Simonet, Hernandez Make Up DVD Debut in Blade Style!

Inside Kung-Fu
“Simonet, Hernandez Make Up DVD Debut in Blade Style!”
Dave Cater
February 2008
Pg 22-23

Inside Kung-Fu columnists Joseph Simonet and Addy Hernandez make their Unique Publications DVD debuts in stunningly deadly fashion with three offerings sure to improve your skill with the blade.
Hernandez’ first-ever DVD, called “A Cut Above,” show-cases her amazing speed and power with the knife. Simonet, one of the world’s foremost authorities on bladework, produces what many are calling his finest and most-advanced work to date: “Down and Dirty Streetfighting: Vol. 1 – Take-down Counters; and Vol. 2 – From Empty Hand to Blade.” All techniques and drills are derived from essential elements of the “KI Fighting Concepts” knifefighting system created by Simonet and Hernandez.
Each DVD retails for $29.95 each and can be purchased at www.up-publications.com or (866) 834-1249.


A CUT ABOVE
In “A Cut Above,” Hernandez displays a combination of elegance and grace with brutal finality with a blade. In step-by-step, easy-to-follow instruction, she begins by demonstrating one simple defensive blade technique for any attack. Hernandez teaches you how to combine superior footwork with hand and body positioning to immediately disable an attacker upon contact, and keep him at bay.
She then guides you through her no-nonsense brutal and deadly offensive knife skills. She demonstrates and teaches a variety of rarely seen techniques that will take any attack to its finality.
Hernandez changes directions and guides you through a step-by-step knife juru and/or knife manipulation drill. Finally, she’ll finish with a flow drill that will enhance your dexterity with a blade.

JOSEPH SIMONET’S DOWN AND DIRTY STREETFIGHTING—VOL. 1

TAKEDOWN COUNTERS
World-renowned author Joseph Simonet unveils his explosive insight on superior fighting attributes. See what thousands of martial artists worldwide have already experienced. Simonet’s dynamic attitude and hard-core streetfighting skills have elevated the martial arts combat field.
He begins by showing commonly known drills and techniques derived from wing chun, the Filipino arts and silat, then transforms them for a more hardcore street self-defense application. These techniques follow his formula of C.A.P.A. (Conceptual Analysis and Practical Application). Simonet then demonstrates never-before-seen techniques to stop any “takedown” in its tracks.
Finally, Simonet reveals the pentjak silat footwork and key aspects that have been shrouded in secrecy and politics for decades. Simonet describes in keen detail the 30-degree angle footwork that will completely transform the way you look at the own footwork in your combat art.

JOSEPH SIMONET’S DOWN AND DIRTY STREETFIGHTING—VOL. 2
FROM EMPTY HAND TO BLADE
Joseph Simonet continues his theme with explosive superior fighting attributes. First Simonet explores the “seamless transitional integration” between empty hand to blade. Simonet will show you in step-by-step fashion how explosive attacks can be translated into deadly knife techniques utilizing his “concussive aggression.”
Simonet guides you through detailed instruction on “closing the gap” between you and your attacker with superior footwork and trapping drill. Simonet then describes in detail a new fighting range he calls “body sticking” by showing you aspects of two-person full-contact stand-up drills, derived from his highly acclaimed system, “The Art and Science of Mook Jong – Slam Set.” Simonet teaches essential fight-stopping elements so you can reflexively respond with effectiveness in any defensive situation.

Way of the Blade

Inside Kung-Fu
“Way of the Blade”
By Addy Hernandez
August 2007
Pg. 24

My martial arts training began in the early summer of my 17th year. I was a bright-eyed, impressionable, high school senior ready to conquer the world. I wanted to leave my past behind and strive full throttle into the future. Paradoxically, fate had already intervened as my past and future were on a collision course in which my reality would be forever forged.
From the beginning, training with sifu Joseph Simonet was physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. Intuitively, he seemed to know my limitation – real or imagined. Sifu Simonet introduced me to several training methods. We boxed, grappled, weight-trained, ran, hiked and worked endless rounds of focus pad combinations. I learned aspects of wing chun, silat, kenpo, doce pares and Yang-style tai chi. Each art offered a unique and challenging expression of fighting dynamics. My passion for the martial arts was insatiable as several years of training ensued.
One day during a private lesson, sifu Simonet handed me a training blade and asked me to show him my knife fighting skills. I assured him , I didn’t know any knife fighting techniques or methods. “Actually, it’s everything you know,” he replied. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. Unbeknown to me, sifu had specifically taught me techniques and methods of movements, which were translatable to knife application. My jurus from silat, my kenpo techniques, the stick drills, everything became knife. My astonishment soon turned into delight, as I realized edged weapons had already been an integral part of my life.
I was born in Mexico in 1976. I was just four years old when my mother died while giving birth to my baby sister. With five very young children, my father packed up and headed north to America in search of work in the orchards of Washington State.
My father is a hard-working man, proud of his craft and Mexican heritage. He grew his own vegetables and butchered livestock to feed his family. Of all the children, I was the one who did not shy from the process of butchering our animals. Very early on, I would learn the skills by watching my father kill, skin, gut and clean animals. For me using an ax, knife and machete became a natural and necessary part of growing up. I would cut off the head of chickens using an ax and then clean and bone them with the sharpest knife my father owned. I have cut up rabbits, pigs, turkeys, deer and even a bear. It was not unusual to see my father and me side by side cutting down alfalfa and corn stocks with a machete. The use of edged tools has always been a part of my Mexican culture.
Growing up, I wanted to be like all the “American kids.” Being young and immature, I was sometimes embarrassed that we slaughtered our animals for food. Now, as a woman and martial artist, I have come to appreciate my heritage with pride and renewed respect.
It was when I was six or seven that I first witnessed an underground Mexican pastime –cockfighting. During harvest every fall my father would hire dozens of workers to pick apples. This was a time of excitement as well as long, hard hours in the orchard. At night the men would gather to drink, play music and gamble on cockfights. The scene of men gathered around a circle of rope yelling and cheering during these cockfights is both surreal and vivid. These vicious rituals would often end with dead or several injured roosters.
Unfortunately, there were some mean who would cheat to win at any cost. In cockfighting, the cheaters would secretly attach thin razors to the cock’s feet, which of course would destroy its opponent by slashing it into a bloody mess. On one particular night, the crowd was loud and frenzied. Apparently, two cheaters had been caught. In punishment, they were forced to arm each rooster with razors and fight. Here I was, a young girl, witnessing a vicious reality of contesting with blades. My recollection of the night ended in chaos, spurting blood and yelling men.
The next day, I asked my father about the cheaters and the fighting, “Papa, I don’t understand. Who was the winner of the fight?” In a somber voice my father replied, “Hija, in a real cockfight with blades – the winner is the second one who dies.”
Through my father and our culture’s necessity to survive, killing and cutting up animals taught me respect in the blade and a strong value for life. Through sifu Simonet and my passion in the martial arts, I understand the lethality of bladework through osmosis and practical self-defense application. The philosophy of these two men has merged and allowed me to forge my own way of the blade.