, there is next year! I plan to be back in shape by then and Mushtaq has served me notice that he fully intends to enter at least one division and take heads!
Well, not so much take head but perhaps totter about feebly on the mat and perhaps score a point or two by sheer luck.
I was quite inspired by Tim Heartman's example if both skill and good sportsmanship.
I guess it is the old firehouse horse syndrome. I hear the alarm and just want to run.
Um, am I missing something here? Was John's vertigo a pre-existing condition, and unconnected to being whacked upside the head with a stick?
I associate vertigo with folks who have inner ear problems or get nervous looking down from great heights. What it looked like to me was that John got his bell rung and that was what affected his consciousness.
I don't know the rules of the contest, but I'm assuming that since there is protective headgear (which is obviously less-than-completely-effective) then head strikes are allowed, yes?
If so, then it seems like a boxing match -- you win on points or you are the last guy standing and didn't foul anybody ...
Please let me put this to rest. It was a great tournament. The people who were officiating, were fair and unbiased. All the fights were exciting and everyone was truly motivated to compete with a high degree of skill. That being said, vertigo in some people, including John, is a life long condition. It affected his ability to compete that day and came on during his first fight. He won that fight but asked me to wave off his second fight with Mr. Renfroe because he was dizzy. I asked him to try to center himself and represent his skill level. He did so, only because I asked him to and for no other reason. It is on me that the fight went the way it did. Bad decision on my part. In my original post here, the first comment on this blog, I wasn't trying to dispute the outcome or the way it was handled. The fight was called, as it should have been, because John went down. It was simply a little frustrating to see language that made a friendly tournament seemingly turn into a slug fest which led readers to believe that the TKO was a knock out. The reality is the stoppage was due to John's inability to continue as a result of the onset of a severe vertigo attack as stated at the tournament. Again, that being said, Mr. Renfroe won, no bones about it and absolutely no complaints from us about it. Everything was fair and we're satisfied with the outcome. The important thing is we all gathered to compete and share our styles with each other from around the Midwest. It was was a good day and at the end of it we were all still friends. Hopefully, we all still are...
Regards to all, Big John
Wholeheartedly agree John. I inadvertently inferred that my excitement was about the end of the fight when really it was about Chris's exhibition of what we had been teaching him. Sincere apologies and I understand now how others may have read it. (one of my goals in starting this blog was to get better at it. Seems whenever I post in a hurry, it still happens). I did out of respect only post it here (and had I had other footage of Chris I might have used it instead) rather than youtube with the other two. I know there is a limited number of people who read this.
Yes, I would hope we are all still friends. Even bigger respect for John in competing now understanding his condition.
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