From: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: eskrima-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #266 Reply-To: eskrima@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest Wed, 23 June 1999 Vol 06 : Num 266 In this issue: eskrima: Attack of the lawyers eskrima: WSJ eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #264 eskrima: Re: Balintawak & left hand eskrima: Rennie Saunders eskrima: knife videos eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #264 eskrima: Women's Knife Video... eskrima: . .......................................................................... Eskrima-Digest, serving the Internet since June 1994. ~1100 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: "Marc Denny" Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 16:22:12 -0700 Subject: eskrima: Attack of the lawyers A Howl etc: > From: Ray Terry , , , > To Crafty and others, please stay off the gun politics issue in this forum. > Trust me, few are more pro-gun that I am, but this is not the place to > discuss US politics, esp given the global nature of this forum. Guns as > martial weapons are ok to discuss, but not the HCI vs. NRA vs. ?? stuff. > Thanks. Gentle tug on my leash accepted ;-). > Many/most of the better known firearms training schools require a background > check from your local PD to be submitted with your first application. The > schools that teach just the basic firearms safety stuff seldom require this. > But once you get into tactical firearms training, i.e. where you encounter > Navy Seals, AirForce PJs, Swat members, DoE members, etc, in the classes, as > a civilian you are required to show that you are not a felon. Military and > police are required to show proper ID, etc. OK, the proposition would seem to be: The manufacturer of car/gun/knife is not morally responsible for the end use, but the person who teaches the user to use the implement in question more skillfully is? Question: Is the teacher legally liable? To what standard? Absolute liability? Strict Liability? Recklessness? Negligence? Is a showing of no felony convictions a safe harbor? Does anyone (Mary Lou?) have any concrete knowledge of the law of any jurisdiction in this regard? How do the teachers out there feel about the idea of being held legally liable? Woof, Crafty ------------------------------ From: "Marc Denny" Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 16:39:28 -0700 Subject: eskrima: WSJ Yip: On page 22 of today's (Tues., June 22) Wall Street Journal there is a very interesting piece titled "Philippine Islamic Resistance Resurfaces". Yip, Crafty ------------------------------ From: "arlan and angel sanford" Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 17:59:30 -0600 Subject: eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #264 >I'm in 110% agreement. Anyone who has picked up a stick and >trained for any >length of time know how much damage can be done. Any serious >fight (with a >stick) with no protection is going to leave at least one person >unconscious >if not dead or badly injured. And yet there are people and groups >who still >talk about "death matches" and GM's travelling the Philippines >taking on all >comers. I have to say comments like this irritate me. They seem to be made by people who either haven't fought or haven't seen fighting, or both. If both fighters are good, it could be a long fight until someone prevails, if at all. This kind of brings up a pet peeve here, I don't profess to be the best stickfighter around or even know what a real fight to the death would be like, but I will say,( after several hundred fights with minimal gear and for awhile very big, heavy sticks) that there seems to be a lot of "my teacher said...... so it must be true, or I heard....... so that must be so." Get real! If you want to understand what you're training for, go do it! I could study every tape on brain surgery there is, I could watch all the videos etc, but I don't think anyone of you would like to be my first surgery! I could make the same sort of analogy with sports, I could know every play, every option and if I don't scrimmage, I would be a fool to try and play. Because I wouldn't know what I was doing! Why would you think Martial Arts would be different? If anything, because of the nature of what we do, you should fight more! And I don't mean little padded up sparing drills. One time, go out and go as hard as you can, with as little protection as possible, as big of stick you can swing, and against someone who really wants to whack you! Then come back and see how you're outlook changes. I guess what I'm trying to say is go do it yourself, I've read some truly absurd things by people who obviously spend more time daydreaming than working out, and some of these people should know better! Arlan ------------------------------ From: gmzimmer@islandnet.com Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 19:02:37 (PDT) Subject: eskrima: Re: Balintawak & left hand n9yz@unb.ca wrote: ... > That was very interesting. I have found the balintawak drills developed amazing sensivity in > the live hand and stick hand as well. It is basically sensivity to read your opponent's > energy that allow us to hit or control using all those terms you were using in close range. > After training the old Yang TJ Chuan for a year of so. I have discovered there are basically > 13 energies that TJ chuan utilizes. It is known as the 13 postures and all TJ chuan movement > are based on these 13 postures (press, squeeze, lean, collide, pull ......etc.). The names > of these 13 ernegies (in