Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 03:51:41 -0500 Subject: Eskrima digest, Vol 9 #233 - 8 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.8 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Sender: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net List-Help: List-Post: X-Subscribed-Address: fma@martialartsresource.com List-Subscribe: List-Id: Inayan Eskrima / FMA discussion forum, the premier FMA forum on the Internet. List-Unsubscribe: Status: O Send Eskrima mailing list submissions to eskrima@martialartsresource.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net You can reach the person managing the list at eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Eskrima digest..." <<-------- The Inayan/Eskrima/Kali/Arnis/FMA mailing list -------->> Serving the Internet since June 1994. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Filipino Martial Arts. Provided in memory of Mangisursuro Michael G. Inay (1944-2000). http://InayanEskrima.com See the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of the Eskrima/FMA list at http://MartialArtsResource.com Mabuhay ang eskrima! Today's Topics: 1. Gatpuno Baet's comments (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 2. Re: Message 3! (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 3. Re: sticks that last (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 4. Headers (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 5. Sticks (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 6. Sticks cont... (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 7. Technique of the Quarter (Inayan) (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) 8. Under Seige Knife Fight Scene (eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 21:03:04 -0700 (PDT) To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Gatpuno Baet's comments Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I understand where GatPuno Abundio Baet is coming from, since he grew up in the province of Laguna, particularly in the eastern part. But my observations regarding FMA in the Philippines are particularly in description of FMA in Metro Manila, where I have lived all my life till today. GatPuno's observations prove my point. The Modern Arnis curriculum doesn't sell with the younger generation because we subliminally have this preconception that guys wearing white undershirt camisa de chinos and tacky tightfitting and quite cropped red pants is the ultimate in "tacky". In Tagalog we have a word for that--"baduy". Add to that the typical Filipino trait of being smart-alecky and sarcastic (we are like the Irish in lots of ways), hence GatPuno's correct observation--that if you try to promote an art, you have to be ready to show not just how it works, but THAT it DOES WORK. Since I live in Metro Manila, where we are the most cosmopolitan and most westernized or urbanized of all the other Filipinos (except for those living in other urban cities like Cebu or Davao or Bacolod or Zamboanga or Baguio, etc.), the most common objection to FMA is "What do we do when we are attacked on the street AND WE DON'T HAVE STICKS?" The Modern Arnis curriculum (which BTW is the standard curriculum in Physical Ed classes in public and private schools below the tertiary or collegiate level in the Philippines) focuses excessively on sticks and fails to illustrate the empty hands and the knife fighting aspects (of course it would be stupid to teach kids how to do knife fighting); hence further strengthening the stereotype of FMA among us younger Pinoys as being impractical unless you carry sticks around with you all day. My comments about us Filipinos listening to Fil-Ams like Guro Dan Inosanto is a sociological observation of mine, backed up by lots and lots of anecdotal and experiential evidence on my part and on the part of a host of other fellow younger Pinoys. Being an urbanized metro Manila kid, I grew up using "karate" as the generic word for "martial arts". Even today, in the P.I., people refer to martial artists as "karatistas" even if the latter are doing judo or kungfu. Even Bruce Lee is called a "karatista". >From my own experience, I was never impressed with FMA until I read or saw Guro Dan Inosanto's book THE FILIPINO MARTIAL ARTS. And in addition to that, I remember that anecdote by Tuhon Bill McGrath (?) where he said that Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje was ignored by the Armed Forces of the Philippines trainers whom he contacted about giving some AFP soldiers training in Pekiti Tirsia knife techniques. When Tuhon Gaje used the word "arnis", the officers just shrugged and said, "Arnis? We know that already." And Tuhon Gaje, KNOWING HOW WE FILIPINOS THINK, sent one of his American students (I think Guro Tim Waid) with the same curriculum but this time bandying it about as "the latest American military knife-to-knife and hand to hand combat