Human Weapon

Human Weapon is an American documentary series that began airing on History Channel on 20 July 2007. Its creator is Terry Bullman of Bullman's Krav Maga in Knoxville, Tennessee. The programme was hosted by MMA fighter Jason Chambers and Bill Duff, a former professional football player and wrestler. Each episode took the hosts to one martial art and the country where it is practised: to Thailand for muay thai, to the Philippines for arnis, to Okinawa for karate, to France for savate, to Japan for judo, to Greece for pankration and to Israel for krav maga. In the USA there were episodes on the combat programme of the US Marine Corps (MCMAP) and on mixed martial arts, in China on sanda, in Russia on sambo, on Cambodian pradal serey and bokator, in Malaysia on silat melayu and in South Korea on taekwondo. The 2007 run closed with an episode on ninjutsu shot in Japan. Episodes from 2007 aired until 21 December 2007 and in August 2008 the programme was cancelled. We have not been able to establish clearly from sources how many episodes were made in total. Similar programmes include Fight Quest and the French Face à Face.

Martial arts in this work

Fact and fiction

Each episode ended with one of the hosts fighting a representative of the art the episode was devoted to. Both hosts had martial arts training of their own: Jason Chambers earned a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Renzo Gracie and a brown belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu under Eddie Bravo, and Bill Duff holds a brown belt in Tang Soo Do. The programme analysed techniques in visual analyses based on motion capture. The movements for these shots were demonstrated by the programme's creator Terry Bullman himself.

People and martial arts

• Jason Chambersthe real person the work is about· Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (real practitioner)
• Bill Duffthe real person the work is about· Tang Soo Do (real practitioner)

Details

Status

Cancelled

First published / aired

History Channel