From: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: eskrima-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #523 Reply-To: eskrima@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: eskrima-digest-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest Sat, 4 Nov 2000 Vol 07 : Num 523 In this issue: eskrima: Re:who knows for sure...was dizon,Cabales,floro eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #520 eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 eskrima: How big is your "us" eskrima: The horse's mouth eskrima: Re: Blowguns Re: eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 Re: eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 eskrima: Derobio in HI eskrima: . ========================================================================== Eskrima-Digest, serving the Internet since June 1994. 1200 members strong! Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource An open FMA discussion forum provided in memory of Mangisursuro Mike Inay, Founder of the Inayan System of Eskrima. Replying to this message will NOT unsubscribe you. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe eskrima-digest" (no quotes) in the body (top line, left justified) of a "plain text" e-mail 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 the online search engine for back issues of the Eskrima-Digest at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cplr50@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 20:19:36 EST Subject: eskrima: Re:who knows for sure...was dizon,Cabales,floro In a message dated 11/3/2000 7:41:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, Chad writes: > I'm still curious here. A lot of it sounds like no one knows for sure Chad hits on something interesting, it dredges up old grade school sayings ramblings about history..."those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it" (or something similar, I never really paid too much attention back then). This brings to mind possible debates, 100 years or so henceforth, where adamant people will be debating tooth and nail about who/what the founder of DMA's motto is ... let alone who taught whom and whom studied with whom. Just a thought. people looking for higher consciousness through hitting tie stick contact highs or hard contact stick strikes.. who knows.. it's possible..). Anyway it just might be wise for certain founders/leaders in this industry to start documenting who/what they are about and archiving in somewhere (maybe the library of congress). Otherwise we might just perpetuate our forefathers mistakes, that memories are a flaky beast at best, that often only serves to reinforce our own views/realities. To wit, recent history of Martial arts is cloudy as recent as the 1950s (can you say TKD roots? or even the little bit older Aikido? I won't even go anywhere near JKD/junfan/JKDC etc etc.) how could we expect this type of knowledge to be accurate at all 500 years in the future or even 15 ... Just my deep thought prior to yet another election, where often reality is warped. Stone ------------------------------ From: "David Eke" Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 12:44:09 +1100 Subject: eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #520 >Alrighty then...He was Filipino...he was a stickfighter...that made him >a Filipino STICKFIGHTER, which I suspect is more important than a >FILIPINO stickfighter. I also suspect that the guy that places more >emphasis on the 'STICKFIGHTER' part of the phrase than the "FILIPINO" >part would be a better "stickfighter". Of course, the guy with the >emphasis on the "FILIPINO/CHINESE/HAWAIIAN/Whatever" will be the better >culturally artistic one. The point WAS he claimed he to be a "champion OF the Philippines" not a "champion FROM the Philippines". His claim would mean he had fought and won againt many of the best fighters IN the Philippines and their are no records of this taking place. He told guro Dan that there was a picture of his in the Cebu Municipal library (next to Lapu Lapu) and on asking I was told there never was one (I looked for myself to check). >Honest question here...if so many masters in the PI are unhappy with >where the FMA is going today or believe that information is inaccurate, >then why don't they get this message out via the internet or through >this digest? I would be interested in hearing what they have to say. This is why I have been making these posts. It is the overall impression you get when you talk to them. There have also been quite a number of Filipinos (who live in the Philippines) quietly and politely posting this exact point. People don't appear to be too interested in LISTENING but protecting and defending their own postion and/or style. ------------------------------ From: "Tom Valesky" Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 21:53:50 -0500 Subject: eskrima: Re: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 > >>As I have said, I have personally pounded one guy in the throat and > groin at full power, and saw the blows have no effect whatsoever. He > could also resist certain locks that I have never seen anyone else stand > up to (the #3 lock in the Defensor Method lock flow, for example). > > I was there. It was not illusion. I hit him as hard as I could. He took > it.<< > > > Yes but the great RP also lost the UFC and infact performed very poorly. Yep. Just another proof of the supremacy of grappling. :-) I was pretty bummed when he drew Remco as an opponent; I kinda figured it might go the way it did; I was hoping to see how well he held up against a for-real boxer type with bad intentions. But I think you're arguing against a statement that nobody made. Here's the progress of the thread to date, to the best of my recollection. 