Streetfighting Essentials Reviews Page 1

Reviews of Streetfighting Essentials, Alain Burrese's dynamic self-defense video!

Review From Loren W. Christensen, author of more than 30 books and videos on martial arts and self-defense:

Five Stars: Excellent!

Alain draws on his extensive background in judo and Hapkido, as well as his in-the-trenches experience in the military and working as a bodyguard and bouncer in some of the toughest locations around the world. He packages his knowledge in an organized presentation that benefits the novice as well as the seasoned fighter.

In Tape One, Alain shows the precise way to stand, move, block, and execute the classic jab, cross, hook and uppercut, all combined with well-balanced footwork. After he demonstrates the best target for each punch, he introduces the palm-heel strike to use with the aforementioned punches, which is a better choice for officers so as to prevent injury to their gun hands. He goes on to teach several other hand strikes -- including some designed to stop an assailant but not seriously hurt him - and a half dozen simple kicks. .

Alain doesn't waste time and videotape with fancy smancy techniques that have little or no street application. Probably because of his background of fighting for real, he sticks to solid basics, the precise techniques needed by street officers when wristlocks are not enough. Realistic street attack scenarios are interspersed throughout the lessons to show how the presented material works in the mean streets.

In Tape Two, Alain teaches how to escape from a large variety of common grabs and holds, information rare to find in any police academy. There is a section on how to fall properly, and another section that teaches you how to execute a few basic throws, drags, head twists, and pull-downs. Even if you are well versed in self-defense, there will be something for you in these videos.

Streetfighting Essentials: Combining Western Boxing and Hapkido into an Unstoppable Self-defense System is designed for, as Alain says, "the person who does not want to study martial arts for years...and to help the martial artist who wants to cross the boundary into real self defense situations."

Does he accomplish his objective? Yes, he does, and the excellent camera work and interspersed, realistic scenarios all add up to a high quality tape set applicable to the needs of law enforcement.

Review by Thomas Morrison August 2007

I just watched Alain Burrese's STREETFIGHTING ESSENTIALS - Combining Western Boxing and Hapkido into an Unstoppable Self-Defense System 2-DVD set and was very impressed at what I saw.

In his introduction, Mr Burrese explains that this set is for a basic set of essential techniques for self defense. He offers some good basic striking (hands and feet) combined with the goal to "streamline Hapkido into the bare essentials for the street, crossing the line into 'real' self defense." The hallmark of all of Mr Burrese's DVDs is thoroughness and systematic development of the material, and this set holds true to that as well.

As it stands, this set would be an ideal base to create a self defense core system "add-on" to another art (like Taekwondo or etc). There is a lot of room here to modify, adapt and fit it into what you do.

Students who want "more" could look to flesh this out in several ways, either through cross training or other sources. To be honest, this reminds me a lot of the basic few levels of "Combat Hapkido", with much of the same attitude, ideas, philosophy, and even techniques. Interested students who like this set would probably be happy to build further on it through Combat Hapkido (ICHF). Alternatively, students who wanted the more traditional side would find this a decent introduction to Traditional Hapkido as well (especially if they looked at Mr Burrese's other DVD offerings).

The set is made up of two disks, for a total of about 2 and a half hours of material. Each section is very thorough with a wide range of demonstrations, tips on performance and targets, and everything is tied together well. There are nice review sections at the end of each section which show all of the techniques in short order.

Interspaced throughout the disks are self defense scenarios showing Alain (and others) defending against attackers in realistic settings. The normal clothes and outdoor settings add a hint of realism and the responses are very well put together, very realistic.

The details:

Disk 1

Introduction - including a great bit on awareness and avoidance. The first 20 minutes covers a neutral stance, basic footwork/movement, positioning, blocks and slipping attacks. At the end of this section, there is a quick and easy review of the material covered. (This type of review follows each section and was very useful)

The next 36 minutes covered upper body strikes, ranging from basic jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts to hammerfists, and knifehands to palm strikes, forearm strikes and elbows. All are demonstrated with careful attention to footwork, power generation, targeting and practicality.

The last 25 minutes of this disk covers a range of lower body strikes ranging from basic kicks (front, side, roundhouse) to practical ones like stomps, scoop kicks, and knees. There is also a short section on head butts and biting(!). Again, everything is demonstrated with careful attention to footwork, power generation, targeting and practicality.

Disk 2

The first 35 minutes of this disk shows breakaways, escapes, throws, and other ways to deal with a variety of attacks ranging from wrist grabs, sleev grabs, chokes, and lapel grabs to bearhugs, headlocks, nelsons and so on. Although there is only 1 or 2 technqiues shown for each category, it should be noted that all of the various techniques can be cross-applied to the other categories, making for a wide range of effective responses.

