Full contact Stick fighting

[Knifefighter]

Originally posted by Watchman


That is something I'm discovering now - to the point where I'm really starting to understand the different mechanics required.

You're definitely on the right track. Here's something for you if you haven't discovered it yet. You need to be able to MISS with full power and have an instantaneous follow up attack. My favorite is "one side of the X."

[Watchman]

Thanks, KF.

That's something that has been pointed out to me before, but I've yet to really train it. I've got some work to do.

[Mr Punch]

Originally posted by Knifefighter


Pulling your strikes teaches you to pull your strikes.

Disagree. I pull strikes a lot in practice and in sparring. When I've had to use them outside, I haven't pulled them. That would be stupid!

As long as you get the time in on heavy bags, dummies, older brothers... that kind of thing... you should be ok.

[apoweyn]

taomonkey,

As to your question about full force but pulling it, dont think the insurance company or Jhonny Law would look too fondly at a few cracked skulls and concussions.

hence the sparring gear. it makes possible the use of more power and follow through.

Every strike in every drill is fed at full speed and stregnth. Pulling occurs only when your partner makes a mistake and misses, I cannot in good conscious hit someone in the head full contact, did it once and off to the ER we went, it was way beyond your typical pop knot. Takes finess and a level of controll. Most of the time your angle will protect you from the brunt of the force, in that case we let it continue to fly, but if they are going to take the tip of the stick, you bet I pull it.

all basic precepts of training in FMA (and virtually any other weapons art, i'd think). of course it takes a level of control. and nobody's suggesting that you shouldn't have that. but your original assertion was that what the dog brothers do is the same as what you do. and it most certainly is not.

Power comes not from pure stregnth but from proper technique and body mechanics. We train to the perfection of body and attack angles.

within the context of this discussion, the method of power generation isn't the issue. follow through is. the dog brothers hit each other without pulling it. how they generated their power doesn't matter. what matters is that they practice bringing it to bear on one another without pulling it.

Personally I laugh a little at that story as well, dam near killed the guy, and he had to go for weeks with a big brown poltice of herbs and steri strips on his lip. Probally should have had some stitches but when your miles and miles from the nearest hospital you do what you can.

i don't really laugh as much as roll my eyes at this story. and if any partner of mine ever does this to me, i would hope he'd have the good sense to spend his time afterward getting me to a hospital rather than gathering and preparing poltices.

Havent ever been to a DB gathering, but I have trained with a few who have, not dissing thier art, but if I felt they were recieving better training than myself, I would have switched styles.

your call to make. but personally, i see nothing particularly unique about the approach you've described. we've all done sembrada or abecedario drills and sparring that, had we screwed up, would've resulted in injury. personally, i also sparred full contact. with a certain amount of safety equipment.

before the advent of Modern Arnis by Remey and his Brothers, many arnisadors in PI felt it was an insult to the stick to bang them together in training, contact was always to the hand or the body (arms etc.) But its hard to get many people to pay you for a beating, and they wanted to develop a safer training method that could be taught in schools and universities. That practice does provide tactile feedback, but it also sets a beginning point for the proper angle, not a whole lot of time to do it in some techniques and in sparring. But we all get better over time.

you're suggesting that the practice of sinawali began with remy presas then? or did they, prior to modern arnis, practice sinawali by rhythmically beating each other on the hands, back and forth?

Just a point about power, a certain GM of Kun Tao once told his students for years not to worry about American FMArtist, they dont hit very hard, then he met my teacher. Now he tells them to watch out for these guys..they'll hit you so hard you'll put your hand back in your pocket.

as salesmanship goes, this is kinda weak.

here's the thing, taomonkey: i can accept that you'd look at sparring full contact and think it was a bad training approach. i could accept you looking at the dog brothers and thinking that wasn't a wise idea. (i would disagree, but i could accept it.) but you've stated that there's nothing that the dog brothers do that you haven't. and then you describe a training regimen that's completely different from what they do. and that makes no sense.


stuart b.

[ewallace]

Rock on! A FMA lineage war in the making. Continue on please.

[yenhoi]

Lol. Standard ap argument 1C.

and a not-so-standard trollmonkey!

!!

[Oso]

you're suggesting that the practice of sinawali began with remy presas then? or did they, prior to modern arnis, practice sinawali by rhythmically beating each other on the hands, back and forth?


good question Ap, I know you're responding to TM but I think
he was sort of responding to my comment about the recoil
to the neck thing.

I personally have never thought about that fact. But I think that
I heard that bit straight from Presas' mouth at a seminar.