1) Some monks dragged a bus around using their genetalia. 2) Someone stated that this was a trick, and that the practice of taking blows to the throat and groin was also a trick. 3) Several of us that have actually punched these folks in the throat/groin/etc posted to the effect that we had personally done this. Nobody (well, nobody here, at least) is claiming that this skill/trick/whatever makes you unbeatable (obviously, it doesn't); we're merely stating that we've personally seen it demonstrated. Tom ------------------------------ From: Luis Pellicer Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 10:53:32 +0800 Subject: eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 >From: Chad >Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 15:53:36 -0800 (PST) >Subject: eskrima: This, That, and This again...Dizon...Floro...Stickfighting... > >Honest question here...if so many masters in the PI are unhappy with >where the FMA is going today or believe that information is inaccurate, >then why don't they get this message out via the internet or through >this digest? I would be interested in hearing what they have to say. > The majority of them haven't heard of the internet, and never seen a computer. They would also see this digest as an odd curiosity. The sharing of information amongst people who have never met. LPIII ------------------------------ From: Luis Pellicer Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 11:03:34 +0800 Subject: eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 >They must have respected him to train long and hard for expecting him. >How old was Dizon in comparison to Tatang Ilustrisimo? Does anyone >know of about when the three-or four- were hanging together. Did Angel >know Floro? > Heard they used to all hang by the docks at one time. >>>As to the claim that you have to have been to the Philippines to be >>>legitimate in the FMA. Does that mean that you have to have been to >>>Scandinavia to call yourself a skier? > No, not at all. But if you don't get the cultural angle right, you eventually become a stick/blade/whatever fighter, someones who does something based on FMA, rather than a FMAist. Not really a big deal on the practical end, but if you say "filipino", that does mean something. LPIII ------------------------------ From: "David Eke" Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 14:30:37 +1100 Subject: eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 Isn't it a little funny that Dizon and Villabrille don't use names when they describe people instead using descriptors like "The blind Princess","The Muslim Prince" and "The old man of Cebu". Makes it fairly imposible to check who they are actually talking about, doesn't it?? ------------------------------ From: "BILL MCGRATH" Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 02:19:30 -0500 Subject: eskrima: How big is your "us" Yesterday I celebrated my 40th birthday. I did what I guess is normal at such a milestone in a person's life. I looked back over my life, what I did right, what I did wrong and, hopefully, what I learned from these experiences. When I started training in the Pekiti-Tirsia system I was 14 years old. It very quickly became a major part of my life. You know how it's not unusual for boys that age to get REALLY involved in a sport or hobby to the point of getting fanatical about it. In that fanaticism it was easy to have an "us vs. them" mentality. When arguing cars or sci-fi this is no big thing, but I think we can take it too far in the martial arts. I think this may be an instinctive holdover from millennia of tribal living, where those in the tribe were "us" and all those outside the tribe were potential enemies and therefore "them". Or maybe it's a psychological defensive mechanism as the vast majority of mammalian species have an aversion to killing members of their own species, so humans must think of anyone they might potentially have to fight not as a human, an "us", but as a not human, a "them". In any event, after seeing so many others coming to Pekiti-Tirsia after having black belts in other martial arts and hearing them say how they wished they had started with Pekiti; I thought that Pekiti-Tirsia was the only martial art worth studying and really the only endeavor worth doing for any real man. My "us" back then was all Pekiti-Tirsia practitioners and their families and my "them" was everyone else on the planet. When I was 17 Tuhon Gaje met Penchak Silat instructor Eddie Jaffri and had us train with him. Now my "us" had to expand as Tuhon Gaje had glowing things to say about Penchak in general and Eddie taught us not one but four different styles. My "us" now included Pekiti and Penchak people. I still considered other styles of FMA in the "them" category at this time. Partly because I might have to fight them in a tournament, and partly from the influence of Tuhon Gaje, who had that remnant tribalism common to his generation of eskrimadors that looked upon all other eskrimadors (especially those from a province not your own) as a potential enemy and therefore a "them". This began to change for me after I taught my first solo seminar at another FMA school in California in 1979. For the next 6 years I traveled around the country conducting follow up seminars behind Tuhon Gaje at a number of different martial art schools. My "us" began to expand as I began to gain respect for the quality of other arts and their instructors. Starting first with those who trained under Guro Dan, then FMA in general, then Thai boxing, then all S.E. Asian martial