chinese) captured all those terms you were using. I have been dabbling in Chen Tai Chi Chuan for a couple of years now, but know about the 13 fundamental motions of Yang Tai Chi Chuan. There are definite similarities, but I wouldn't push it too far. One of the interesting things to happen in Tai Chi Chan has been the arrival of the "neija list", Mike Sigman, Terry Chan, and others - no no, not "Ninja" :-). The general viewpoint of this group of people is that a lot, maybe most, Tai Chi taught outside of mainland China has not been transmitted very well ("garbage" is one of the terms used). In particular, they claim that the essential differentiating factor, "Peng Jing", is missing from much of the Tai Chi Chuan outside of China. Without this, the claim is made that you are only doing choreography, not an internal art, and not much of a martial art. There are interesting flame wars on this on usenet (rec.martial-arts), and various other lists. Some of the folks on ED are familiar with this world. It makes us at our worst look quite civil :-) . For the record, I think that Mike Sigman has put out some extremely good tapes on internal strength techniques, and the underlying physical basis for it. Well worth investing the money in. It has helped my Eskrima - both as a practitioner and as a teacher. Several of the list members are likely to be in strong disagreement with my assessment, based on my reading of previous posts. Mike Casto wrote: ... > << Bobby Taboada calls some of the left hand stuff > llifting" and "clearing", but I do not know exactly > what these words cover. >> .... > In it, "lifting and clearing" is the focus of the > first grouping system. As I understand it, the other, > more traditional, Balintawak doesn't use these (though > I assume they still teach the same concepts, they just > use a different approach). > > The first grouping system uses "lifting and clearing" > to remove obstacles. ..... ... That is about what I thought Bobby Taboada meant. In fact, I stole his term lifting to apply to one of our techniques (the same move by the way). For clearing, I think that I make a few more distinctions. The big problem has been to get people to learn the terminology; they don't want to do the mental work of memorizing it. Regards, G. Michael Zimmer ------------------------------ From: Mushtaq Ali Shah Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 23:32:13 -0800 Subject: eskrima: Rennie Saunders Greetings all, I have very much enjoyed the time I have spent reading this list. I have, not until now had any great urge to post anything but now I think I may be able to add something of substance (or at least shine some light on a subject). Jeffrey Monaghan asks: > >From: "Jeffrey Monaghan" >Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 20:21:26 -0700 >Subject: eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #263 > > John, > You said "Remy at the New River Academy (a top student of Herman >Suwanda)" >I've never heard of the guy. He is not an instructor in Mande Muda >according to the official Mande Muda instructor's list. The only people in >the area are my instructor Guy Chase and Shannon Vicente in SF, and Steve >Hunting in San Hose. I'm not trying to be offensive I'm just curious. >Suwanda lives in Walnut Creek so it is possible that he is a student of >Mande Muda. Where is the school located? I would like to check it out >sometime. I work/live in Oakland/SF. >Jeff Monaghan > "I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic >particles" His name is actually Rennie Saunders and he is indeed one of the oldest, and in my opinion, one of the most skilled of Pak Herman's students in the U.S. Rennie began his studies with Pak Herman about 18 years ago in Santa Cruz CA. He received his Teaching certification (and Red Sash) about 12 years ago if memory serves.Up until early this year he ran the New River Academy In Santa Cruz, which he closed mostly for health reasons. He still teaches small classes and gives private lessons on a regular basis but is not for the moment doing the commercial thing. If you have been in the Silat community in the US for any length of time you have probably noticed that we have more politics that is really necessary, and the reason that you do not see Rennie's name on the list of "official" instructors lies there. Shortly after returning from the Silat championships in Maylasia early last year, where Pak Herman hand-picked Rennie to represent Mande Muda (if I remember the date correctly) He placed 4th in his division btw, Rennie received a letter from Pak Herman ejecting him, all of his students and anyone associated with him from the Mande Muda family. There was no reason given for this action and any attempt to find the reason for this action by anyone was met with silence. While Rennie is no longer recognized by Pak Herman, he is still recognized by I.P.S.I. as well as by the Silat community at large (at least where he is known in the west). You can easily check his credentials if you wish. He is recognised as a Guru by several teachers both here and in Indonesia. So that is the whole sad, silly story as I know it. If you want to meet Rennie and do some practice with him I am pretty sure that you could do so without any problem, he is still no more political than a rock and holds no ill will to Mande Muda that I have ever seen. You will find that you can get a taste of Mande Muda ad done by Bapak Uyuh, Rennie is one of the few in the US who has the old system. He has also spent quite some time in Indonesia studying the roots of Mande Muda. If you would