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Post by Tony on Apr 4, 2004 2:56:40 GMT -5
Hi guys,
I've been lurking for a while and reading through old threads, but I seem to have missed something very basic. While we all like the idea of Gun Kata in the movie, I'm not clear on what direction your efforts here are taking; are you aiming to emulate the style created for the EQ action scenes as a form of stage combat or fight choreography, to develop a practical martial art, a sport, or a combination of the above?
My background includes about 25 years in a range of martial arts and I work as a fight choreographer for film, TV and theatrical productions. I can see considerable potential for Gun Kata-type action in fantasy projects, and I really enjoyed the action choreography in EQ - sets a high bar! I'm also intrigued by the potentials for a serious combat sport based on the Gun Kata idea.
However, there would be real technical and ethical problems in adapting this concept for real-world self-defense, even apart from the fact that you would be re-inventing the wheel - Handgun Retention and Combat Shooting systems have been around for a long time, and they *have* to take their subject ultra-seriously, with no room for fantasy.
Please understand that I'm absolutely not knocking any of the effort you guys have put into this - quite the reverse, in fact! I'm just thinking that it would be useful to clarify whether you're talking about fight choreography, sport or the real deal.
Cheers,
Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 5, 2004 7:02:40 GMT -5
Hi Tony
What we're doing here (or trying to do), is simply create real Gun Kata in the real world. We are trying to compile our own "Gun Kata", based on the concept seen in the movie, but we're building it up from scratch. For now, we only theorise about the subject, we have however given future applications some thought, as I will explain to you later.
I am fully aware that there are quite a few moral and ethical issues with this process of creation, and we are discussing that as well - At the moment we're discussing this in private... I suppose I might as well make it known to the world; We're discussing moving the development to a private forum, to avoid legal issues for those living in the states! Personally I've seen too many people being persecuted for 'inspiring' violence / stupidity, while that wasn't actually the case at all. I presented the US residents with this problem, and we're discussing it still.
But I could easily imagine the parents of some kid, who walks into "south central" with 2 glocks trying to 'gun kata' 15 gang members, and gets the hell shot out of him, trying to sue people like us for making information about taking on multiple enemies at once in a gunfight publicly available.
Apart from that, I'll recap something Rymel once said... Firstly we're starting out practicing with dummy guns, then we might step it up to airsoft / laser action - and maybe real guns firing blanks at some point. But live fire will be a LONG LONG time off, if it'll ever be at all.
In the near future, I could imagine what we develop being used in airsoft matches or laser action games (mostly for training purposes), but I have no strong death-wish, and hence I'm _not_ going to use it with live fire ever probably. It could also be used in movies, but that'd have to be cleared with Mr. Kurt Wimmer, or whoever has the creative rights for the original form of Gun Kata.
As you have probably read, airsoft has been decided upon as 'the thing to do' for training purposes here, because if you get some pretty decent guns, it would emulate real fire a little bit, but still be pretty safe.
And to answer your initial question; All of the above is possible applications of what we're creating here, and frankly, I believe that most of us have different reasons for being a part of this development.
I must re-iterate once more that before the 'real thing' will be a reality, we'll have a lot of development and practicing to do (ie. years of both most likely).
I hope that answers your question, feel free to contact me by e-mail or private messages here, if you want to ask more questions.
