Kali and the art of the blade?

A

Airyu

Joined
Apr 26, 2000
Messages
251
Hello Everyone,
In some recent conversations with Donna B., we have shared a problem that has arisen in the FMA community. Many instructors(for better or worse) Have been teaching many things that have not proven themselves in combat to be really effective. Disarms are always a topic of contention on every forum, so we can start there. Disarms happen, either through accidental or purposeful means. In combat it is rare that you are actively looking for a disarm but without a knowledge of the principles of disarming "how can you recognize the opportunity when it happens?" Master Tom Sotis, in a seminar was accidentaly disarmed ina drill, his immediate reaction was to strike at his opponent, disarm him and shove him away from his blade, which he retrieved. AT first I thought it really cool, until I noticed every time this happened, he immediately did the same principle again! Constantly developing a skill for a real combat situation!! He never stopped inthe middle and started the drill over, he just did his best to enhance his survival, then went back to the drill.
Sparring is another aspect that many have purported to be "the way" to train for realism. I love to spar, but how many of us have realized that we are not falling back on the skills that we train in but only trying to score and not be scored upon? From full contact stick to blade sparring, too many of us tell ourselves;"I will take a few shots on the way in and then I'll whack em hard", truthfully in combat that will get you killed. Kali teaches many countering skills that need to be learned so as to avoid that above situation, but when you put on some padding and a helmet, and turn people loose at each other "what happened to those countering skills?" Even members of the DogBrothers have noticed the lack of defensive skills in the newer fighters at the Gatherings. Grand Tuhon Gaje, recommends to spar without contact. Why? To perfect those countering skills and to understand "ranging". It is quite a workout, and right away you will see opportunities when countering is the best option, not charging in and taking many shots to the head.Pekiti Tirsia is a blade oriented art, Tuhon calls it "Edged Impact Weapon strategy and tactics." Sparring at full contact with a bladed weapon changes your whole perception on charging in and scoring or taking a few shots.(No I am not advocating you spar with a live blades!) Just a method to make you think about the level of your training.
(None of what is written here is a slam to any method, or particular instructor, it is my interpretation of ideas that we should look at if we are training for a combat reality.)
Train Hard, it is the way!
Steve L.
 
In my system, Lucaylucay Kali, when we are doing flow drills to seek disarms in the flow, we normally start armed with the stick and have an aluminum trainer stuck in our belt. The flow drill continues until we have both lost our sticks and our knives... and if you can grab a weapon up off the ground without losing the flow that counts too.
 
You know, I used to think that the Dog Brother's method of sparring was about as realistic as you can get. But you made the same points that Hoch Hochheim made in a recent article in his CQC magazine. While a fencing mask is not much protection, it IS still protection and fighters still tend to take a shot to the head and just keep closing. A hockey glove is enough protection to take a shot and not lose the weapon. Hoch advocates what he calls "kill shot weapon sparring." The fighters are still wearing protective equipment, but a referee is involved in the match. If a fighter takes a shot to the head that would have reasonable dropped or at least staggered him had he not had protective equipment, the referee will stop the match and declare him "killed." If he takes a solid shot to the glove, they pause and strap a weight to that wrist and switch the weapon to the other hand. Its hard to really know what kind of a shot a person could take and still keep going, but it seems more reasonable to me to train as if that head shot would have taken you out than to train to ignore it and keep wading in for a takedown. Hoch says groundfighting still happens in this method, but not as often as in the Dog Brother's method. The DB's advocate training with as little equipment as possible. This is good. But not many are willing to go at it with no protective equipment at all. Hoch's method seems like a good compromise. What do you guys think?

Keith

------------------
"Walk softly and carry a big stick!"
Teddy Roosevelt
 
Keith,

I am actually going to try a "killshot" type sparring thing in about month. I let you know what I think.

Right now, sparring with knife has it's pluses and minuses. If the partners really treat the trainers and take every hit seriously -- meaning comtemplate the result if the blade real -- then I think one get something out of it. If treat it like a game of tag, or the partners' egos get invested then the exercise degenerates because folks don't want to acknowledge hits that would have been evident in a real encounter.

Despite whatever disadvantages, I personally find real time, unrehearsed sparring useful in seeing what movements have been ingrained from practice and what works/doesn't work for me in real time.

sing

AKTI #A000356

PS. JRF, just read your post on the other thread. Agree pretty much with your detailed perspective.

[This message has been edited by sing (edited 07-20-2000).]
 
