From: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: eskrima-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #127 Reply-To: eskrima@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest Mon, 29 March 1999 Vol 06 : Num 127 In this issue: eskrima: Re: Inosanto Challenge Nonsense Re: eskrima: Langka/Footwork eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #121 eskrima: Footwork drills eskrima: Challenges eskrima: . .......................................................................... Eskrima-Digest, serving the Internet since June 1994. 1050 members strong! Copyright 1994-99: Ray Terry, Inayan System of Eskrima, Martial Arts Resource Replying to this message will NOT unsubscribe you. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe eskrima-digest" (no quotes) in the body of an e-mail (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To send e-mail to this list use eskrima@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com See the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) FAQ and online search the last two years worth of digest issues at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! Ray Terry, PO Box 110841, Campbell, CA 95011 FMA@MartialArtsResource.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Todd D. Ellner" Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 10:21:26 -0800 Subject: eskrima: Re: Inosanto Challenge Nonsense What the hell does Guru Inosanto have to prove? He's already shown many, many times that he has forgotten more about fighting than most of us will ever know. He can pug with the best of them, which is especially impressive given his age and injuries. I'm really skeptical of people who say they heard "somewhere" that "someone" had made a challenge. Unless there's a real, verifiable citation somewhere we can all assume that it is so much horseturds and splinters. Besides, suppose someone had challenged Guru I. Why in the world should he drop what he's doing to go fight someone who wants to make a name for himself by fighting a respected teacher? ------------------------------ From: "Todd D. Ellner" Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 10:24:21 -0800 Subject: Re: eskrima: Langka/Footwork >A cool FMA( Inayan) footwork drill I was taught a couple of years ago, >was built around Solomon's Seal( a.k.a., the Star of David). Cool is good. But WHY is it cool? >Draw, tape, chalk, or paint a "seal" on the ground with all the >sinter-connecting lines included, then draw a circle around the "seal." >The circle should touch all six points of the seal. Oh, yeah... Make it >about 2'-3' wide. Have fun! OK. I've got a picture of it. Now, how is this langka used? Is there a special way of walking it? Is there anything in there which can't be found in langka tiga? Inquiring minds want to know. ------------------------------ From: Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 13:47:54 EST Subject: eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #121 In a message dated 3/25/99 7:43:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, eskrima-digest- owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com writes: > From Animal: > > Sometimes my wit is just faster than my common sense. > > "Why do you use nine angles instead of 12?" > > "Because of the social embarassment when we count to 12. At 11 people get > real > upset, so my teacher decided to keep it to Sometimes teaching eight or nine is just easier. Like 1 thru 6 would be high, medium and low figure eight and 7 & 8 would be up and down slashes. Once you get a person flowing throughout these slashes then all you need to do is teach um to stab off of a slash and you have um doing twelve angles of attack. Either way, one should know a few defenses to the twelve angles of attack if for no other reason than it's there ; ) Mallen ------------------------------ From: "BILL MCGRATH" Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 13:21:18 -0800 Subject: eskrima: Footwork drills Here are some footwork patterns from Pekiti-Tirsia. Sidestepping - both 90 and 180 degrees. Foreword Triangle - both open (like a "V") and closed (like a triangle) Reverse Triangle - both open and closed. Ducking and low work Wave-in Wave out - a long reverse triangle used to bait. Ranging - a large "X" with a horizontal line running through the center. Takeoffs - running patterns that involve a sudden change of angle to fake your way around an opponent. Diamonds - a foreword triangle stacked on top of a reverse triangle. Both open and closed. Hourglass - a long "X" with a horizontal line at the top and bottom. Box with X - placing an "X" inside a box gives you a large variety of patterns to work with in one single pattern. I call it the "unified field theory" of footwork. L - a 90 degree turning step M - like a saw tooth except that one ends in a long step and turn. N - like a forward triangle with a lateral sidestep. W - the reverse of an "M". Star - a closed foreword triangle superimposed over a closed reverse triangle (it does look like a "Star of David"). We use it to change orientation (from north to south) and direction from a foreword to a reverse triangle and back. It is handy because at any line of one triangle you can change footwork and go to a different triangle. It was just brought out on the digest that the Lacoste system uses the same pattern. Is it used for a similar purpose or for something different? I was teaching the Solo Baston Contradas at the Hawaii camp earlier this month. The 2nd set of Contradas involves multiple opponent footwork. One piece of that footwork involves what I call "moving off on a tangent". I'll explain with the example of a forehand strike. Picture the tip of an attackers stick as drawing a circle around him as he strikes with a horizontal forehand (it's really more of an ellipse, but it will be easier to illiterate it if you picture it as a circle). This circle is the limit of his reach. Now draw a line from the center of that circle to the edge (a radius). The center of the circle is your opponent and the point where the radius contacts the edge of the circle (the apex) is where you are standing. Now draw a line 90 degrees away to the right from where the radius intersects the circle. If you where to move along this 90 degree line to your right (moving off on a tangent) you would be moving out of his range. Because his forehand diminishes in reach as it travels past the apex point you can be out of his range while still having him in range for your own strikes. It is like white having the first move in chess. Being one step ahead in footwork can make all the difference in the world. I have a question for Lonnie Pollard. I really liked your descriptions of the Garimot system and your teacher's largo range abilities. While I don't expect you to give all your secrets