Kind regards
Esben :-)
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Post by Tony on Apr 5, 2004 18:52:37 GMT -5
Thanks - much food for thought here. I must admit, I'm torn between wanting to support what you're doing, and a strong desire to caution you against confusing fantasy with reality. Let's get the old fogey stuff out of the way first: Going by the previous threads, it seems that few people here have had serious training in martial arts or professional handgun retention/combat shooting, let alone the experience of surviving an armed confrontation in the real world. Also, I have to say that it scares the hell out of me to read references to live fire in this context - PLEASE, be sensible! To create a movie action scene; a screenwriter puts an idea on paper, then a team of fight co-ordinators, cinematographers, special effects experts, etc. figure out how to translate the screenwriter's vision into something that can be put on film. A team of stunt performers and actors rehearse and perform the scene, an editor draws all the elements together (music, SFX, filmed action, etc.) and the result, if we're lucky, is a stunning action scene such as those featured in Equilibrium. Talk to any big-city cop in the US about the reality of gun fighting ... Basically; for fantasy, as fight choreography, yes, go for it! I can offer some tips if you like. For sport - interesting idea, worth pursuing! See www.vpc.org/studies/goldcont.htmFor gun combat training in the real world - see www.pfctraining.com/protocom2.htmmarylandcops.org/Articles/Shootout.htmwww.hockscqc.com/gun/www.firearmstrng.com/classes.htmlmembers.ozemail.com.au/~mickay/survive.htmwww.converge.org.nz/pma/a220899.htmwww.combatshootingandtactics.com/training.htmwww.tacticalselfdefense.com/LE/HandgunRetention.htmwww.s2institute.com/advancedclasses/handgunretent.htmlwww.defenseassociates.com/lfi.htmwww.nletc.com/courses.php?course_id=1www.nletc.com/nattrainers.php?trainer_id=20etc. Cheers, Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 6, 2004 2:49:00 GMT -5
Thanks - much food for thought here. I must admit, I'm torn between wanting to support what you're doing, and a strong desire to caution you against confusing fantasy with reality. Let's get the old fogey stuff out of the way first: Going by the previous threads, it seems that few people here have had serious training in martial arts or professional handgun retention/combat shooting, let alone the experience of surviving an armed confrontation in the real world. Also, I have to say that it scares the hell out of me to read references to live fire in this context - PLEASE, be sensible! That's not something you have to tell us, we have discussed it quite a few times, and have decided to not at all work with that aspect. That's exactly why I said that live fire is a long long time off for me, if it'll ever come to pass (which I'm not at all sure of). Now I could explain why and how it might at some point, but I won't do it in public yet, since we haven't decided if we're going to keep this public. But even if our hypothesis comes to pass, it won't be for another many many years. For now we're sticking with Airsoft, and that's it. If you want to influence the development, I can only recommend you join us - we need all the help we can get here, expecially people with a solid background in martial arts would be helpful, since most of us are much stronger on the weapons side of things. Just because we're discussing keeping the development public or not, doesn't mean that we're not still looking for help (we always are). Oh yeah, and of course, by 'live fire' I don't (and didn't) mean 2 or more people going at it with real guns "just for the heck of it" - or for competitive purposes... I know this is a bit vague, but I won't tell any more in public untill I have the go from the other guys (yada yada yada -sorry). Thanks for the links, I've seen a few of them already, but the rest of them I'll be checking out throughout the week (I presume there's quite a bit of information on those pages). I'm sorry, I feel like I have to explain this once again... We have no illusions that developing this will make us immortal in gunfights in 3 months... Nor do we even expect to be able to take out 4 people in an airsoft fight in 6 months without taking hits. I can only speak for myself now, but I'm having a great deal of fun trying to develop this - and I imagine that I'll be having even more fun when I get to the point of beginning practice with airsoft guns. So for me it's just as much about the road getting there, as the vision of what awaits when we're done. I for one don't really want to take this to live fire, because then people will get hurt (including yours truly), which I am not really too keen on. Kind regards Esben
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Post by Tony on Apr 6, 2004 4:26:52 GMT -5
Hi Esben,
I'm sorry, but the fact that you haven't simply discounted live fire outright makes me really leery of the whole project. Put it this way - I have 25 years of martial arts training, I've taught full-force self-defense (civilian and police) and there's no way I would consider developing a gun defense method without undergoing instructor-level training with the Lethal Force Institute or another reputable company.
These organizations are staffed by veterans with decades of specialist training and experience, and the subject of gun defense is just too serious not to take advantage of their expertise. Combat shooting, or "practical shooting" if we want to be PC, covers all of the out-of-arms-reach scenarios; handgun retention covers disarming, trapping and other close-quarters options. Millions of dollars have been put into developing these systems, training facilities, etc. and I can't see the point in starting again from scratch on the basis of a fantasy movie.
So, again - happy to help with fight choreography/performance kata applications, or offer some ideas re. paintball/airsoft sports, but I can't support anything past that.