The key to making real-time sparring a useful learning tool (which all of you have hit upon) is the attitude that you approach it with. You must approach it as a laboratory where you can experiment with and test your system as well as yourself. You can NOT approach it as a competition or an ego building session.

Be honest with yourself and acknowledge shots that you take, learn from it and move on (literally ... don't stop unless an injury requires it). Work on your evasion and countering skills instead of trading shots. As the Nike adds say "Just do it!". It helps if your sparring partners do like wise, but not everyone will so you may have to be selective if you want to learn from sparring. I try to pretend that I don't have any protective gear on and my opponent has a blade for motivation. It also helps to video tape your sparring so you can review & analyze it afterwards.

This is where I think the Gatherings have started to deteriorate. Anyone can participate so now you have a lot of grapplers with little or no stick skills coming in with heavy fencing masks & pads. They exploit the gear and take a lot of hits as they close to grappling range. They may get in and submit their opponent, but they've missed the point. The older fighters "came up" at a time when the Gatherings were smaller events and the fighters knew each other and shared common roots and the common goal of learning & developing fighting skills. However, as the Gatherings get bigger, they're morphing into another creature all together as more people (with dissimilar goals and attitudes) join in. It's apparent, from incidents that one hears about, that they're morphing into a place for people to prove someting. This trend is apparent in the reported lack of defense by the newer generation of fighters and will eventually hurt the older fighters too if they aren't vigilant.

Full Contact sparring isn't "the way", but it is a very valuable tool and asset to "the way" (only) if it is approached with the right mindset. The same holds true for "distance sparring" (sparring without contact), flow drills, seguidas, etc.

Respectfully,

Dave Fulton



------------------
Full Contact Martial Arts Association.

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."


 
It's been a while since I sparred with real sticks & protection; my pals aren't into the abuse (anyone near central PA on the forum?)...

So we usually use padded sticks & no protection (although we should always use goggles/glasses - shame on us). One thing that's nice is, the RELATIVE pain of the shots is unchanged. IOW, a hand shot or head shot hurts more than one to the forearm or shoulder. With protection, that's not so. So, some bad habits (head leading, etc) aren't as likely to happen.

Of course, the adrenaline level isn't there, so we don't learn the same things; thus, it's only part of the puzzle.
 
No offense but this thread is art of blade why are you guys talking about sticks there is a difference.At least to knifers
 
Originally posted by EDGE1:
No offense but this thread is art of blade why are you guys talking about sticks there is a difference.At least to knifers
Click to expand...

Yes, there is a difference, but there's also cross over. Timing, distance, evasion, countering, a horizontal forehand, etc can all be honed in stick fighting AND be applied to a blade. In personal correspndence, Grand Tuhon Gaje urged me to remember that the Pekiti stick work I was learning from my teacher is really the blade in action. Of course I assured GT Gaje that my teacher keeps me aware of this at all times.

Besides, as JFR has already said Airyu addressed stick fighting in his original post.

Respectfully,

Dave Fulton


------------------
Full Contact Martial Arts Association.

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."


 
Dave, I completly understand where your coming from.I to have studied in other FMA including pekiti tirsia,But having been training in Sayoc kali all blade all the time I see things diffrently thats all,excepcially when dealing with small blades.
peace
 
Hello Everyone,
I love all the great post about this topic. I have been away on a much needed vacation for the last few days, so I haven't been able to repost here. It is great to see so many "like minded" individuals, in the essence of training. It doesn't matter what style or who you train under, the reality is are you training to deal with a real combat situation. I chose to use the stick fighting anology in training, because many of us have fought in this manner at least once. When practicing with a stick, many of us are told to treat it as a blade, but upon closer examination of what we do, are we really doing this? Did you accidently grab the blade, are your angles really precise?, are you just twirling that stick for a reason, can you do that with a real machete in your hands? After some thought we notice that the blade teaches a higher level of awareness, and increased sensitivity(especially about not cutting yourself). If you can then apply this this level of attributes to your stick work, you will truely notice the difference in the way you move and feel. Trust me I love the stick, I carry a collapasable baton with me often(today it prevented a small case of road rage with its appearance visible through the windsheild!) I am only trying to provoke us into actively thinking about how and what we train in.
Slash and Thrust
Steve L.
 
What we are discussing and debating in this Thread and others like the Sparring Thread is great. And, I think almost everyone here is into the realistic aspects of actually defending yourself with a knife.

