i'd even say it would be the number one choice of technique to learn for self-defense from the average joe all the way to spec ops

no fancy bullshit like laser beams or firey hands that go out when its raining, just swing your hand at someone else's hand and that person isn't holding anything anymore

seriously, one chop from an old man with flexibility problems, and knifes, bats, even shotguns and broken helicopter blades in sowts go fly

it's not alex's fault that jeremy happens to be really good at picking things up, but that still means alex was able to zip up to big buff guy jeremy and smack a heavy weapon out of his hands without even suffering a penalty

when the world showed him his way wasn't tenable, alex didn't surrender, looking at techniques like disarming chop it seemed more like he was just biding his time

alex never gave up on velvet-fu and its lame pokes, he didn't move on to a more practical fighting style like armstrong style karate where you slide your body all over the ground like its covered in oil

the world told alex to change, so alex changed velvet-fu

and not just a little tweak here and there

alex made velvet-fu a style of martial arts that could hold its own in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a sea of fireballs and laser fingers

he made a fake martial art, real, on the sides, as he was working as a lowly garbage man

and however he started, somewhere along the way, he re-invented the humble chop