Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:44:03 -0800 From: eskrima-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: Eskrima digest, Vol 11 #24 - 4 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: eskrima-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net X-Subscribed-Address: fma@martialartsresource.com List-Id: Eskrima-FMA discussion forum, the premier FMA forum on the Internet. 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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. RE: If This Smells Like What It Sounds Like ... (Faustino, George N CONT) 2. RE: Re: a question about anting-anting and orasyon (Mike Casto) 3. If This Smells Like What It Sounds Like ... (Steve Carlo) 4. Re: Cults again? (Marc Macyoung) --__--__-- Message: 1 Subject: RE: [Eskrima] If This Smells Like What It Sounds Like ... Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 12:34:38 -0500 From: "Faustino, George N CONT" To: Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Hey folks, I train at Trident Martial Arts Academy under Sifu Pat Trey located in Woodbridge va, about an hour or 2 from La Plata MD depending on traffic. Although I've never heard this story before, Sifu Trey told a story where he witness a similar situation where the attacker stabbed himself and ended up dying. In this case the defendant forced the attacker to stab himself and never touched the knife. Sifu Trey said the defendant was let go because he never actually touched the knife. I don't know if he was just telling a story to put emphasis on the lesson but I didn't think of asking after class if it was true. v/r George Message: 1 From: "Ken Grubb" To: "Eskrima List" Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:43:57 -0500 Subject: [Eskrima] If This Smells Like What It Sounds Like ... Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I hesitate to forward this, but here goes anyway. Found this on an unrelated newsgroup. My initial instincts say it's B.S. I lived in Maryland about 35 miles away at the time of this supposed incident. I never heard peep one about it, and I suspect it woulda been the talk of the town for some time to come. Has anyone ever heard this what-I-believe-to-be VERY tall tale? Ken Grubb Lower Paxton Twp, PA *********************************************************** The following story was told to me about 20 years ago by some people I met only once. It is a story about an incident that is said to have actually occurred several years before I heard the story. The people who told me the story did not mention the names of the parties involved. I didn't ask because I was not interested at the time in taking the effort to research the story. I never heard the same story from another source and I never inquired about it. I have passed the story on to a few of my friends and relatives. I don't know if they in turn repeated the story to others. It is a good story and it might even really be true for all I know. It seems perfectly believable that an incident and an ensuing trial like the one in the story is something that can or perhaps actually did happen once upon a time. The story goes like this: In La Plata, Maryland, a knife wielding assailant attacked an unarmed man in a bar. The assailant's intended victim grabbed the attacker's wrist as the perp charged towards him. He twisted the perp's hand around so that the blade would be pointed towards the perp. Then he quickly stepped aside and he let the perp run into the wall. The perp stabbed himself in the abdomen with his own knife and by the force of his own momentum as he collided with the wall. His unarmed would-be victim only turned the knife around in the right direction so as to make it very easy for the perp to have an accident like that. Two of the perp's friends and several others had witnessed the incident. The perp's two friends took the wounded man outside and put him into their car. The three of them rode around town while debating among themselves whether the injury was bad enough so as to need being seen in the emergency room. Initially they did not believe that the knife blade had penetrated all the way into the wounded man's guts, but the consensus very quickly changed after about three hours of riding around the town. The two friends of the injured man then took him to the emergency room where he died about ten minutes later. The part of the story about how the man's friends could have wondered for a long time about the possible severity of a wound like that is very credible. I can relate from my experience as an Army medic that it is not at all uncommon for a life-threatening stab wound to the abdomen to appear at first to be just a superficial wound rather than as a gut-penetrating wound. The stabbing victim might not experience any severe agony or any other symptoms of a life-threatening condition until several hours later. If the entire story were just made up for the purpose of making it seem credible to the gullible this part of the story would not be in it. Most people believe that it is very easy for almost anyone to determine right away whether a stab wound to the abdomen is just a superficial one. Most people wouldn't believe that part of the story, but people who are medics and EMT's and doctors would. The people who told me the story knew nothing of my experience as a medic until after they had told me the story and I remarked about how I too once had seen a very life-threatening stab wound to the abdomen which had appeared at first to me and to a doctor to have been very superficial. The patient was later discovered to have a lacerated liver. He survived. The police brought criminal charges against the man who had so successfully defended himself from the onslaught of his assailant. The defendant pleaded self-defense. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. The prosecution was able to prove that the defendant was a recognized expert in the martial arts and that his assailant was just a flake who had no experience and training in proper knife fighting techniques. The defendant had a history of beating up very badly on some groups of multiple assailants and then getting charged with assault and successfully pleading self-defense. According to the story the defendant was known to be quite capable of taking on five assailants at a time in a street fight and laying them all out flat, even though all of them were bigger than he is. I believe that part of the story to be an exaggeration and an embellishment because I don't know anyone who claims to have witnessed a good fight scene like that anywhere except in Hollywood. As the story goes the defendant had been cautioned by the authorities on several occasions to restrain himself from getting so unnecessarily rough with the idiots who pick fights with him. In the case of the defendant's killing a knife-wielding assailant in a bar his plea of self-defense was rejected. It was rejected because the defendant was not believed to have perceived a threat to his life or to his person as he had claimed in his legal defense. The prosecutor had successfully argued that the defendant instantly recognized the highly inferior fighting skills of his assailant and that the defendant knew that he easily could have disarmed his attacker without anyone getting hurt. If the defendant had just simply disarmed his assailant instead of killing him, the only very bad outcome to have been seen in this case is that the assailant would have suffered a setback in his education for his having been denied an opportunity to learn on his very first try the truth about which of the two categories of knife fighters he was. Has anybody else heard this story or a similar one? I have not yet researched the story on "snopes.com", the well-known web site for looking into myths and urban legends and a few true tales. ---------------------- If the above story is true, then the case might be used as a precedent for a prosecutor to use the same kind of logic against a person who pleads self-defense after killing a knife-wielding assailant by using a gun in a case where the attacker is easily recognizable as being just a flake, and the defendant is so highly trained and experienced in the skills of hand-to-hand combat so as to feel very confident in his ability to neutralize his attacker without resorting to deadly force and without getting injured himself. The story is something to think about. --__--__-- Message: 2 From: "Mike Casto" To: Subject: RE: [Eskrima] Re: a question about anting-anting and orasyon Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:16:44 -0500 Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net I would say that the concept of prayer and orasyon are the same - but that's just my perspective. One difference, though, would be that I don't think orasyon is usually directed toward a deity (though I could be mistaken). I think orasyon, in a non-esoteric sense, is used as a verbal focal point for concentration/energy. Prayer can serve the same purpose - though I'm sure many would disagree with this. This, of course, becomes a very tricky question because it skirts religion - and religion is always a powder keg. Anting-anting, though, is, as I understand it, talismanic. If combined with orasyon, it might be conceptually similar to a Catholic rosary - but, again, I'm sure a lot of people would argue that. However, I think that anting-anting is usually used more in the way that a rabbit's foot is used - it's a good luck charm. One caveat - my understanding of anting-anting and orasyon is based on second- and third-hand info and is very limited so I could be talking out my keester. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Kes41355@aol.com [mailto:Kes41355@aol.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 12:14 PM To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] Re: a question about anting-anting and orasyon Hi all, I have a question posed out of ignorance of anting-anting, and orasyon...I am wondering how these relate to the Christian concept of prayer? I know that many warriors in the Bible prayed before going into battle (David, for example, prayed before doing battle with Goliath). Is the concept the same? As a Christian myself, this would give me a point of reference. Kim Satterfield _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list, 1800 members Eskrima@martialartsresource.net Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "Steve Carlo" To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Subject: [Eskrima] If This Smells Like What It Sounds Like ... Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:45:33 -0500 Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net Ken, I was told that Maryland has no "Self Defense Law." Rather like England where you can be prosecuted for sucessfully defending yourself. The person who told me this was an arnis instructor at a Baltimore club who had himself spent time for sucessful self defense. Interesting to note also that the Baltimore City cops advice to us after our neighbours threatened to "pop a cap in us," that we should call them if they did something. They couldn't do anything based on just a verbal assault (read they didn't want to). Anyway it is an interesting story and unfortunately while those exact events may not be 100% accurate as retold, the story is completely reasonable. Steve _________________________________________________________________ There are now three new levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage! Learn more. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=hotmail/es2&ST=1 --__--__-- Message: 4 From: "Marc Macyoung" To: Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:48:59 -0700 Subject: [Eskrima] Re: Cults again? Reply-To: eskrima@martialartsresource.net >From Marc MacYoung > "Steven Lefebvre" > Over the last few years there has been this question of "Cult like > mentality" within the martial arts. For the most part the martial arts have > the potential to create a "cult like group", but it is a rare thing (not > unknown, just not frequent), as most human beings have enough rational > thought to not be in or to escape from such a situation. Actually, a point that many experts agree on is that cults want intellegent idealistic people. If you follow the links I provided on the page you will see that idea mentioned on several of the pages. Those are the ones who are suckered in the best and fastest and the ones who think they are smart enough to spot a scam. Such people through idealism are clever enough to talk themselves into falling into traps. Several arguments > have been put forth relating cults to martial arts instructors who make > money on their work. In society today, why is it wrong or cult like to make > money by teaching the martial arts? If this argument holds true, then why > are Sams, Costco company etc not also classified as a cults? Simple, Costco, Sams and Walmart make LOTS of people money. From management, employees, manufacturers, salesrepresentatives, distributors, trucking companies...all kinds of people are making money through an economy. In cults, the money flow is very specific. They have > members, they sell products, many of them only with their name brand on it, > and don't they also try and get a customer to be loyal to them often through > advertising that their competitor is not as good as they are? Capitalism doesn't demand loyality. Long gone are the days of being "A company man." And swearing fealty to a product is not something that makes sense...one of the main reasons people buy a brand because it works, not because they are loyal to it. I buy Tide because it does the best job for cleaning clothes of commerical detergents ...demonstrably so. But how do you demonstrably prove the ultimate fighting art? You can't...at least not legally. (And while we're on the subject, attempting to do so would be a great way to get your brains blown into a fine pink mist.) Therefore, these contentions must be mostly self-reinforced. In otherwords to believe something is "street effective" it overwhelmingly comes from people telling themselves it is the best system...which brings us back to clever people tricking themselves. And doing so for reasons that have very little to do with the actual "teachings" of the cult -- which as I believe I mentioned, can often be of solid demonstrable quality -- initially. In otherwords, it works in the dojo. The reasons to fall into such a group are from outside the subject that the group proports to teach, namely the psychology of the "true believer" And Ray said >Agreed. In my 35 years in the arts I've -heard- of some, but only really know of one that I would term a cult. One of the Ph.Ds who gave me input on this page very strongly stressed "There are many different levels of cults" That's where it can get tricky. Not everything has to be as extreme as the MidWest group where the leaders were taken down by the IRS for income tax evasion. That group, by anyone's definition was a cult. It's the in-between an honest business and that kind of group that is a matter of shades of grey. It's the schools/groups that are leaning towards this behavior that one needs to pay attention and not get sucked in. It's been my experience that there is a certain degree of confusion out there by people who don't know exactly what it is that doesn't sit right with them. I often say "I don't know what's wrong, but I know something isn't right." That page is a checklist, an outside perspective to compare a group's behavior against. Then it up to the reader to decide if he/she still wants to continue with the group and in what capacity. M --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Eskrima mailing list Eskrima@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/eskrima http://eskrima-fma.net Old digest issues available @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2004: Ray Terry, MartialArtsResource.com, Sudlud.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of Eskrima Digest