techniques" or something. As my friend who told me this anecdote says, "The AFP officers thought it was the COOLEST thing ever invented since sliced bread and didn't seem to notice that during the training it was Tuhon Gaje who was doing MOST of the training and the American guy was just playing assistant". If we Filipinos especially we the cynical younger generation, do not listen to our fellow Pinoys, it is because of colonial mentality. In my case, I saw it happen--actually it wasn't really colonial mentality on my part, although much of it was. What actually bowled me over with FMA was the fact that here was Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do disciple--Guro Dan Inosanto--endorsing it! For 30 years, Prof. Presas' books have been on the bookstore shelves and yet a significant percentage of the FMA interest in younger Pinoys in Metro Manila comes from the Internet after seeing people like Tuhon Bill and others doing FMA and realizing that it was a "cool" martial art after all.\ I myself find it difficult to promote FMA among my peers. When I tell them I do some Pekiti Tirsia training, they smirk tolerantly. But when my other friends say they do Aikido, they smile and start talking animatedly. And when still other friends say they do grappling and streetfighting and Gracie Jujitsu or Shooto, they all get hyper excited. People won't listen to me or anything unless they see it featured first on Discovery Channel AND Hollywood movies AND HBO AND AXN cable TV. My teachers have done full contact stickfighting w/o armor on TV and have even been featured in one cool men's magazine here in Metro Manila, but still no takers. Why? I can only imagine that if they or I were foreigners, especially Caucasians, then everyone as in everyone would jump into the fray and start learning FMA with great relish! Tuhon Bill I think wrote an essay about this "Why FMA Isn't Popular In Its Own Country", am I correct, Tuhon Bill? Why is FMA uncool? Because we younger and urbanized, middle class college kids think of FMA ("arnis" as we all call it here in the Philippines except in Cebuano areas) as an antiquated bamboo fencing art done with TWO sticks by dirty, smelly, old men "manongs" and tacky looking police ("pulis") characters with big tummies and barrel moustaches or balding hair--not exactly the kind of teachers any self-respecting upwardly mobile college Metro Manila raised kid would like to have. Good thing I saw beyond appearances but that came later, not before I first got hooked with FMA thanks to Guro Dan and Edgar Sulite's books. Although PG Edgar was no Fil-Am when he wrote his books here in the PI, his persuasiveness for the FMA's cause was secondary only to that of Guro Dan's book. Why? Simply because Guro Dan was Bruce Lee's disciple and writing from abroad at that! A book about FMA written by a Filipino here in PI would only gather flies at the local National Bookstore unless the guy gets mentioned on the Internet a lot of times by foreigners, or gets endorsed by foreigners, or starts doing seminars for foreigners abroad. Those are the hard facts about promoting FMA in the PI especially among MY GENERATION of urbanized, college bred, middle class METRO MANILA youths--not the same people GatPuno Baet lived with in his very rural town of Paete, Laguna. ===== Earn $$ just by receiving and reading email! http://www.resource-a-day.net/member/index.cgi?Brandon96 Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com --__--__-- Message: 2 To: Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 10:36:13 +0100 From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Re: Message 3! Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Hi Mesage 3 (no signature ;-) ), >As for knife fighting sequences, I remember some sort of blade fight in Steven Seagal's 1992 "Under Seige". I saw the movie before I had an eye for knife fighting, but I remember being dazzled by the rapid clash of blades. I would guess that this would look contrived to me today.< Actually I think the knife fight still holds up quite well (its with Tommy Lee Jones after all!). The only problem with it is when Seagal sticks the knife in the top of TLJ's head!!!! Bill Lowery --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 08:27:13 -0400 Subject: Re: [Eskrima] sticks that last To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I like KIL: www.bloodsport.com Jason Couch > is there a stick out there that you can recommend that last more than one > night of training. I have tried to go easy but I get caught up in the drills > and end up with shredded sticks. --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: 29 Jun 2002 14:15:58 -0700 To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Headers Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Greetings. Considering some of the junk I've received from one lurker on this digest, I vote for keeping the headers anonymous. If you choose to display contact info, it's your own choice. Just my thought. William Schultz PCMA/MCAC/PTTG --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: 29 Jun 2002 14:54:39 -0700 To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Sticks Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Greetings. >>is there a stick out there that you can recommend that last more than one night of training. I have tried to go easy but I get caught up in the drills and end up with shredded sticks.