Cheers,
Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 6, 2004 6:31:34 GMT -5
Hello again Okay, now I have to explain this to you, could you please e-mail me? (click my profile name here for e-mail add). And I'll explain why we haven't discarded live fire completely. There is a proper reason. I think we agree actually, we're just talking past each other on this point. I think once I tell you exactly what we have in mind that you'll understand. As I've told you before, I'm just not much for saying it in public. On another note I couldn't agree more that we'd have to do a crapton of training in all manners of martial arts / gun techniques, to prepare properly. Which is why we're sticking with Airsoft. -Esben
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Post by TrustKill on Apr 6, 2004 12:30:17 GMT -5
i dont get it...
-im not going to concede to your fear of live fire exercises just because you say you have experience in the field.
-many of us are involved in this development have heavy experience with many different kinds of weapons and we know that it is a safety hazard. this is why we have stated that all such training will be refrained to only airsoft or other such weapons FOR NOW.
-what it seems like you are wanting is a strict "no live-fire ever" policy before you will help us out. why should we do that? why do you want to drive us to an early conclusion about something we have no idea about at this point? maybe WAAAY down the line we'll even be able to decide whether or not the turns we have taken will even be ready for live fire exercises. maybe not. maybe it wont ever be ready. but right now, its impossible to tell. saying "no" to the possibility of ever having live-fire training at this point of development is ludicrous. it limits options we dont even have access to yet.
-we have to map a path leading up to that point before we can say yes or no.
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Post by Tony on Apr 6, 2004 14:53:26 GMT -5
Trustkill,
I first posted here because I was hoping that you were all being sensible about this project, and I wanted to clarify where you were going with it.
My honest impression is that you're a pretty young group, which is fine, who love the EQ action scenes, which is great. I'm hoping to help channel that interest into something positive, such as developing a new form of fight choreography or sport. But when I hear that you have not discounted live-fire exercises, my impression is that your enthusiasm for the fantasy is blinding you to a potentially lethal reality.
I am concerned that someone involved with this project will get hurt or killed, or become responsible for hurting or killing someone else. There are precious few good reasons to risk that, and being inspired by a fantasy movie doesn't even make the list. I think that Kurt Wimmer and Jim Vickers would agree with me on this.
As an adult professional in a related field, I am ethically obliged to offer a word of caution, couched in terms as positive as I can make them. Like Esben, I'm conscious that this is a public forum and that the posts here may be read by impressionable people; in fact, my reasons for posting here are the same that he has given for not posting details of the project. If the price of offering that caution is that I come across as being afraid for you, I pay it gladly.
Ultimately, you're responsible for your own actions - my advice is to take advantage of what the real world has to offer and to be very careful.
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Post by Witcher Wolf on Apr 6, 2004 15:16:09 GMT -5
I suggest folk listen to what Tony here has to say. Live fire is something that you should be extremely cautious about, you might notice that Wolf has not posted about Gun Kata for a while. There are one of two reasons for this: 1) The 'Live' fire issue. 2) The fantasy/reality issue. Gun Kata for me is perfectly fine in the theoretical discussion, but I caution anyone who tries to practise it - stay away from 'Live' fire for god's sake -- the last thing the industry needs and we need, is to read about a mishap with a gun. I refer to the loss of Brandon Lee, who by all accounts was shot on the set of the Crow when something involving a fake gun, went wrong. I was extremely saddened to read that he'd died, just as I would be to read if anyone from here followed suit. Not all of us are young, Tony
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Hellion
Resistance Member
Posts: 37
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Post by Hellion on Apr 6, 2004 16:11:04 GMT -5
UMMMM...okay...livefire...gunkata..my mind boggles....I bet anyone who tries it with paintball guns will have a HUGE laundry bill!
Bruises will fade..paint will wash out...lives cant be fixed as easily.
Live fire...come on...if and when someone gets hurt if this is tried for real...do you really want to give EQ a bad name for...influencing it...we all know what the media is like for attaching blame...
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Post by TrustKill on Apr 6, 2004 16:37:34 GMT -5
::sigh::
-you forget the idea that "years from now" is when live fire procedures are even to be considered.
-we arent idiots who plan to run about, jostling guns in a circle firing off rounds and we arent going to rush out and test a new idea with 9mm pistols. if that were true, then i could understand anyones concern w/ live fire training.
-but as it stands, we are building this thing from scratch, and that takes time. im not saying we DEFINITELY will have live fire exercises as a goal. not saying that at all. in fact... it if very possible that we will never come up with anything plausible enough to be utilized at that level. BUT, (insert the intent of my previous post which was totally misconstrued) im not about to limit the possibility of development in any way.