arts, then Chinese martial arts, I finally came to the conclusion that every martial art had something to offer if you found the right person to present it. My "us" had expanded to all martial artists of quaility, but this was really still a very parochial attitude. My attitude began to change in 1986 when I became a court officer. My first assignment out from the academy was to Brooklyn Criminal Court, where for the first few months new guys like myself were assigned to the bull pen taking prisoners before the judge for arraignment proceedings and returning them to the jail facilities. In my first month I had to deal with such prisoners as a male prostitute arrested for orally sodomizing his own two year old daughter and a drug dealer caught red handed (pun intended) dumping the dismembered and bagged body parts of his rival into a dumpster. Since then I have had to guard any number of murderers, rapists and drug dealers during their trials. I have had to sit behind members of a drug gang who literally wiped out the entire family of a rival, down to a two year old girl, and still had to try and remain emotionally detached. This week, at the courtroom where I am currently assigned the defendant was convicted of orally and anally sodomizing his girlfriend's six-year-old daughter. On his taped confession played aloud in the courtroom he said that the little girls was really the one to blame because she "came on" to him. It's cases like these that helped me clarify my definition of who should really fall into the "us" and "them" categories. Now if you wouldn't mind a personal question, just how big is your "us"? If you believe that, if you are ever to use your martial arts training in a life and death situation, it will not be in a "to the death" duel with another martial artist, but will be with a human predator intent on harming you or your loved ones, then I invite you to redefine your current definitions for "us" and "them". It is far too easy on these Internet lists to get into petty squabbles over "my teacher is a better" (fill in the blank, "fighter", "instructor" or my personal favorite for foolishness "historian") "than your teacher". As if the gang of home invaders whose game plan is to duck tape you to a chair while they gang rape your wife before slitting both your throats gives a rat's ass who your teacher was or who he learned from or what the "correct" name for your art really is. I have been told by several Filipinos that the way the Spanish were able to conquer such a wide area of the Philippines was by going to island "A" and telling the inhabitants "Hey guys, we are going to make war on your enemies over on island "B". Want to join in?" And the Filipinos from island "A" would help the Spanish make war on the Filipinos of island "B". Of course you can guess what happened the following month. "Hey guys on island "C", we are going to make war on your enemies on island "A".. I would suggest to you that if your current definition of "them" includes any other law abiding person (including law abiding martial artists of another style) then you really haven't met the real "them" and are wasting time and energy guarding against an attack from the wrong direction. Regards, Tuhon Bill McGrath ------------------------------ From: "Marc Denny" Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 23:42:26 -0800 Subject: eskrima: The horse's mouth A Howl etc: A couple of posts ago I made sincere reference to my inadequacies in matters of FMA history/terminology etc. and also there was a post suggesting that well, perhaps someone in LA could ask Guro I about some of the points being discussed. I almost didn't (I know that he has been answering some of these questions for a long, long time) , but I did, AND I took notes. We were sitting in a restaurant and I was scribbling on napkins he spoke. Unfortunately, of the 14 headings I jotted down, I lost the one with the first 4. SORRY! As history talks with Guro I are wont to do, the conversation was about several things on more than one level at a time and my notes are limited to being more linear--kind of like trying to put the Tao into words-- thus what follows is not really well organized and you the reader will have to apply each point to the relevant aspect of the thread here on the ED: From recollection only: Meaning of term Kali: He has been told several different versions. Amongst them are: 1) Combination of the words "Kamut" and "Lihod"-- using the first two letters of each to create "Kali" meaning "the study of motion" 2) Pre-Hispanic art 3) The mother art 4) Kali, eskrima, and arnis are interchangeable 5) The bladed art Eskrima is defined by some as the art as it evolved in the areas under Spanish dominion. Note that he is not taken a position on any of these, merely reporting what he was told. Who told him? (I begin now to refer to my notes. The numbers are from the headings in my notes and yes, they are not in numerical order here. 8) LaCoste. LaCoste was born in the late 1800s (1885-90? my guess) and was older than Floro Villabraille. He was unusually well traveled and trained in both the Christian and the Muslim areas of the RP. Regino Illustrisimo. I lose track of the relative ages of the different members of the Illustrisimo family, (Help please John Chow?) but it would seem to me that this would add weight to the fact that Tatang Illustrisimo (or his students depending on who is doing the telling) used the term too. Ben Largusa (and Greg Lontayo and Mel Lopez) of the Villabraille tribe. Ted Tabosa (used Kali and Eskrima). Leo Gaje. Bo and Chris Sayoc. Most of his teachers used the term eskrima, and some used arnis. (I would also offer the idea that as a matter of courtesy perhaps sometimes choose the term depending upon with whom they were speaking.) 