Our Modern Arnis Way (How we are different part 2)
Last week I
wrote about how “my Modern Arnis is different than ‘Normal”
Modern Arnis”. This week I want to
continue with how our empty hand, espada y daga, and knife work is different as
well.
Our empty
hand material comes from several different sources, built around GM Remy’s
Modern Arnis. The first noticeable
difference is the basic four defensive responses, these are taken directly from
the double stick responses taught in Kombatan.
This is one of the first areas in our curriculum we stress to help the
student to start translating the motions between blocking and countering a
swinging stick and blocking and countering a punch. We use the teaching drills and methodology
inspired by Hock Hochheim such as the Wooden Man and Statue drills along with
his punching drills to add meat and muscle to the skeletal structure so to
speak. These four defensive responses
are tied in not only to empty hand punches etc. etc. but also to grabs, pushes,
shoves, as well as weapon attacks.
We also use
the empty hand Sinawali drills to tie together the double stick and empty hand
material, but we also tweak it by inserting the four defensive responses
mentioned earlier into the empty hand sinawali flow drills making a more
spontaneous blocking and entering
component to the drills. Building
on a similar format as we did with the single stick; in the more advanced rank
levels we combine various empty hand flow drills i.e. Hubud, Empty Hand
Sinawali, Empty Hand Tapi flowing in between the different patterns and using
them to teach blocking, passing, locking, and striking skills.
SM Dan Anderson teaching at the 2007 DAV Summer camp |
The
Professor (Remy Presas) combined Small Circle Jujtisu with his Modern Arnis so
he taught a lot of locking skills and drills.
Our Modern Arnis keeps that teaching alive and our locking, throwing,
and off balancing skills come from the Professor along with a heavy influence
of Dan Anderson’s teaching material.
SM Dan Anderson teaching off balancing skills at 2007 DAV Camp |
We still
teach the Modern Arnis Anyos or katas but we use them to teach application and
translation of techniques instead of just for rank progression. Here again SM Dan Anderson’s influence is
found through his motion application principles, and body management principles
to help us apply techniques found within the anyos.
Perhaps the
two areas of the least influence of Modern Arnis that we have in our program is
the espada y daga and the knife material.
Both of these bodies of material are heavily influenced by GM Ernesto
Presas’s Kombatan, Hock Hochheim, Guru Inosanto and Bram Frank. The espada y daga material is mainly from
Kombatan and the espada y daga flow drills from Guru Inosanto, where as the
knife material is from all four men. In
all of the camps and all of the 1 day seminars I went featuring GM Remy Presas,
he covered this material only 2-3 times which is why GM Remy’s knife and espada
y daga material is so sparse in our curriculum.
I reserve this material for the advanced ranks.
In a
previous post I stated that we (my school and the instructors associated with Hidden
Sword Martial Arts) are not part of or associated with any of the Modern Arnis
governing bodies at this time. One of
the reasons this is so, is because that what I teach, how I teach, and what I
believe should be taught is different because of all of my (our)
influences. It is not that my Modern
Arnis is better than anyone else’s, but mine is different.
Datu Dieter teaching a spiraling take down at the 2007 International DAV Summer Camp |