Thoughts from my first Dog Brother Gathering - June 2007

Everybody was Stickfighting!

After everyone got their fill of stabbing, thrusting and zapping each other with training knives, sharkies and shocknives it was time for the beatings to begin.


Luckily for me I lined up my first stick fight with Dan from the North Hollywood clan of the Dog Brothers before the knife fighting even started. Thanks to Pappy Dog who introduced me to Dan which allowed me to have an opponent as we spoke I found out it would be Dans first time stickfighting he participated the year before but on fought with the knives. So after the knife fighting match I got back in line with Dan and waited our turn, it's a funny thing being in this situation. While standing in line lots of thing go through your head and its even weirder because here you are standing in line and making with the guy you are going to fight, my stomach was kind of queasy, everything was racing through my head - I was like should I be making chit chat? Should I be nice? LOL Part of me wanted to watch the fights while waiting in line, part of me didn't want to watch the fight because then I would get caught up in looking out for things / techniques / moves and I just wanted to deal with what was going on at the moment without having to think, hell I didn't really have a game plan I guess I was just trying to be in the moment and act but my fights were pretty much re-active.. It was all good thought and before we knew it, it was time to step on the floor. After we tapped in everything happened so fast and it was really hard for me to remember anything clearly after the match. It felt as if we were only out there for about 30 seconds. Most of what I remember is that he kept trying the Salty Strike, but instead of coming under the cover of a roof block his lead leg would precede the block which allowed me to deliver strikes to his leg. Dan also got some good strikes in at the same time, he was able to land a good hand shot which bent up my thumbnail. I could feel too, not that I really felt any pain at the moment. There was too much adrenaline flowing through me at the time. Then at some point Dan ended up losing his stick, for a brief moment we just stood there and looked at each other. I nodded for him to go get his stick and he chose to crash / clinched and we rolled to the ground. Im not that good at grappling and the only thing that was running through my head was "stay on top" and I did. If I would have landed on my back I think I would have been submitted but luckily for me I was on top and was able to stay on top. From that point Dan was trying to triangle me but at the same time I was receiving pointer from someone in the crowd and I listened, lol. It was good advice it helped me stay on top and deliver some hammerfists and before I knew it Crafty called time again and that was my first match. At the end I could hardly remember what actually happened. All I know is that it was an awesome experience!

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Sorry its been a busy week and im not that good at writing but here is a another small installment of my adventure in LA.

June 24 2007

When we arrived at the Monster garage warehouse the place looked empty but as I turned the corner the OP camera crew were filming fighters and spectators as they came through the alley to the entrance of the warehouse. We signed in, got stamped and proceeded through the doors and as we made our way through there was plenty of people on the inside. There a couple of booths to sell Dog Brothers & Kombat Instruments Limited merchandise, Crafty Dog was getting ready and the OP crew were taking shots of the Cali clan as spectators and fights milled about the area. As we made our way through the crowd I recognized many people I saw in Original Production Pilot clip and in a way I was star struck yeah it sounds kind of corny but I just thought it was cool to recognize people and in a way it helped settle my nerves a bit because even though I didn't know them and it was kind like I did know them because I've watched the clip so much.

The Ceremony begins!

Crafty called all the fighters on to the mat where we all lined up and Crafty gave the famous speech " The Ceremony Begins - No judges, no referees, no trophies. One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day. This means our goal is that no one spends the night in the hospital. Our goal is that everyone leaves with the IQ with which they came. No suing no one for no reason for nothing no how no way! We are members of the same tribe helping each other to prepare to defend the land, women, and children of the tribe" Due to the amount of fighters (61) Crafty stressed that bar any injuries all parties should get on and off the mat quickly when their time has expired.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzap!

Dog Brother testimonial about the Shocknife

There were 3 shocknives available but I think only 2 were functioning. Earlier before the adrenaline kicked in I volunteered myself to be zapped, those buggers deliver a nice little kick but unfortunately I missed my chance to use them. When you participate in a Dog Brother gathering you got to be on the ball and arrange your fights as quickly as possible and if you weren't on the ball (like me) when the time come to stand in line to step onto the mat to fight everyone else has someone to fight and you are left scrambling looking for a fight. I for one would feel a little embarrassed to travel all that way and miss out on some fighting. Fortunately I found someone to fight as he just came off the mats from his knife match. The knife fights were fun to watch, some matches were one on one and some were two on two, it was interesting to see two guys gang up on one person. Most everybody kept it pretty real, grappling with a person who has a knife just isn't smart at all but you know the gathering can be a time for experimenting and realization of what you can or cant do in a certain situation and you learn about yourself in the process.

My knife fight went pretty quick, for some reason certain things just went out the window, I used my alive hand to slap the guy in the head (actually I wanted to punch the guy but I was kind of following the energy of the other fighters) but for some reason I didn't use it to check the knife hand like I normally do. I think I got caught up in the intensity of the situation which doesn't really make sense it just makes me realize I was using emotions instead of clear thought. I'm not saying I got cut to ribbons lets just say that we "killed" each other, the ones that I got stuck with were upward thrusts to the sternum, every time he stuck me I would thrust to my opponents temple. We did our share of moving we didn't stand and trade then the next thing we new Crafty Dog was yelling "time!"

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Just a small blog before I head out, Ill be posting more about the big day soon.

Post gathering thoughts.
Wow, I had so much fun on the the 24th! When we arrived in LA Friday morning the first thing we did after getting our luggage and rental car was head out and find the Original Productions warehouse which was the Gathering was to be held which was also the same location where Monster Garage was filmed. I printed the directions out before leaving and luckily they were very accurate and didn't have to worry about detours or misnamed streets or dead ends. When we pulled up were like "This is it?" "Dang." While cruising the perimeter we were able to look inside but were unable to see anything worthwhile inside the garage however there were a couple of bad ass "Monster Cars" outside unfortunately I didn't have a camera on hand to take any pictures. The rest of the day was spent cruisin' the streets of LA and San Pedro.

Fast forward to Saturday.
Long story short is about a month before the gathering I contacted a couple of Maestro Sonny Umpad students. If you train in the FMA and you don't know who Sonny Umpad is then (IMHO) you owe it to yourself to click on the following links Topic at Dog Brother's forum about Sonny Umpad / Visayan Eskrima Home Page / Pierre Hartmann's Chinese Boxing Association / Maija and Eddy shared so much with us which made the trip so much more worthwhile, so people tend to just show you a little bit of their system but whenever Peregrine and I had a question about something they took it and ran and didn't hold back. Eddy even showed us some of Maestro Umpad's hand crafts practice blades, man that was cool! I have deep regrets about not getting a picture with Eddy and Maija and I look forward to meeting them again!!