6) Guro spoke about how terms over time change, using for example the term "gay" (I remember there was a Fred Astaire movie "The Gay Divorce' " wherein the meaning was not that the husband left the wife for another man, rather that the woman was happy to be out of the marriage) He built upon this, explaining that terms change roughly every 20 years Many/most of his teachers go way back. For example Jack Santos (who used term Eskrima) arrived in US in 1905 after having been a member of the Filipino Constabulary. As mentioned LaCoste was born in well into the previous century. (Regino I. too) If I understand correctly, the point is that his sources were from many generations ago and that terminology was/is different than current terminology is to be expected. 7) Guro considers himself and American Filipino, born and raised in an all Filipino community. Perhaps some in the Philippines are not aware of the history of the Filipinos in California (and thanks to the learned friend who recently sent me a video documentary on just this subject), but there is quite a lot there. (Perhaps this learned friend could contribute upon this point?) His father come over in 1920 as a "pensionado" --one of 200 Filipinos selected by the US government to learn about the American way with the idea that they would take this learning back to the Philippines. He has no apology for not having been to the Philippines. One does not have to go to Israel to be a good Jew, or to Mecca to be a good Muslim, or to Jerusalem to be a good Christian. All of his teachers were Filipinos. (Rhetorical Question on my part: unless someone wishes to infer that those who emigrated from the Philippines to the US were on the whole of lesser skill and understanding in the Art, then of what significance the fact that his training occurred in the US?) 9) LaCoste used the terms, Kali, Eskrima, Silat, and Kuntao Silat and combined these arts. He considered Kali and Silat as Islamic arts. 10) Guro I. has had 27 FMA teachers. 11) In Lameco Eskrima there are stroking patterns named after Kali. I know my Lameco brother Ron Balicki is on this list and he is far better than I in matters pertaining to Lameco and perhaps he could flesh this point out? 12) Terms go out of use, Guro I. uses FMA as a unifying term. 13) In America, the barriers between different Filipino groups have broken down more than in the Philippines. (If I understand correctly, he is saying here that this enabled him to be exposed to an unusually wide array of masters) 14) FMA is unique it its continuity to the present day, but there had to have been martial systems for the Romans, the Vikings, etc. Anyway folks, there it is. Please do try to distinguish my inferences from my notes trying to capture what he said, and please try to be tolerant of the fact that I was scribbling on a napkin-- thus I could have gotten various points not quite right along the way. Woof, Crafty ------------------------------ From: "S. H. Wee" Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 20:34:50 +0800 Subject: eskrima: Re: Blowguns Dear Kelvin, I am not sure about South America, but in Borneo, the Dayaks used it in combat and warfares. It was used against the Dutch during the Rajah Brooke's reign and against the Japanese during WWII. The accuracy of the blowgun depend very much on the craftmanship. The darts are made from bamboo or coconut leaf spine and cork and dipped in poison. Blade is usually fixed to the tip of the blowgun which double as spear. Sincerely, S. H. Wee > From: Kel620@aol.com > Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 00:50:07 EST > Subject: eskrima: Re: Blowguns > > I bought an aluminum blowgun from Blowguns Northwest. The steel darts can > punch through sheet metal(those round Danish cookie containers) and wood > easily. How accurate are/were the traditional blowguns? Does > anyone know if > they were used in combat or just for hunting? I've read that the > Jivaro tribe > of South America only used poison(Curare) darts on animals. They > never used > them when fighting other tribes. > > Here's the address for Blowguns Northwest: > http://www.blowgunsnw.com > > Kelvin ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 7:13:45 PST Subject: Re: eskrima: Mime-Version: 1.0 > >know of about when the three-or four- were hanging together. Did Angel > >know Floro? > > Heard they used to all hang by the docks at one time. As previously reported, Angel claimed to have never met Floro. Ray Terry raymail@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 7:15:43 PST Subject: Re: eskrima: RE: Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #522 > Isn't it a little funny that Dizon and Villabrille don't use names when they > describe people instead using descriptors like "The blind Princess", ... The blind princess was supposedly Princess Josefina, of Gandara. Ray Terry raymail@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 7:34:03 PST Subject: eskrima: Derobio in HI Chad, You asked about where in HI the Derobio folks were... Waimanalo, HI. Ray Terry raymail@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 7:36:31 PST Subject: eskrima: . ------------------------------ End of Inayan_Eskrima/FMA-Digest V7 #523 **************************************** To unsubscribe from the eskrima-digest send the command: unsubscribe eskrima-digest -or- unsubscribe eskrima-digest your.old@address in the BODY of an email (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and the Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply.