Kenpojujitsu3
Master Black Belt
I don't know, I wasn't there. But based on my extremely limited exposure to SL-4 in similar looking seminars, here is what I believe was happening in the clips:
clip#1 - based on what I can hear Doc saying in the background, and based on my prior experience of SL-4 seminars, I would say the purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate how just a simple touch to a person's body at the appropriate place/time can misalign their stance (even if it looks the same afterwards), causing their body/structure to become weaker and therefore ultimately less effective. You can hear Doc basically saying "put yourself in your strongest stance. Get your training partner to test how strong you are. (you should be strong!) Then do the misaligning thing (note you cannot hear or see what this should be in the clip because there are bodies in the way). The stance should be noticable weaker.
HOWEVER Clyde and his training partner are not following the exercise as I understand it. You can see Clyde trying to unbalance his partner right from the start (he's a BIG guy, that should not be possible), whilst others in the background (smaller/lighter people) are having no problem. Clyde's partner appears to make no effort to obtain a strong stance. It seems as if Clyde has gone into the excercise with pre-conceived ideas as to what SL-4 is. It looks as if he is intending to unsettle the guy's stance from the outset. He tests his partner's stance (which is poor to begin with) and concludes that the excercise does not work. But the excercise should be a comparison - 'with', and 'without' the misaligning 'thing' (whatever it is).
But that's just the feeling I get from it, I can't even tell from the clip what Clyde+training partner are really doing, let alone what the excercise should be as you can only hear Doc talk. The clip has absolutely no merit for discussion only to say 'what is Clyde doing?'. You cannot tell from the clip what the exercise should be (I have no idea) or even what it looks like/how it should be performed. But I can say for sure, Clyde is not doing it right because he was not listening to Doc's instructions. Look at the others in the clip for comparison.
clip#2 - I recognise this from a previous seminar also. I think it's a test to demonstrate how the strength of the body can be dramatically improved just by a simple 'aligning mechanism' - in this case touching the hands together before assuming the posture that is to be tested for strength. I would *guess* that the purpose of the excercise was to test the strength of the body with the 'mechanism', and without (it should be stronger with). It looks as if Clyde is having success with this one. But the clip does not show/tell how the mechanism should be done, or in what context it should be used, let alone how the test should be performed. Again, the clip has little merit for discussion.
clip#3 - I can't tell for sure what is being tested here. Maybe an outward-elbow? The purpose of the excercise is to apply pressure against the extended elbow and feel the strength of the person's body. Strong body = support for the strike = more effective weapon. You can tell from the clip that Clyde is being rocked back and forth in his stance. I would say his body is not aligned as well as it could be. The clip is so short it shows nothing else. I would *guess* that there should be a rear-shoulder BAM somewhere in there, but Clyde's body is obscuring our view. The excercise is *probably* designed to show how much stronger the body becomes when the rear-shoulder BAM is inserted into the execution of an outward-elbow. You'd first test without the BAM (= quite a strong strike). Then you'd test with the BAM (= super strong strike because the body is unmanipulatable). *But* you can't tell from the clip, it has no merit because firstly you cannot see what is happening, secondly you have no idea what the exercise should be!
I'm only guessing here, I've attended a handful of SL-4 seminars and I still have no real idea what is going on from what I can see from the clips. A person to viewing them 'cold' has no insight into where to begin. So I agree with Bode. These are clips showing small fragments of selected seminar excercises, they are not an accurate picture of would have been going on because you don't know what 'correct' should be from the clips - even if Clyde was doing the exercises correctly (I believe he's not) they would have no merit because they are incomplete / do not provide context or complete information. But as they stand they are worthless, they convey no useful information.
Any potential topic of discussion from these clips have been gone over here many times before, with significant input from Doc and other SL-4 guys. Just do a search for 'BAM', you'll see Doc providing many experiments for you to test the material yourselves. Does anyone ever bother applying these lessons though? I've rarely seen anyone respond to one of Doc's online exercises so they can continue the discussion, but then those same people complain that the SL-4 guys are not sharing their information. They are - read the threads, *do the tests*, *provide your feedback* and keep the discussions going.
P.S. Clyde's awesome I always have fun in his seminars
Thanks JamesB. This gives an idea of what was really going on. I think I saw the instructor execute a BAM on the outward elbow but Clyde did not in Clip 3...makes sense to me. Thanks again for the explanations, it is appreciated and helpful.
