Is anybody besides me watching one of The History Channel's newest shows called "Human Weapon"?

It's about Jason Chambers (MMA champ) and Bill Duff (former football player and wrestler) going around the world and learning different martial arts.  They have just a few days to learn some basics before one of them is pitted against the country's champion in that fighting discipline.

There's history, science, how-to's and then the final battle.  Pretty awesome stuff!

Here's the one's I've seen so far:

Judo:  Samurai Legacy
Eskrima Stick Fighting (Phillipines)
Pankration: The Original Martial Art (Greece)
Krav Maga of the Israeli Commandos

Here's the website to check out more info:  http://www.history.com/minisite. ... e&mini_id=54986

yupp..i've been watching every episode. this is an AWESOME show. pretty addicting if you're into martial arts in general. the Muay Thai (Thailand, this was there 1st episode) one was pretty cool.

"Muay Thai:  The Ultimate Striking" was on last night at 10pm....I don't know why I forgot to put that in my little list up above....

There's a part from this particular episode where Jason and Bill are watching a Muay Thai stick fighting demo and Jason says, "Wow!  It's like watching a really cool Jet Li flick!"  

as bad as the show is, i like it it's one of the shows i dvr hahah.  every time those guys narrate martial arts history i feel like i'm listening to some 5 year old's book report.  and duff, man if he wasn't so huge he would get his ass kicked by everybody, he's super uncoordinated.  chambers isn't so bad, but he's too much of a pretty boy.  overall, an entertaining show to watch just because I love watching anything about martial arts, but the writing is overtly sensationalistic "oh, this is amazing!  no other martial art does this".  riiiiiight.  oh well, they did their job, i'm hooked anyways.

Hey, Bill Duff nearly took Greece's Pankration Champion!  If only he hadn't been penalized for 2 slams to the mat and one hit on the jaw of his opponent....  

Yeah.....I've fallen for the show, hook, line & sinker!

Chambers is annoying ,he is constantly falling back on his MMA training during the final challenges he takes part so I wonder how much actualy technique he's bothered to learn from some of the more traditional styles..I admit that I watch to see him lose ha ha.

Bill is big and somewhat clumsy yes but I think he generaly has a better atittude towards learning than Chambers.
If I had to choose I would say that Deadly Arts is more informative over all, but still watching those two boyos get knocked around can be very entertaining. I was really disappointed in the Savate episode as the chosen Savate Champion looked like he was asleep through the match allowing Bill a victory..go figure.

Maybe they paid him off to "throw the match."  

I would love to see a Capoeira episode , I think they would both hate it

I've caught parts of several shows.  I'm the worst for remembering when tv shows are on.  My schedule keeps me on the go and I usually catch shows when they're aired the 2nd time.

Well, tonight Jason and Bill trained with the US Marine Corps.  This is the first show where, imo, they weren't all "uppity" and "hyper" to get going and learn something new.  The MCMAP (Marine Corp Martial Arts Program) must have totally intimidated them...they looked like they had little dark clouds over their heads!

Good stuff.....one thing I was really surprised to see was how many women are in the Marine Corp doing the training right along with the guys....they're slinging guys over their shoulders and doing the strength building exercises, they're doing hand-to-hand combat, they're learning to disarm their opponents.....amazing!

The "ain Room" looked the worse....they say it's over 100 degrees and you have to be constantly doing weight training until it's your turn to put on the padding and do some fighting....and the instructors are constantly yelling!  

I learned a lot about the Marine Corp that I never knew before and I have an even greater respect for what they do for our country to protect it.  Thanks, guys (and gals!)!!!!

Did anybody else catch the show?

The Marine core style is of course very similiar to (yawn) Krav Maga.

Great show! Too bad History Channel is not availible to me.... So I have to watch trough the not so legal way.... (or by the dvd for 25 USD per episode .....)

Can't wait to see the Silat episode, although not filmed in Indonesia but in Malaysia, that's a bit odd....

Military training is straightforward, that's for sure. Restrain, disable or kill, it's that simple. No doubt in the reverse order in combat.

I've been watching the Capoeira vids in your blog, very interesting to see. After I watched a few vids I realized I wasn't understanding what I was looking at, so I went to Wiki & read the article about Capoeira. That gave me a bit of understanding re: the moves I was watching. There's so muuch style & so many layers of meaning. I can see why the practise of it would be fascinating; seems like there would be an incredible amount to learn & a lot of room for develping an individual style to do the moves. Well, anyway that's how it looked to me.

That 'women in combat' debate has gone on for so long, I've lost track of it. I know women can be in support units of course & if I'm not mistaken piloting was approved, but they still don't go into combat zones, do they? I have great admiration for women who train hard & know how to do all this stuff. Still, I'm not convinced they belong in combat situations where they have a much higher chance of being captured. I believe men & women should serve equally in terms of time tho. Maybe men get raped too, but that seems to happen to every female soldier who's captured.

I completely understand that Military martial arts a re required to be fast, efficient and to the point ,it just seemed repetitive after the Krav Maga episode. Capoeira is the extreme opposite of combat fighting

Didn't mean to come across as if I was telling you something, if it did, oops.  

Anyway, I've enjoyed seeing the vids. Thanks. : )

oh wait .. that is on the TV - the TV is in the other room, by the time I decide to watch anything, it's usually a dvd on the little portable once I've finally crashed in bed.  I guess I could go in there and watch TV instead of checking out the Jet Li board .... naaa- I'll suffer and catch stuff on dvd so I can watch it on my schedule. sorry I don't have tivo or any cool stuff like that.

Oh, man....where'd the weekend go?  And now it's Wednesday.....after reading Rob Cohen's (Mummy 3) blog, I was reminded about last Friday's "Human Weapon" episode.  

They FINALLY covered MMA (Mixed Martial Arts).  I know that some of you think this show is not a fair representation of the martial art forms they show, but it's very entertaining for me and I actually learn stuff.  For instance, now I'm practicing a spinning back kick (preceeded by two forward kicks) and I've discovered that I'm better with my left leg than my right leg (being ambidextrous, I like to learn moves on both sides).  

I also like learning about "sprawling."  Don't have a chance to practice that but it's good to know!

Cung Le was awesome to watch!  Anyway, Jason finally won a fight (which was good because he has a MMA background!).  Did anybody else catch this episode?

[ Last edited by  JRS at 2007-10-3 01:43 PM ]

Why yes I did as a matter of fact , I thought that the Sprawl was pretty clever because that double leg take down is very common. I have been a fan of Cung Le for some time so it was nice to see him as well.Poor Bill needs to work on his kicking and flexibility but I was impressed by his performance overall. Jason did well of course but that should be no suprise. I was hoping that he would get pounded which brings me to another subject, why wasn't the "ground and pound" technique discussed?  It reminds me of fighting with my brother when I was 5 years old, I would love to have seen them try and make it sound technical  ha ha.
I was also disabused of the notion that MMA fighters are all devoid of intellect, Randy Couture in particular seems pretty sharp. so live and learn eh?

[ Last edited by  sunsetgun at 2007-10-4 03:44 AM ]