Jointlocks are not covered and he makes a reference that they are covered in a separate volume (although I would be more included to invest in Mr. Burrese's upcoming 5-volume set of Lock On joint lock instructional DVDs - excellent stuff.)

The next 20 minutes covers basic breakfalls and covers them well. I particularly enjoyed this section as it reminded me of almost exactly the same way I learned them in Korea. The next 10 minutes applies those falls in teaching sweeps, throws and takedowns.

The next section was the only disappointing section for me. The "Fighting on the Ground" section was only 7 minutes long and covered a ideas on getting back up, kicking from the ground and escaping from a simple mount. The main idea was to avoid going to the ground, which I agree with but would have liked to have seen some more in depth takedown defenses (especially against someone with half-decent takedown skills) and a few more technqiues to deal with being on the ground, e.g. escaping a guard or mount and getting back to your feet (or finishing on the ground). This section is the only part I wasn't completely satisfied with, but this is an area where you can get some supplemental material for to round out the system.

The final 8 minutes wraps up with a ideas on how to "combine the tools", showing some excellent combinations and scenarios. His basic principle is to finsh quickly and get out of there. He reiterates that this "doesn't cover everything - it's just a core of essential techniques."

All in all, this is an excellent resource with a lot of great ideas and material to consider. Traditional HKD students may not see a lot of "new material" in it but may enjoy some of the different striking involved as well the tips and ideas on applying/combining material for street self defense. For Combat Hapkido students, the same holds true although most of the physical material would have been covered by Green or Purple Belt in the ICHF curriculum.

This review was posted by Thomas Morrison at hapkidoforums.com and other places.

Review by Vic Cushing:

Company: Alain Burrese
Tape Name: Streetfighting Essentials:  Combining Western Boxing and Hapkido into an Unstoppable Self-defense System
Tape Cost: $59.95 + 3.95 Shipping
Length of Tapes: 2 Tape Set Total of 165 minutes
Number of Moves/Techniques: Not used as a criteria, though there are plenty.
Return Policy: Unknown
Experiences in dealing with this company: Excellent
The Instructor: Alain Burrese
Company's Address: 1506 Ernest Avenue, #20. Missoula, MT 59801
Company's Phone Number: 1-406-543-7240

Web Page: http://www.burrese.com
E-mail: aburrese@aol.com

Reviewer: 

Vic Cushing

modernhapkido@att.net 

www.modernhapkido.org

Primary Grading Criteria:

1. Production/Tape Quality: 10
2. Instructors demonstrated skill level: 10
3. Comprehension Score/Immediate Understanding: 10
4. Degree to which this will make someone a better Martial Artist: 10
5. Score on delivery vs. Hype: 10
6. Degree to which we would recommend this product: 10
7. Wasted time (The higher the number, the less "fluff"/repetition: 10
8. Playback Score/Watching it over and over again: 9
9. Would I purchase more of this company's product: 10
10. Overall grade based on cost vs. Value: 9

Grand Total: 98% (4.0 stars = Excellent)

Secondary Grading Criteria Series:

1. Beginners benefit: Excellent
2. Intermediate benefit: Excellent
3. Advanced benefit: Excellent
4. Time to benefit: Some Immediate, greatest benefit with practice of course.
5. The need to buy additional tapes to understand this one: None. Although when combined with an earlier tape Hapkido Hoshinsul: The Explosive Korean Art of Self Defense any viewer with practice, would have the ability to flow into joint locks as well

Written Summary:

Alain Burrese has added yet another excellent video to his first tape, Hapkido Hoshinsul: The Explosive Korean Art of Self Defense, which allowed the beginner and the advanced student to both learn.  In that tape he presented the basics of selected Hapkido joint locks applied in a variety of situations so that the novice could appreciate the way basics may be strung together. The advanced student could refresh and test his/her understanding of how techniques relate to each other without just going down the checklist of techniques required for each rank. This two tape set of videos entitled Streetfighting Essentials: Combining Western Boxing and Hapkido into an Unstoppable Self-defense System is 165 minutes of clear demonstrations and explanations of basic strikes, footwork, low line kicks, escapes from chokes, grabs, bear-hugs showing hard hitting, fast paced, non stop use of techniques to defend yourself.

Alain draws on his background from Judo,  Hapkido, the military, working as a bodyguard and bouncer, to formulate the 165 minutes of this tape.  The video, as the title suggests, is all about blending several martial arts into a system for defending yourself from real attack. In this video Alain provides the viewer with a simple set of effective options which they can use to stun or disable an attacker so that they can escape safely.

