A digression from the Thai arts related entries. I was flipping the channels and watching a little TV with my kids on this wet, dreary Sunday. I came across Jean Claude Van Damme's movie Timecop. It happened to be the scene where James Lew and a few other bad guys were in JCVD's apartment and out to kill him. Sorry all, I cannot find a Youtube of the scene in question.
James Lew brandished 2 knives at the outset of the fight and JCVD was lucky to get to his kitchen to arm himself with a knife. James Lew went at JCVD and JCVD was able to parry/block with his knife all of Lew's attacks. That's Hollywood for you LOL.
Lew ended with just 1 knife at a certain point. JCVD dropped his kitchen knife and on the sofa he eyed his shirt or a towel. In the blink of an eye, Lew lunges in with his knife and JCVD grabs the shirt and wraps up the knifearm and proceeds to beat up Lew.
Cool scene in that I am interested in Flexible Weapons and/or Improvised Weapons. I guess it has to do with my idea of looking into the myriad functional self-defense aspects with Improvised Weapons being a big part. One of the most obvious uses of a jacket, shirt, towel or even a bandana is its flailing aspects. With the flailing aspects of clothing, check out some Indonesian and/or Malaysian Sarong fighting aspects. In addition to flailing, the sarong may be used for takedowns, locking or choking. Although taking the time to tie the sleeves of a jacket or shirt to make it like a sarong may not be the wisest course of action in a self-defense situation that has gone to Code Red. With the bandana, the Filipino Martial Arts has utilized it for knife disarms. Check out James Keating's videos on it.
After Timecop, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall came on. That's a great movie for discussion some other time :-)
2 comments:
All Van Damme does is move his knife up and down.
hello and thank you for your post... i was interested in the usage of the shirt/towel part of that knifefight.
Post a Comment