BUT

Sinewali drills couldn't have started with Presas. So is the whole
mystical thing about the sticks just a recent addition to arnis?
Or did they just bang the cr ap out of each other?

I have not spent any time on fma history just pretty much taking
for granted what I was told. My sifu had a pretty tight
relationship with Presas for 6 or 7 years and I've felt Presas'
strikes and controls personally. not fun, well sorta fun but in
that sick way we all enjoy.

[apoweyn]

Oso,

In my school, the sticks were afforded a certain amount of 'respect.' You didn't throw them or drop them or kick them across the floor. But hitting them against one another? To my knowledge, that's been a long-time practice.

The practice of striking stick on stick, as far as I know, had nothing to do with the fading of some mystical sense of sticks. And everything to do with the need to develop a sense of flow in the stickwork without smashing your partner's knuckles into an unrecognizable mess. In reality, that would be precisely the objective. But in practice, you'd have to pull back (or pummel your friend and then patch him up with clods of dirt and peat moss). By hitting the sticks instead, you can follow through with the flow of it and keep going.

All of which I expect you already knew. Sorry for lecturing.

Anyway, no disrespect intended to Remy Presas. But there are many other masters to be honoured as well. And I expect that it would come as news to them that sinawali and other stick-bashing practices were invented by Tuhon Presas. Floro Villabrille, Ciriaco Canete, Leo Giron, and Angel Cabales, to name a few.


Stuart B.

[apoweyn]

p.s. I'm not much of a historian these days, I warn you. So for the straight skinny, I'd suggest checking out Mark V. Wiley's books on the filipino martial arts.

[shinbushi]

Originally posted by Mat
I think kendo armour helps to enhance the technique. Here's why:

Admittedly kendo was developed as a competition art, but the basics of kenjutsu are still trained in kata, and the continuation of most winning strikes are clearly delivering the cut in a fashion that would cut through the target if using live blades.

The problem is that they hit with the shinai, they don't do a cutting motion. I like Chambara better as the swords are soft, they bend when you get a cutting motion so you don't get a point unless it bends. In Japan a few years back they took a bunch of high level kendoka (Who had not trained in iaido or kenjutsu) and had them do tameshigiri (practice cutting agaist rolled, soaked straw mats, and most of them could not cut. I still spar with shinai though but try to do cutting motions rather than wack.

[Kinjit]

Shinai doesnt feel anything like a real sword to me... I think you could make a much better simulation of a Katana with the ARMA- methods (see www.thearma.org) for sparring tools.

[Oso]

Ap,
oh, I didn't see any dis of Presas.

Unfortunately I saw him fall into the $$ trap like so many other
martial artists with great skill.

but Sifus/Tuhons et al are people too.

and I always take anything that uses a mystical/spiritual slant
with a huge grain of salt.

I haven't actively trained arnis since 97 as I'm trying to get the
nuances of my kf stick. but when I spar it comes out since I
did spend something like 7 years training it.

abinico's just come in so handy

[Mr Punch]

Originally posted by shinbushi

The problem is that they hit with the shinai, they don't do a cutting motion. I like Chambara better as the swords are soft, they bend when you get a cutting motion so you don't get a point unless it bends. In Japan a few years back they took a bunch of high level kendoka (Who had not trained in iaido or kenjutsu) and had them do tameshigiri (practice cutting agaist rolled, soaked straw mats, and most of them could not cut. I still spar with shinai though but try to do cutting motions rather than wack.

Agreed, it's a hit not a cut. That's why I used the word strike. But when you do a winning cut to the men you are supposed to follow through with the arms at 90 degs to the ground (or thereabouts) and 'push' through with the kissaki, which is tantamount to the usual cutting through motion of a head strike in the kenjutsu I've been taught. That's why I said the follow through, not the strike is important.

Similarly, when a winning cut is performed to the do (much harder to score) you have to 'roll'/'slice' the kissaki and then further down the 'blade' around the armour.

I wasn't saying that the strike was a cut, I was saying they had similar dynamics! And the thread is about full contact stick fighting, not cutting people into bite-size chunks!!!

I'm surprised about the tameshigiri result, though I know I shouldn't be. A lot of high-schoolers are taught kendo with no knowledge of the relationship to the sword, and I suppose it continues from there.

My sensei has always given me his live blades to play with anyway.

Kinjit; agreed, they feel nothing like each other other than in weight.

Should try some chambara, my old WC dojo (sorry kwoon!) was shared with a chambara gym (sorry dojo?!)... looked interesting.

[apoweyn]

oso,

abinico's just come in so handy

ain't that the truth.

i'm a big fan of the backhand witik, myself.


stuart b.

[yenhoi]

backhand redondo

yummy