-what if the space programs original researchers were allowed to look into space travel but not work towards the goal of landing on the moon? i know its a grandiose analogy, but hopefully you get my point.
-the whole purpose of development is to see where a project can go, not to direct its progress due to the possibility of something that is years in the future. our development here is nowhere near the level of even imagining using real weapons and we treat it as such. we discuss things in terms of basic development, not plan for the day when we can get together and whirl about snapping off bullets.
-hopefully this doesnt get confused again.
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Post by Witcher Wolf on Apr 6, 2004 16:45:01 GMT -5
Actually, I've heard that one before, a friend of mine was killed in a live fire accident a few years ago, he said something similar. But I know you and the others aren't, but I'm leaving it up to you to educate anyone else who gets involved and drive into their skulls about the live fire issue m8. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the members of the EQ forums Gun Kata design core group. But just promise me you'll keep an eye on the others eh?
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Post by TrustKill on Apr 6, 2004 17:30:39 GMT -5
I have nothing but the utmost respect for the members of the EQ forums Gun Kata design core group. But just promise me you'll keep an eye on the others eh? -can do. thanks for the trust and respect. know that its all the same coming right back at you.
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Post by Witcher Wolf on Apr 6, 2004 19:09:54 GMT -5
-can do. thanks for the trust and respect. know that its all the same coming right back at you. Anytime m8 I know things are in good hands with you and the core designers.
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Post by Tony on Apr 6, 2004 19:11:41 GMT -5
Trustkill,
thanks, that's a little more reassuring.
I understand what you're saying, that the process of creation is more important than the outcome at this stage, and that you do not wish to limit potential outcomes. I reinterate that as long as we are talking about fight choreography or sport, I wish you all the best and will be happy to offer some help.
However, to extend your space program analogy, the pioneers in that field took full advantage of extant expertise, had a multi-million dollar budget, and the program itself has achieved great things ... at the tragic cost of seventeen lives, to date.
The Gun Kata is a highly fictionalised version of combat shooting and handgun retention training, and this is the obvious starting point for any new development. If your group is serious about developing the Gun Kata concept, you certainly need to learn from the best teachers available - see the links I listed earlier - bearing in mind that the true elite in this field do not offer training to civilians anyway.
Once you have attended the professionals' training courses and mastered their systems - which have been in development for many years, again utilising expert knowledge and with considerable financial/technical resources - then you will be in position to make mature choices about any new developments.
Again, I can see no point - and the potential for considerable danger - in re-inventing this particular wheel, except for purposes of performance or safe sport.
Regards,
Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 7, 2004 4:32:47 GMT -5
I'm gonna slide on in here once more, and pound this issue some - This seems to have gotten way out of hand, all because my first reply wasn't stating things properly. For that I apologise.
First and forwardly, I should very much like to make 1 point about what we mean by live fire exercise, and what I think Tony means; WE don't want to have 3 people with loaded guns firing away at each other, at all. Ever. What we could imagine is using live fire / blanks to practice our katas, once advanced enough (which will as TrustKill and I both said be a looooong time off). But even then it would most likely be blanks, not live ammo. But never will we practice with real people as antagonists, or even in the vincinity of real people. That's what the airsoft is there for.
On another note, we are fully aware of the hazards of live fire. I know for a fact that both myself and TrustKill have tried live fire, with many different weapons in real life before - so we have been informed of the safety risks, and are in general pretty knowledgable about firearms.
Personally I just look forward to actually getting so far in this development that I will be able to practice this myself, so actually development of katas is my priority. Another thing I'd like to try is some airsoft action, once we've got some sort of base to work from.
At the risk of sounding unserious, I wouldn't be in this if I didn't have fun. I'm having great amounts of fun thinking about this / discussing ideas with the other guys. Now my idea of fun isn't firing a gun at my friends, or having them fire one at me - well at least not with a real gun with live ammo. What we have discussed so far in regards of live fire, is very very limited, and at the moment it's completely and utterly out of our focus. Only in a long long time will we start to take up that subject for evaluation - we need much more development first. So for the moment I think we should all forget about this 'live fire' since it's put on hold indefinately at the moment. We're not at all taking it into regard - actually what we're developing here could just as well be specified for airsoft / show, since that's most likely the only application we'll ever see it in.
