Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Thanks for the Great Reviews!


These reviews are some of the feedback I have received about Concrete Conflict and Conditioning. Thank you very much!

I got your DVD a few days ago and you look like a kid. All that Silat and your knees are fine! That is so great. I really enjoyed seeing the Silat stuff again. I think I'll be adding much of your conditioning material to my routine. Excellent.

Lorraine Patton, GS Competitor

Video/Audio: Very high quality video and very high quality sound production. Tom took his time to get these right.

DVD Organization: Well organized and easy to move to each individual exercise through the DVD menu.

Content:
At a high level, there are two parts to this DVD.
(1) S&C
(2) Combat Applications

The combat applications give you a taste for how the exercises in the S&C section and the corresponding attributes they develop apply in 'real life'.

*S&C Drills, Tips, Tricks, etc.
There is some very good stuff in here. Tom takes his MA experience and has developed some interesting exercises. This is not about routines and progressions for base conditioning as much as fine tuning your body for injury prevention and specialized strength/endurance development.

Can you press a lot? Great, but do you have good ROM . . . Tom can show you some cool stuff to do with a stick to help this. His X Press is very interesting and hits the shoulder in a different way. Are your legs strong? Tom can show you how to take some strength/endurance drills for the legs that will open up your hips, improve flexibility, and teach you how to connect your body together for martial application.

Some of his groundwork such depak and sembok squats, burlesque bump, and lunge walk are quite different and felt really good on my hip flexors and hip joint. The knee walk I had to be careful with but it is something I'm going to try out.

*Combat Applications
I was quite familiar with most of what was taught in this section but it was interesting nonetheless. Tom knows his stuff and it shows.

*Who should get this?
If you're an MA guy who pursues S&C as a means to improve your MA game, this is a good DVD to have.

I sort of feel like this is MA conditioning + Resilient-like exercises + an introductory exposure to SE Asian MA.

I've seen Resilient and learned a trick or two, but Tom's stuff was so good I immediately changed up my joint mobility work to revolve around his stick JM demonstrations. They were that good and they seemed to get the areas I've been missing. (I normally do a lot of JS work and Tom's stick stuff was every bit as valuable IMO) The 'flexibility stunt' is awesome . . . something worth doing a lot of for shoulder ROM.

Tom's around 50 I think, and as such he's learned a lot about keeping your body working and strengthening it against injury. There is some great stuff in here along those lines.

For me, the DVD was absolutely worth the money. My hands, shoulders, and upper back feel better right now and I've added to my bag of tricks things that will keep me going.

Tom's X-vest and spider crawl bonus material gave me some good ideas as well.

Is it for you? It probably depends on why you train and how you train, but you can learn a lot from this DVD. Tom did a very good job with this and I'll definitely buy his next one.

A. H.

The S&C part of Tom Furman's DVD contains many innovative strength, mobility, and resilience drills any hard living comrade could use.

-Pavel Tsatsouline, the author of Enter the Kettlebell! and Super Joints

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