Stick disarms were originally taught at the end of your training in Pekiti-Tirsia single stick because you get so much more "bang for your buck" with a strike compared to a disarm. You can weight the value of a technique by adding up these three factors:
1. TIME: The time it takes to perform a technique.
2. STRUCTURE: The complexity of the technique and its odds for success.
3. EFFECT: The amount of reduction to your opponent's fighting ability.
Simply put, to have "X" amount of effect on your opponent's fighting ability a strike can be done in less time and is simpler to execute and has a higher likelihood for successful completion than a disarm would to produce the same effect.
When Tuhon Gaje was teaching in the states, the first 5 disarms were shown here and there at seminars, but I didn't receive the whole disarming series formally until I had completed all the other single stick work. He always emphasized that disarms would only be done after you have done a good deal of damage to the opponent (you either want him TKO'd or at least with a broken hand before you try a disarm). When I was putting together the rank structure for Pekiti-Tirsia International, the first rank chart I sent Tuhon Gaje had the disarms being taught at the end of the single stick material. He asked me to move them to a place between the two man timing drills (64 attacks) and the first of the advanced sets (seguidas) simply as a time buffer so that students would not get the advanced material too quickly.
I teach disarming in hand vs. knife, but it stems from blade reversal techniques which are easier to do in real life than pure disarms. Even here the reversal/disarms are taught after the parry drills and the strikes.
If you look at disarms as falling under the category of grappling, then it makes sense to teach them after striking skills. It is very hard not to get hit on the way in if you are using only grappling moves, and getting hit with a knife or steel pipe can end the fight right there. One maxim you hear from older martial artists who have done both hard and soft systems is "soft then hard is easier than hard than soft" meaning that to learn a soft style first then transition to a hard style is easier than starting with a hard style than trying to go soft. A UFC fighter was making a similar observation about striking vs. grappling in an interview. He commented how the strikers were doing much better in the UFC/NHB events of late. His theory was that it was an easier transition to teach a striker how to grapple than teaching a grappler how to strike.
I think you see so little of disarms in full contact stick sparring because:
1. It is so hard to do with gloves on.
2. The amount of damage you should do first before a disarm in the street is not something most of us would do to a sparring partner.
I have had to disarm three opponents in real life who were armed. In incident number one I did do a "pure" disarm against a guy with a straight razor, but I also had the element of surprise because he was going after someone else. In number two my opponent was drunk and trying to show off and I used the bottom edge of the bar to disarm the broken beer bottle he came at me with. Incident number three was a case of attempted "suicide by cop" by a drunken female EDP in her mid-50's. I can strike pretty hard but it took several baton strikes to the weapon arm and legs before I could apply a takedown. Only after hitting the ground (and getting the wind knocked out of her) was a disarm successful.
Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath
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