Burrese sets the stage by using the big four of Western Punches: The Jab, The Cross, The Hook and the Upper Cut combined with straightforward footwork. He shows the best target for each punch and then shifts gears and introduces the palm heel strike as a hand-saving alternative for violent confrontations. He then covers a number of other alternative strikes. Alain is all business. There are few bells or whistles in these tapes, though they are professionally produced with good visuals and camerawork that seamlessly shows alternative angles. There are reality inserts of attack scenarios each with a successful defense built out of the elements covered in the tapes. Even if you are well versed in Self Defense, there will be something for you on this video. It is pretty much crammed with quality information.  Alain is to be commended for using different size partners including Thad Brinkman who looks like he could fill most doorways.  Alain talks about modifying techniques based on the size of your attacker.  It is always nice to see training partners that look like they could really do damage.

The material on the tapes covers basic upper body strikes, and lower body strikes in a variety of attack situations.  Pat Sergott, my long time training partner, calls this “A to the face, B to the Base”. Alain Burrese displays this same no nonsense, cut to the basics approach.

Here is some more of what you will find on this video. There is a variety of real life Attack scenes liberally sprinkled through the tapes with a discussion of Stages of Awareness: White, Yellow, Orange, and Red.  There is advice about using good judgment not to escalate confrontations.

There are demonstrations of De-escalating and neutral stances along with an explanation of Combat Footwork.  There is time spent on a collection of evasions: i.e. getting off the Centerline by moving on a 45º angle for Punches, and Clinches, Moving Outside against a punch, with and without a parry, Moving Inside against a punch, with and without a parry. Avoiding Straight and Hook Punches, combined with Blocking

There is a section on Upper Body Strikes and Target Identification, including: Jab, Cross, Hook, Uppercut all with instruction on the Proper Body Mechanics to generate power for each strike. Then other strikes are shown: Palm Heel, Arc Hand (Tiger Mouth), Hammer Fist, Knife Hand, Volleyball Smash (Descending Palm Heel), Ear Slap, Eye Strikes, Forearm, Elbow, Head butt, Biting

There is a section on Lower Body Strikes and Target Identification, including: Front Kick, Side Kick, Scoop Kick, Roundhouse Kick, Stomp Kick, Knee Strikes ( Forward, Roundhouse, Rising).

There is ample material on Escapes from Grabs and Chokes, including breakaways from simple wrist grabs, one handed grabs, two handed grabs, grabs from behind, grabs on upper arm, escape from front choke(s) with shoulder stop, escape from front tackle/push using strike to supra-jugular notch, escape from front choke by dropping to one knee and groin strikes, escapes from rear choke(s), escape from two handed grab at throat, escape from front lapel grab, escape from hair grab, escapes from bear hugs, escapes from headlocks ( front, rear and side), escapes from rear naked choke (early reaction), and an escape from the full nelson.

There is a section on how to fall properly including front falls, and rolls, back rolls, and side falls. Alain does a very good job of conveying the basics and tips for safe falling.  This section then moves into showing how to execute throws, drags, head twists, pull-downs, and finishing moves.

While it would behoove any fighter to know how to fight from the ground in case you do end up there, Alain’s philosophy is don’t go to the ground voluntarily, and when you find yourself there, get up as fast as you can using strikes, and kicks to make space to get up. So most of what you will get on this tape does not deal with any BJJ moves, but stays at the level of how to get up and away.  He does show one way to get rid of an attacker in the mount.

Some of the attack scenarios have multiple attackers, and even though Alain really doesn’t make a fuss about that verbally, it is clear that the elements he has put onto this tape are crucial to dealing with those situations.

He concludes the tape with several demonstrations of how to put the pieces together to apply a series of techniques in one explosive flurry of counterattacks to an attacker.  Alain “keeps ‘em flowing, until the bad guy is done for sure.”

Review from John ( Jack) Watson JWATSON301@aol.com

STREETFIGHTING ESSENTIALS - Videos 1 and 2  by Alain Burrese

I always enjoy watching videos by Alain Burrese because he understands what he is talking about and can explain it very clearly. He also avoids saying how wonderful his style is and how terrible every one else's is! In both his videos on "Streetfighting Essentials", Alain selects  effective boxing, hapkido and grappling moves which can be applied to the unlimited violence of streetfighting.

The first video gives a very clear explanation of why footwork is important. It describes the most useful boxing and other hand techniques for the street. The targets for each technique are explained in a way which makes sense. Useful kicks for the street are described next.

In the second video, Alain shows how to deal with grabs, chokes and locks as quickly as possible. Again his explanations are very clear. He gives an excellent plotted course on how to fall down without injuring yourself. A section on simple but effective takedowns follows. These can be used on the street. His section on kicking from the ground is brief but outstanding.

I can recommend these two videos without reservation. They are ideal for anyone who wants to protect themselves on the street. Instructors, also, can learn a lot about how to explain techniques and their applications in a very clear way which makes sense. I look forward to Alain's next videos.

Jack Watson  (3rd degree in Choikwangdo and 2nd degree in Iai batto jutsu)

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