>> After getting tired of constantly shredding sticks, I decided to start looking around for a synthetic alternative. Don't get me wrong, I love the smell of burning rattan, but they have a 100% failure rate. Fellow digest member Tim L. and I have been exchanging e-mails on the subject for a little while now. I'll let him discuss what he's come up with. One type of thermoplastic that I am playing with right now is Delrin. I am using a pair of 31" x 1" dia. sticks and so far it's holding up great. It's used for making plastic ball bearings and sprockets etc... It's a bit heavier than an equivalent size rattan stick so it takes a little getting used to (really builds up those forearms) The shock of striking together isn't as much as Polycarbonate (which is another option). You can buy synthetic sticks from individuals on the web, but why pay $40 -$50 for a pair when you can get them for $10-$20 (or less) a pair buy going to a plastics supplier your self? Look in the phone book under plastic. There are a lot of plastic suppliers on the web as well. Calsak (sp?) is one. Do a search for plastic rod. Good luck.. William Schultz PCMA/MCAC/PTTG --__--__-- Message: 6 Date: 29 Jun 2002 15:17:54 -0700 To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Sticks cont... Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net BTW, If you start playing with these synthetic sticks, your students/training partners won't be to happy with you. They have a tendency to shred rattan sticks pretty fast. Hitting bone with resonate to the core. Hurts a lot more than getting hit with rattan. Good to use for the real deal though. Even short 14"-16" sections pack a wallop. William Schultz PCMA/MCAC/PTTG --__--__-- Message: 7 Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 19:18:41 -0400 To: From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Technique of the Quarter (Inayan) Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Just wanted to let everyone know the Technique of the Quarter (July) is up on the ISI website... The focus this time around is Sibat/Bankow (Staff and Staff/Spear). Just go to the "Photos" section of the site to find it. -- Steve Klement Inayan Masirib Guro www.inayaneskrima.com klement@inayaneskrima.com Inayan Systems International --__--__-- Message: 8 Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 20:09:02 -0700 (PDT) To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net From: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Under Seige Knife Fight Scene Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net > As for knife fighting sequences, I remember some sort of > blade fight in > Steven Seagal's 1992 "Under Seige". I saw the movie > before I had an eye for > knife fighting, but I remember being dazzled by the rapid > clash of blades. > I would guess that this would look contrived to me today. Yeah, I also thought it was very entertaining and exciting. All in all, I felt it was one of the better Steven Segal movies. His Under Siege 2 movie was so stupid, he even runs out the back of a moving train as the front of the train collides with .....I forget what it collided with but needless to say, Siege 1 was better. I did have a small problem with the knife fight scene in Seige 1 though: there was a lot of blade-on-blade blocking. Its exciting to watch but I feel thats pretty unrealistic. I mean, in Eskrima exhibitions, the players do a lot of stick-on-stick blocking to make a lot of that "clack-clack-clack" noise because its exciting to the audience, but I think they would be more direct in a real stickfight and immediately just go for the weapon hand instead of playing strike-block-strike-block. IMHO a knife fight is a high-speed dangerous game. The margin of error is too unforgiving to attempt blocking blade-on-blade when you may in fact just want to outright attack the weapon hand, get out of the way or do whatever it takes to avoid having to be that precise and block blade-to-blade. After all, a knife is a small weapon, not like a 4.5' long sword that has more length to block with. Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list Eskrima@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima http://eskrima-fma.net Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2002: Ray Terry and http://MartialArtsResource.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember 9-11! End of Eskrima Digest