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Post by MAX on Apr 7, 2004 6:35:33 GMT -5
Kurt would be proud of you all.
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Post by Tony on Apr 8, 2004 19:05:39 GMT -5
Hi Esben,
that's mostly reassuring and I really only have one more point to make ...
I'm still hoping to persuade you that airsoft or paintguns should be as far as you *ever* take this project, and that by committing to that at the outset, you will be making a genuine step towards achieving respect. As long as you hedge your bets, with phrases like "probably" and "it'll be a long way off, if ever" and discuss the use of live ammo, even as a remote possibility, in the same context as fantasy movies, video games and so-on... well, I'm sorry, but that sends the wrong message.
You still seem to be considering the Gun Kata concept as a potentially viable form of handgun defense that could be taken seriously and used to prepare people for life-or-death situations. Again, I can only suggest that you learn from the combined experience of hundreds of professionals who would agree that, for example, *finding cover* is one of the most crucial tactics for surviving a real gun fight. The geometric predictability concept in the movie is a clever fantasy device, and that's all (as you will discover when you begin to test your kata against adversaries who can fire at will).
I'll go out on a limb here and guess that most of you are in your mid-late teens and early twenties. That's great, I have a son in that age range. In a way, it's the perfect age, because you're young enough to become enthusiastic about things and you have the free time to pursue them.
In that spirit, I encourage you to seek out good quality instruction in martial arts, stage combat, handgun retention and combat shooting and to reserve the Gun Kata development for performance and sport. Have fun with it, get fit, experiment and test your hypotheses well. Develop all the skill you can, in a safe and positive environment. Please, stay away from live ammo.
Best of luck with it,
Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 9, 2004 4:25:40 GMT -5
Hello again Tony
I will once again point out to you that we're developing this from scratch. This whole discussion and development isn't actually in any fantasy context per se. We got the inspiration from the movie, that's true - but we're adopting nothing. Basically what we're attempting is to optimize gun combat with 2 handguns, to work better than combat using 1 gun. Stastically and theoretically it is possible, and that's what we've set out to do here.
On another note - moving your right foot and upper body to the right from it's current position while returning fire cannot hurt your chances of taking a critical hit. And with enough practice, performing these minor moves won't hurt the aim.
The theory sounds good - we've set out to find out if it's going to work in real life. We have not taken that for granted or anything the like. We have no illusions about this project - we do however have dreams and a good portion of ideas. I think the point where we don't see eye to eye is that very definition.
Illusions vs. dreams & ideas. You think we have the former, while we do have the latter.
While we are developing this from scratch, don't take for granted that we're not willing to learn from other people's experience as well - most of the links you gave me I've read by now (which demonstrates this), and I've already have several very good ideas for incorporating some of the techniques I've read about - once again I thank you for the links.
I hate saying this, but wether or not it's concious, you're patronising us quite a bit. I suppose that's allright if you have all the experience you say you do, but speaking of achieving respect completely misses my demographic. I'm not in this for achieving respect at all, actually I couldn't really care less. I'm doing this because I believe in it and find it interesting - and to me, that's all the motivation I need.
Lastly I'll just ask you to keep in mind; we haven't been blinded by our "dream" of what we'll end up with - we're pretty sensible people, if I do say so myself.
Kind regards
Esben
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Post by Tony on Apr 10, 2004 3:23:36 GMT -5
Hi Esben,
thanks, that's all reassuring. I know that I'm coming across as being patronising - it's difficult to simultaneously offer a serious warning and an encouragement, especially bearing in mind that this is a public board that may be read by impressionable people.
I do suggest that you will save yourselves time by attending some of the training courses that I posted earlier.
Anyway, I think I've contributed all I can to the discussion, so again, I wish you all the best.
Cheers,
Tony
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Post by EsbenF on Apr 11, 2004 8:21:41 GMT -5
Hi Tony
It looks like most of those links you gave me are pretty solid gunmanship courses - and I have already read quite a bit of theory on those sites (and other like them) which I'm sure will be of help to us in the near future.
Being as I live in Ireland at the moment, and come from Denmark originally, I'll have some trouble actually attending the courses (since they're all US based...) but I'll look into finding something similar over here, to see if they have something to offer we can use.
Nice "talking" to you.
Kind regards
Esben
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