Before watching this DVD, the only things I really knew about Kenny was that he was in denial about his Armenian roots (preferring to claim to be of French descent, instead...the shame), and that his seminar DVD had received glowing reviews. As a result of the many posts in support of his DVD, I had high expectations as I popped the instructional into the DVD player.
Wait! First I have to say that I'm not a big fan of seminar DVDs in general! Seminars are often taught "off the cuff", as if the instructor scanned the room and thought, "They probably havent seen this...let me just show them something cool." Ugh...sometimes it IS something cool, other times its something you will end up showing other people (just so they think you know more than they do), but you never end up really adding it to your game.
So Kenny did something right off the bat that told me that his seminar would be different. As the DVD begins, Kenny is seen advising students to grab an outline or agenda if they like to take notes...
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why dont more instructors do that!?! You would think that if you are getting paid several hundred dollars (at least) to teach for a few hours (something most people love doing anyway), you would put a bit of time into preparing!
We were off to a good start, and it only got better. The bane of my existance is the fact that matches start standing up. I can punch and kick pretty well, but put me in a grappling competition and ask me to take someone down...no way. If I manage to, its because I got lucky. Kenny showed a few takedowns that even I can pull off. Really. Hip throw...Single leg...throws from the clinch when knees are being thrown...Really good stuff. Good because he explains them with an emphasis on what really needs to be done right for the throw to work, and what most people do that cause them to fail at the takedown. He uses analogies to make the move click in your mind. To teach posture or footwork, he tells you it is like sitting in a chair, or the blades of a fan rotating while the base stays fixed. Like I said, easy to get.
He also taught an awesome way to finish the guillotine that I hadnt seen before. I'll try it and let you know if it works for me, but it looks rock solid.
On the ground he tackled the difficult questions. What to do when trapped under half guard by someone squeezing the crossface and underhook, details of how to finish the reverse triangle, leg locks, escapes, rear naked from the top of half guard (yes, you read correctly)... Whoa, a lot of good stuff. I learned things about things I thought I was already really proficient at.
Kenny did something else that made this seminar DVD succeed where others failed: It seems he took the raw footage and, rather than release it as is, edited fight footage, additional shots (for better clarity), and subtitles (in some spots that needed emphasis) into the footage to make the DVD complete.
Despite my high expectations, he still managed to impress me. Someone SIGN THIS guy to an instructional series!!!!!!!