Grand Master Fred Villari

 

I have a vivid memory of watching Grand Master Fred Villari giving a clinic to a group of his students. A name I haven’t heard in a long time. He founded a large chain which defined McDojo’s, In fact I think he used the term in the sense he thought karate instruction should be marketed as successfully as McDonalds did. I never trained with them, but my friend acquired the video from another of his friends who did study there.

 

In the video he was teaching a knife defense, against a straight knife thrust. The movement he used was kicking from the crane stance pose (just as used in the Karate Kid). Of course what do I know it seemed to be a good way to get killed to my way of thinking. I never paid much attention to that system after that.

Here is a representative video selected at random from YouTube.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDGirJG_bW0