Conversation Between sanjuro_ronin and free2flow

5 Visitor Messages

  1. Let me clarify. If limited only to your standard forehand and backhand swings and stabbing motion playing tag in long range or in medium range with minimal left hand checking, then it is very hard to translate and make those stick and knife work effective in a pure empty-hand fighting.

    But once you learn the stick and of course knife work that is based primarily on close/trapping/elbow range fighting, wherein punyo strikes, punches, elbows, knees, trapping are always part of the play then it doesn’t matter much anymore if your’re holding a weapons or empty handed. In fact in that range, you use your free hand/forearm/elbow more than the weapon. One flavor of Balintawak (my current style) even treats the stick only as a training tool to develop empty-hand skills. This is where I’m coming from when I said stick and knife work could easily transaction to pure empty-hand fighting.

    So my conclusion, certain stick work could be easy and others could be hard to translate to empty-hands.
  2. LOL, that’s alright. I think I understand now what you are saying. I totally agree with you. Our assumptions/basis are different.
  3. could we just do it between us?
  4. continuation..

    But now after training in Balintawak, I can now pull-off empty-hands techniques from Kali that I can’t before. I think the main difference now is I’m better with my defense and reaction. So if you ask me, it boils down to defense and reaction. If I couldn’t defend myself against his attacks then I really can’t really apply my techniques (with weapons or empty-hands). Of course, Balintawak specializing in single stick at corto range and heavily uses the “alive” empty-hand helped a lot.

    Thanks in advance for your response. I’m not trying to argue with your conclusion, just trying to educate myself.
  5. hi, i saw you post on WC and Kali thread. good post. but i'm really just curious about your statement that knife and stick work don’t translate very well into empty hands. just trying to understand, when you say knife and stick work are you just talking about using the weapon alone? Are your disregarding footwork, using range (in and out) to bait the opponent and a other things and strategies taught in FMA that are not necessarily actions made by the weapon? One time I tried “enganyo” (bait) when “playing” empty hands and it worked. If you don’t mind could you share some examples why you said knife and stick work don’t translate well into empty-hands? Btw I used to do Inosanto kali but stopped in favor of Balintawak. 7 years ago, when I was still doing Kali, Silat, JKD I also can’t use empty-hand techniques of Kali. I have issues getting inside the range and defending boxing punches etc.
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