Product Details

• Actors: Gordon Oster
• Directors: Sang H. Kim
• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Turtle Press
• DVD Release Date: September 15, 2006
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000H0MGLE
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #54,734 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

About the Actor

Gordon Oster has 39 years of experience training in and teaching various martial arts. He holds a 7th dan black belt in T.A.I. Kung fu as well as black belts in Kenpo, Kodokan Jujitsu, and Bok Fu Pai Kung Fu. He is the head instructor and owner of Academy of Self-defense and Oster Security System in Boise ID.

Product Description

The cane is the only weapon you can legally carry with you everywhere you go and on this comprehensive DVD, Gordon Oster shows you exactly why the common walking cane is one of the most effective self-defense weapons you can learn.

Begin with the basics of selecting a cane for training and understanding how the various parts of the cane can be used for blocking, striking and pain compliance techniques. You'll learn grip, footwork, targets and even a warm-up to help you avoid injuries during training.

Once you have the basics down, Master Oster teaches a series of self-defense applications beginning with the most effective blocking, parrying, stabbing, flailing and striking techniques then progressing to partner scenarios in which you'll learn to defend against grabs, chokes, strikes, kicks and armed attacks. Finally, for advanced practitioners, there are a number of pain compliance techniques designed to take down and render an attacker harmless without permanent damage.

As a special bonus, Master Oster teaches a cane kata with self-defense applications, giving you an excellent way to practice your new skills with or without a partner. Each skill on this DVD is explained in detail by Master Oster and demonstrated from several camera angles to make learning easy and complete.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unrealistic strip-mall-dojo garbage, January 26, 2008

By	freedom reader (PRK, USA) - See all my reviews

This DVD actually starts off decently with simple techniques. Where Oster begins to fall down is in teaching set sequences rather than teaching to apply and combine the simple techniques according to how the attacker is positioned. This dogmatic approach ill-serves the novice and wastes the time of anyone else watching. The kata is likewise as stupid and pointless, but hey, aren't they all?

Oster does make a good case for avoiding the wide-crooked, "weaponized" canes such as those by CaneMasters, but overlooks three obvious advantages: 1) narrow-crooked canes are usually easier to find, 2) are usually far less expensive, and 3) look nonthreatening, something CaneMasters' canes, with fangs, eyes, "raking points," shaft grips (if these served a useful purpose, they'd be on regular canes!), yin-yang-based logos, and other such nonsense do not.

He does teach effective power generation with the cane, but wastes time on pain compliance techniques. Someone attacking you will either be drunk, drugged, deranged, or determined; any person falling into those categories will either be highly resistant to pain or temporarily impervious to it. Use of pain compliance techniques only serves to put the defender at needless risk. Instead, go for structural compliance--if he can no longer stand, he can no longer fight.

The final section of the DVD, the so-called advanced techniques, are for idiots who've willingly drunk the Kool-Aid--they're completely useless. They go beyond the structured and unrealistic intermediate techniques previously shown by leaps and bounds. Worst of all is a sequence detailing cane use against an attacker with a handgun: instead of closing distance just enough to hit the attacker, a disarm is taught that has the defender closing well in--negating what little advantage the cane has--and taking the gun from an unresisting opponent. The defender then leaps further into Fantasyland by tucking the pistol under an armpit and "covering" the attacker with the cane. What this is supposed to accomplish is left to the viewer's imagination.

Oster should take a tip from Alain Burrese's "Hapkido Cane" DVD set--when Burrese teaches similarly impractical techniques, he tells the viewer that they are for demonstration only, not something someone should try to use for real. One other thing--Oster's recommending that the rubber tip be glued onto the cane makes sense if it's only used for practice. In the real world, the tips wear out--supergluing them in place makes replacing them difficult at best.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very decent basic DVD, April 13, 2008

By	Cliff Heegel (Memphis, TN United States) - See all my reviews

If you are Bruce Lee, you don't need this DVD. If you are me, however, you will get a lot out of this DVD. I have back injuries and shoulder problems- the cane is a great adjunct for me. This DVD is well made and very decent.

As a basic DVD, it gets 5 stars.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Self Defense Video, October 3, 2007

By	Darris C. Sweet (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This video is very good and I learned many things from it. But I think it is too advanced for people who know nothing about using a cane to protect themselfves. Just my opinion.