Book Review: Filipino Knife Fighting Presas Style

Smoke

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by Ernesto Presas. 1996 96 pgs, 5 Chps, color and B&W pictures. I'm not sure where to get E. Presas' materials at the moment but Ebay has them sometimes.

The BD
Warm ups (3 Wrist, 1 Back, 2 Waist exercises)
Lines of Attack (Stabbing with both grips)
Parrying with Counter Attack (4)
Knife vs Unarmed Attacker (3 counters to wrist grabs)
Knife vs Knife (14 moves; 2 counters to wrist grabs)
Hands vs Knife (30 stab defense; 3 counters to roundhouse kicks)
Knife vs Stick (5 moves)
Knife vs Bolo (5 moves)
Terminology
Pictures (Hoch Hochheim is in 2 photos)

One of the E. Presas Arnis trilogy (Presas Stick & Balisong, Mano Y Mano) this book focuses on using and countering the blade. This is also one of the shorter Presas Arnis books, no intro but two letters from Arnis practitioners. Lines of Attack focuses on stabs and not the 12 vital points found in the stick books. Knife vs Stick is interesting, the premise being the attacker with a long stick stepped close enough for the knife man to into play.

This book is more for intermediate and advanced folks as most of the entries involve angling, basic locks and throws, stick technique, scissor leg takedown, and being able to move both hands at once.
At some points in the book, the reader will have to go conceptual and play with variations in grips being used and defended against
Also, the knives used here are fairly long. I didn't like the spin throws or x blocks myself, but that's just my opinion. Besides being a good overall FMA text, there's some overlap to M. Hatsumi's Knife and Pistol Fighting. Personally, this is my favorite Arnis book.

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The preceding review does not reflect the views of the owners of this site. As always, books and/or videos are not a substitute for
actual hands on instruction by a certified instructor.
 
Smoke:

As I have mentioned in e-mail to you before, I really appreciate all the time and effort you put into doing reviews of books and videos. Along that line Hock just came out with a timely piece entitled, "Unarmed Man Against the Knife" (it is the third volume in his knife encyclopedia series). Have you, or any other of he forumites reviewed it?

Jim
 
Hi Jim, I just heard about the release of Knife Encyclopedia #3 this week, which was supposed to be out earlier this year but Hoch reshot some parts of Knife Encyclopedia #1 and had his other projects to attend. Nobody I know or have read about has reviewed it yet.

There's also a rumor going around that GT Gaje is helping film "Surviving Edged Weapons 2".
 
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