Idiot teaches himself the Japanese sword and then sells it

Ah Kee doesn't scare me

 

God Gary don't you know what a Kee is?

It's something that does wonders for your Taisabaki

 

As he seems to be editing the comments under the movies I left one in his profile too. Good Idea.

 

OMG, I've just been reading the comments in his profile. Scott, you're a very bad man!

Never one to buck a trend, I felt moved to leave my thoughts too.

 

I have to admit these clips do me the world of good!

Every time I watch them I feel better about how I'm doing in Iai and Kenjutsu

 

He's just a lad maybe it's just a phase and he'll grow out of it.

The Bear.

 

Just like Anakin eventually grew out of his dark-side phase.

 

muwhahahaha that was funny i went over it afew times and just laughed and laughed at how i cud beat him with a webcam lmao what a joke, although if he was only having a laugh i could understand then it would have been ok but teaching that is not a clever idea

 

I am now thoroughly depressed. I thought Adam Picoraro was just an anomaly, but it seems that these guys are everywhere. How did this happen? This next guy really deserves his own thread, he is virtually a clone of Adam Picoraro (even looks similar) but in my opinion is worse in one fundamental way: he is self-taught by his own admition, claims to be an expert with the sword and is currently constructing a website to teach this crap to people over the internet!!! Oh man, it makes me fume! He has made his own martial art he calls 'KenVert'. Because I have suffered through a couple of his undeservedly titled 'martial arts' videos now I am going to subject the rest of you on MAP to them so you feel damn near as miserable as me. Adam Picoraro, if you ever read this, just be ****ing thankful you are not this guy:

Here is a summary of his amazing sword abilities ( :bang: ):

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbTZ6kt7RUc"]Freestyle Swordsman - Sword Tricks - Tom Roach - YouTube[/ame]

And here he teaches us how to do these amazing samurai moves ( :bang: ):

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6hiBAlr_GE"]YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beErtc1qWiY"]YouTube[/ame]

And for further insight, check out his profile:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TPRoach

To add further insult, he openly derides kendoka (from whom he has recived much criticism) labeling them as jealous of his skills and calling them "talentless gimps". :woo:

He also has an extremely ignorant but vast fan-base, you can read the comments on youtube to get an idea, but here is the general profile:

"I once took a couple of MJER lessons but then I saw your videos and was inspired! Now I have taught myself just like you did and feel I am much better than my former classmates!"

or

"I have a blackbelt in TKD but only recently bought a cheap katana, and after watching your videos I can't believe how quickly I've mastered it!"


Surely there is something we can do about this nonsense? Short of tracking him down and stabbing him to death with the splinters of his cheap bokken of course.

 

I'm trying to stop grinding my teeth now ...

Honestly, I know that all things that become 'cool' in the public eye become co-opted by wannabe's but if this chap trully thinks he can handle a sword ...

Maybe if he tried it against a trained swordsman {I mean with bokken of course :evil wink:} he would have a better appreciation of just how 'purty but useless' the &%*! he does really is.

 

And here we go, people are posting their own videos of 'Kenvert' on youtube. How embarasing.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9cVGv5qbE"]First Kenvert Vid by Fattony - YouTube[/ame]

 

This crap makes all of us who sweat and bleed in the dojo for years to learn our art cringe. That said I see it all the time in my shop, these wanna be street tough guys (high school pukes) who think that cause they and all there buddies buy a bokken and bust em up in a week bashin em together they are swordsmen. There are even a few who do this with live wall hangers, they bring em to me to see if I can fix this junk. Once or twice I have had the pleasure of denting a few illusions but most of em wont put up or shut up and I can only offer nicely to cross swords with them cause hey after all they buy a lot of bokken from me. Ignore the trash cause we can't stop em. Best thing we can do is to continue what we do and attempt to educate as many people as we can.

 

At least this kind of crap is easy to spot as being fake.

 

I posted a comment on this chaps video (the first one in the list, I couldn't bear to watch any others) but it seems to have been deleted and I got this pithy riposte from the worthy gentleman this morning:

"baton-twirling is a rather ignorant statement. Its another way of showing skill without causing harm to others. I also train traditional MA so i am competent enough in my knowledge of it."

Hmmm.

I gave him what I consider to be a constructive reply about there being no problem with play acting but that deceiving others that it's swordsmanship is not moral.

 

Precisely. That's my main problem with this. Adam Pecoraro's stuff isn't bad. For what it is. But what it is IS NOT sword fighting. If he billed this stuff as "cinematic" or "forms oriented" (and perhaps he does), then I'd have very little issue with it. But if he's billing it as proper sword technique, I have a big issue with it.

The layman doesn't know what's real and what's nonsense. Why would they? They're relying on the experienced person to tell them that. That's my big problem with things like this. A guy in a perceived position of authority telling the inexperienced things that people with experience know is utter rubbish. It's a self-perpetuating deception.


Stuart

 

XMA owns his KenVert.

 

I've just been looking over the Tom Roach Kenvert stuff. Lots of thoughts on this. First, I think in some ways, his approach is more dangerous. If you read the comments on his vids, it's clear that people are buying into it not just as a technical approach. Adam Pecoraro had plenty of people saying "you know what you're doing with a sword." But Tom Roach already has people saying he's helped them "discover themselves" and so on. He's already got a cult of personality going.

Here's where I'm a bit sympathetic though. He's clearly got a developed philosophy behind what he's doing. He's into this "follow your own heart" idea. That nobody else should tell him who he is and what he's capable of. He's embraced that Bruce Lee "know yourself" notion that, I expect, many of us bought into very heavily at one time or another. I know I did.

The difference, I expect, is the availability of media. That part of my process was very private. I took endless notes, mused about "martial virtue" and self-expression, and so on. But I did it all on my own. I didn't then broadcast it to millions of people. Didn't have the capability (or the ambition, quite frankly). This guy is at a stage that I don't think he can really be blamed for. It's just that he's also got the means to share that process with everyone else. So that people at a similar stage are jumping on the bandwagon.

I think it's very telling that people say "I can't believe how quickly I was able to learn using your method" and that sort of thing. He's not working with an opponent in any of these vids. He's twirling and striking mostly. And those, to my mind, are the simplest parts of weapon use. It's viable defense that's difficult. And his method doesn't seem to address that. Likely because he's had no cause to learn it.

I expect it'll all blow over. I doubt very seriously that this is any sort of real problem. (Particularly given that he sounds British. If the sword ban does go through, that'll hamper him right quick.) It's irritating to people who perceive that they've gone a more legitimate route (myself included). But in the end, I think it's just people working out who they are and what they're about. Same process we all go through. Just that I never went through it on film.


Stuart