like to get in touch with him please feel free to contact me and I will put you in touch with him. Wassalam, Mushtaq Ali - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hic in spiritum sed non incorpore - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: "BILL MCGRATH" Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:17:59 -0700 Subject: eskrima: knife videos Many thanks to all of you who have written in on this subject. You have all raised some good points. Marc, I plead guilty to being subject to a bit of schizophrenia in my logic on the subject but I think everyone's posts have helped me clarify my reasoning a bit. I think my reluctance to the idea of selling knife videos is because I view a martial arts teacher's role as more than just selling a product. I believe we should be teaching our students not only how to fight, but when and why to fight. I grew up in an environment in which I was treated not like a customer but like a family member, so I guess I feel that when a student "goes bad" it is not so much like a customer misusing your product, but like a son bringing shame on the family name. Two ideas in member's posts really hit home with me. 1. Your marketing will determine the type of person who buys your video. 2. The numbers of good people helped by the spread of knowledge will be greater than the numbers of evil people who will misuse it (example firearms are used 3 to 5 times more often to defend against crime in the U.S. than used to commit a crime). You have all given me a lot to think about on the subject. Thanks. While on the subject of knife videos, one of the very few that I can recommend is put out by list member Ron Balicki. Ron does an excellent job of covering his material in a straightforward, logical manor (without the high drama that covers for "techniques" that were put together from bits & pieces of stick and hand material that I see on so many other knife videos). I feel that most of the techniques Ron shows are best used with knives usually classified specifically as "fighters" with blades of 7" and up , but I suspect that won't be a hindrance to many on the digest. This is also an excellent video for those who have attended Guro Inosanto's seminars (which usually cover a wide range of subjects) and want a tape to review techniques that concentrates 100% on Guro Dan's knife work. Regards, Tuhon Bill McGrath ------------------------------ From: "David Eke" Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 17:38:07 +1000 Subject: eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #264 Michael said >My instructor Dr. Lopez has catalogued over 50 controlling techniques with the >left hand, with some being variations on a theme. He doesn't have names for most >of them. "Tapi" is often used in a general purpose way. "Push" and "pull" also >figure predominantly. G.M. Ted Buot seemed to have names for some. Bobby Taboada Bobby teaches predominantly "Velez" or grouped Balintawak. A very basic rundown is below 1. 12 basic strilkes 2. Counters to the 12 basic strikes 3. At random 4. Group 1 (Lifting) 5. Group 2 (Butting) 6. Group 3 (defences against abanico) 7. Group 4 (defences against puches) 8. Push and pull (sometimes called Group 5) 9. Butting 10. Disarms 11. Method of teaching (palakaw) There is one more stage which is called "give and take" where two instructors give and take controlled techniques. Sort of like having a conversation with sticks "what happens when I do this?" >calls some of the left hand stuff "lifting" and "clearing", but I do not know >exactly what these words cover. Effectively "lifting" is getting the student to lift and clear the instructors checking hand and then counter strike whereby the instructor "pok gungs" (defends the students counter and attacks again) I learnt Balintawak left handed right up to palakaw (method of teaching) whereby my instructor make me learn everything again right handed so that I could teach. David ------------------------------ From: "Farthing, James" Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 14:18:51 +0100 Subject: eskrima: Women's Knife Video... This sounds a bit dodgy to me - surely the best 'self-defence' would be to teach people (women??) how not to put themselves in situations where these skills could be needed. I was told a true (?) story once: A woman did some baby-sitting every Saturday night and walked to and from the house through a dark park. She was a bit wary so she decided to do a 'self-defence' course. After completing the course she commented that she "felt much safer now when walking through the park". Surely it would have been better to teach the woman to take that extra five minutes and go the long way round, past houses and under the street lights etc. The 'self-defence' course just instilled a false sense of security. I hope you "get my drift" as it were with this. Thanks, James Farthing JFarthing@colt-telecom.com > > > Bill McGrath wrote: > > > > For example, I would love > > > to do a video on women's self defense with a knife, but how do you > keep it > > > out of the hands of potential rapists? How do you get this info to > the > > > people who need it the most without it getting into the wrong hands? > Any > > > thoughts on the subject would be greatly appreciated. > ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 06:53:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: eskrima: . ------------------------------ End of Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V6 #266 **************************************** 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.