Tag Archive

Balance

I have been thinking lately a lot about fundamental skills. And from what I can tell, the most fundamental skill in any martial art is balance. This should be pretty obvious, of course. Balance, harmony, wa whatever you want to call it, it’s all the same. While I am specifically talking about physical balance, the [...]

Balance training

I’ve done a little bit of silat, a couple of years of Modern Arnis, and Kempo Jutsu Kai (Professor Kimo Ferreira). One of the things I noticed in all of these experiences is that the difference between a good practitioner and a beginner is balance. (And flow and knowledge, of course.)
So my question today [...]

Branding & Training

I was having a talk with a friend today about self-talk. About how belittling yourself damages your ego and self-esteem. And how belief in yourself is self-reinforcing. The discussion was really about women’s body issues; women thinking they’re fat or ugly or stupid, and how the media contributes to them.
Every message we hear has an [...]

FMA, Crime, and Geo-Politics

In the Philippines the police are learning arnis to combat crime. I’d say about 40% of the people I see in classes and FMA seminars are LEOs here in Washington State. I’d imagine that’s pretty representative of the general population.
It’s interesting to me that the Philippines can afford to not only pay officers to do [...]

Gaining the blade

My primary interest in FMA has always been the sword (particularly espada y daga). I come from a fencing background, by which I mean I fenced for a couple of years before I started doing Modern Arnis. And it’s really my only previous mano y mano combative experience. Fortunately for this, lately my instructor has [...]

Arnis Importers for high-quality FMA training gear

Jeff Soriano is the owner and operator of the website www.arnisimporters.com.
In his own words: “Arnis Importers is a family run, online distributor of authentic, Philippine-made FMA training equipment. Our focus is on providing quality gear to fellow martial artists and practitioners like ourselves.” He has been in operation only within the last few years [...]

Modern Arnis

I was couch-training on YouTube earlier and decided I would look up Professor Remy A. Presas. The anniversary of his passing was just a couple of days ago and so I’ve been thinking about him a little bit. More importantly, as you may know, a crucial part of the couch-training regime is to watch cool [...]

All things A/V

I go off on these tangents, where for a month or so, I spend a lot of time trying to learn Tagalog. And then it lapses and subsides. So I’m not doing that, again, this time. But…I did find some pretty cool links in my latest culling of the intarwebs.
For instance PinoyChannel.TV or PinayChannel.TV. [...]

Fascinating time line

I forgot all about Count Dante, the deadliest man alive (I think that’s supposed to be in title case). You used to see him in the back of comic books in the 1960s-1980s. Promoting his Black Dragon Society and the Dim Mak death touch. I’ve been reading all about him today. But I stumbled across [...]

Yin-yang

There’s an interesting concept in martial arts in general, the idea that to be good you have to be both soft and hard, or more plainly, strong and weak. This is a concept that’s always fascinated me, but frankly at first I hadn’t seen much of it. It seemed like it was always better to [...]

Theory and law

I have this problem, in class, I like things to make sense. I am always looking for ‘the golden rule’. I ask our instructor, “So do I do it like this, in every situation?” And the answer is always (a qualified) no. But I obsessively look for the ‘constants’. When doing an elbow strike, should [...]

Storytellers

I’ve been reading a lot lately on ‘reality’ combat systems, ‘no nonsense self defense’, ‘real street fighting’, psychology, criminology, attacks by criminals, etc. There’s a lot of videos people can look up on YouTube if they want, I’m not going to link any here, because nothing I saw there is something I’d want to celebrate [...]

Modern Arnis Seminar

Saturday the 25th of April 2009, Bothell, Washington

There’s a lot of ways to learn FMA, one of the best I’ve found is to take one technique and explore it unarmed, with a knife, and with a stick. Fortunately, this is exactly what Dr. Presas did this Saturday. I think this style of teaching plays to [...]

Flow control contact

So Ramon posted a really cool post here about flow. Between that and some of the stuff we did in class tonight, it really got me thinking a lot. I don’t pretend to be an expert and if this stuff seems like nonsense, please speak up and tell me.
In process analysis or design or martial [...]

Disparate interests

I recently came across This blog post about some of the myths we’re told in FMA.
I hate to harvest other people’s research like this, but there are a lot of cool elements here that I found valuable. For instance this is an article about self defense law, and the liability of martial arts instructors [...]