away over the internet, I was wondering if you could tell us if any of the footwork techniques you described are similar to the example I gave above? The human body has only a finite number of ways of moving, so I am guessing that there must be some similarities. Regards, Tuhon Bill McGrath ------------------------------ From: "BILL MCGRATH" Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:13:07 -0800 Subject: eskrima: Challenges Challenges: A few of these situations come to mind. When I was in my early twenties I was full of piss and vinegar, with more balls than brains, typical for that age. In the early part of 1981 I was 20 years old and living in Arizona. I was told by a friend who had attended a FMA conference in California that a senior student at a Kali school in L.A. (let's call him "K") had stood up at the conference and made fun of Grandmaster Gaje (typical for his type, he said nothing when Grandmaster Gaje was at his school a few days before). Now at that age hearing that someone had insulted your teacher was equal to hearing someone insult your father and country in the same sentence so I decided then and there to take a road trip to see this guy. Being the invincible tactical genius that you are at that age, I walked into the school unannounced not knowing how many people would be there, armed only with a baje sword and a few small knives with my friend as backup. I told one of the teachers there that I had come to challenge "K" to a fight for what he had said about my teacher. It turned out that "K" was not there that night and the teacher, instead of calling the police on me (or at least calling out the troops) was nice enough to have a quiet discussion with me on why I should not be so sensitive about such things. "K" ended up calling Grandmaster Gaje to apologize and that was that. Had things gone differently I could have ended up: 1. In jail for trespassing if I had refused to leave the school when asked. 2. In jail for assault if I did have the fight with "K" and injured him. 3. In prison for manslaughter if I had killed "K" during the fight. 4. In a hospital if all the members of the school had decided to make a "citizen's arrest". 5. Dead. If someone got overzealous during option 4. 6. Dead. If "K" decided he wasn't going to play the game by my rules and pulled a gun and shot me (an armed attacker). The same friend as in the story above was present when Penjak Silat expert Eddie Jaffre was challenged at a seminar and told me the following story. Eddie was teaching "Four Stepping" a soft looking Silat style similar to Bagua. A young guy was watching from the side and during a break comes up to Eddie and says "What is that crap you are teaching? That won't work!" Eddie's face goes red like a thermometer and he pulls this old, evil looking kris from his bag. He then draws the kris out of its' sheath (the kind with the human teeth tied to it by human hair-supposedly to represent each man the knife has killed) and then proceeds to cut his OWN forearm with the kris and throws it on the ground challenging the guy to "Pick it up! Pick it up!" Well the young guy goes white as a ghost, turns and runs. Eddie scoops up the knife and gives chase. Two of Eddie's students see this all occur. One grabs Eddie from behind. Eddie is about to stab him when he sees that it is one of his own students. He then looks at his prey getting away, then back to his student restraining him, then back to the guy getting away. A second student had to block Eddie's view of the fleeing challenger and talk Eddie down so he wouldn't stab his own student, so intent he was on getting to the man who challenged him. (Needless to say, the owners of that school were reluctant thereafter to invite Eddie back). Here is another story. A martial artist I know in Germany is a Wing Chun, Bagua and Shing'i instructor. The guy is also built like a bodybuilder and does some very impressive iron palm breaking so I was surprised to hear that he was challenged at a seminar a few years ago. These two guys had been traveling around Europe challenging instructors in their style who would not join their teacher's organization. One day they walked into my friend's seminar and challenged him. He said he was busy teaching so to save time he would fight them both at the same time. He then proceeded, in his words, "to pound them down." They spent some time in the hospital, but my friend spent a longer time in jail, the courts in Germany not looking kindly on a fight in which someone is hospitalized no matter which party was the aggressor. Up until perhaps the mid 80's, when someone challenged your school, most martial artists were fairly confident that all they had to worry about was winning the fight. I explain to my students the added problems that you have these days. A guy comes in to challenge your school. You have the guy sign a waver. You fight and drop the guy, who apologizes and leaves. If you don't get a visit from the police an hour later charging you with assault you will get a letter from his lawyer a week later naming you in a lawsuit. Let's say you are lucky and win the lawsuit. You will still be out 5 or 10 grand in legal fees while the case spends the next year several years in the court system. I remember the story of a little guy who walked up to one of the larger pro basketball players in a bar (may have been Shaq) and starts calling him racial slurs for no obvious reason. The near 7-foot and 300 lbs. ballplayer picks the guy up and throws him through the bar's window. The little guys turns around and tries to sue (fortunately the case was thrown out of court). Was it his plan all along to goad the ballplayer into an assault he could sue him for? One more thing to think about. Unintended things happen in real fights-especially if weapons are involved. I tell my students that they should ask themselves this question "Is it worth killing another human being because of a few stupid words on his part?" All in all I would say that Guro Dan's refusal to accept a challenge in this day and age shows a great deal of wisdom on his part. Regards, Tuhon Bill McGrath ------------------------------ From: Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 20:12:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: eskrima: . ------------------------------ End of Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #127 **************************************** To unsubscribe from this digest, eskrima-digest, send the command: unsubscribe eskrima-digest -or- unsubscribe eskrima-digest your.old@address in the BODY of email (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com, directory pub/eskrima/digests. All digest files have the suffix '.txt' Copyright 1994-99: Ray Terry, Inayan System of Eskrima, Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply.