Fight Quest
January 5, 2008 by Bob Patterson
Apparently not to be outdone by the History Channel’s Human Weapon, the Discovery Channel rolled out their own series: Fight Quest.
About the hosts:
Doug: “To date, Doug has earned a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu, and is also an impassioned student of Muay Thai kickboxing and traditional boxing.”
Jimmy: “In addition to his MMA career, Smith has earned a Jiu-Jitsu Purple Belt…”
And about the show…
In each episode, Jimmy and Doug will explore a new location identified with a style of fighting…There, after first immersing themselves in the sounds, smells and tastes of the local scene, the two guys will separate to train with local masters of that method — sometimes an ancient art of combat, and other times a modern form of butt-kicking. After several days of intense instruction, Jimmy and Doug will each face off against a local in a no-holds-barred test of skill.
Gee, kinda sounds like Human Weapon. Regardless, I taped last night’s episode and will post a review when I’m done watching it.
Update 1/6/08: What follows is my review of the Kali episode.
The show is very similar to Human Weapon and while we could all complain about that this, I think that this is really good for the martial arts. Namely, it shows that Human Weapon sparked enough interest to generate an imitator.
The format is similar with the main difference being that they separate the two stars. In this episode both trained in Kali but under different styles. Then, just like Human Weapon, at the end they come back and both have to fight a real master. In this case it was two marines who were Kali experts.
The hosts have good chemistry and charisma so that part works. I also like the format. My only complaint would be that they do not break a technique down scientifically. In Human Weapon they always break down the technique and use animated graphics to explain why it works and how much force it generates.
Regardless, if you like Human Weapon you’ll like this one too. I know I’ll be watching!
~BCP