Sometimes we differ slightly in opinion and/or approach, however, I am very pleased to see that everyone finds some middle ground to agree on.

I have seen some folks in the FMA that were not taught Blade-specific orientation. In Sayoc Kali and Pekiti Tirsia, I don't think that is going to be a problem at all. For some others out there, and I am not insulting anyone, this is the truth as I see it...you really need to tighten up and either teach stick, or teach knife, or teach them both with a clear point of demarcation or you are going to produce some students as I have seen who are great with a stick. When you do a simple little flow with them and they have a trainer in their hand, however, you quickly see they have no concept whatsoever of where the edge is or how it is oriented to actually make a cut.

This is the great controvery, "What you can do with this stick, you can do with a knife, so we do not have to practice with knives." Or, "You can find a stick anywhere, so we focus on that." These are not accurate, and the latter is simply wrong. Of course things like range and footwork can be found in the stick. There are, however, knife-specific movements that some do not even address because they either do not want the stigma of "teaching knife," or they do not know any better, because they were not taught how to use the knife either.

As for the "Kill Shot" article, it is an improvement, but it is not the whole enchilada either. Rodney King took one hellacious pounding by what? Three Officers? Some of which were wailing away two-handed, and he still remained viable. Was he down, and the civil rights aspects of the case are not the focus at the moment, the reality of the whole incident, medically-speaking is what I am referring to.

I remember a lot about the King Case, but my memory has hit a stumbling block as to what he was hit with, a PR-24 or a straight "Koga" Baton, but it matters not because both of them as far as I know are somewhat heavy polycarbonate.

Now, if a man is still up on his knees after taking at least three (3) solid shots with a heavy polycarbonate baton, using both of your hands for more power, and the guy is not knocked out let alone dead, where is the so-called, "Kill Shot?"

If you used an ASP Baton in this manner, you would probably split the steel at the taper lock from the leverage exerted in that area and one section of the baton would go flying after a couple shots to a hard object like a head. There was a couple "breakage" stories in Keating's R.O.S. Forum at KFC.Com and although I have never experienced breakage of an ASP on a heavy bag, hands, arms and legs...I have never hit a head with one.

Now, compare that with Rattan.
 
Just a short note for clarification. I agree with Don...its hard to know what kind of a shot person could take and keep on going. But Rodney King was high on PCP at the time. If I'm training for a real exchange, I'm not going to be on PCP and am not going to count on adrenalin levels to get me through. I want to spar in a fashion that reinforces to me that I have to protect my head and not just rush in during the heat of the moment. Having a referee/observer to keep all parties involved honest seems like a good idea to me. And I agree with you Donna....I think I've posted a similar thread in the past. Way too much time is spent on "tippy-tap" drills in a lot of the training going on. The trend seems to have been to do almost all training at mid to close ranges with very little done at long range. You end up with practitioners that don't know how to control distance and are willing to just "wade in" to get to the range they have trained in. Unfortunately, that is the very range that is the "danger zone" and most likely to get you hurt.


Keith

------------------
"Walk softly and carry a big stick!"
Teddy Roosevelt
 
One thing that's cumbersome about knife sparring is gaugeing (sp) the penetration of cuts and stabs.

Obviously, a thrust to the gut or throat we can see but what about other points of the body?

The King incident was a bit of an eye opener. Tactics aside, it made me think about the technique used by the LAPD as well as if I knocked a guy down, how do I keep him down with the stick.

[This message has been edited by Smoke (edited 07-21-2000).]
 
Donna,to a point what you said about drills is true,I mean half the time it is a excuse for teachers to keep students around to pay there tuition every month.most of the time you just need to practice what you feel is valuable to you! get a training partner and work it!you are only as good as your training partner!Now the other side is that drills help develop skills,skills that might be needed or not but it is good to practice as much as needed just to keep you ahead of the average joe!Now the counters for counters,and the disarms are left for other players you might encounter out there,likely hood of that happening is most likely nill!but still getting good will even put you at a higher level again than the average joe or knifer!for your ambushes I see that only if you are maybe not that tune into your surroundings,but thats where your empty hands come in unless your a real good quick draw with that blade!Disarms do work if your good at them and you only good if you practice I can do disarms fairly well at full speed and I rather get cut on my arm than get my neck slashed or stabbed in the gut or chest while doing a disarm! Hey I will be cut be he has no more knife in his hand then i will try to finish him and if he has another knife well so do I!Now i am not going to get into that whole debate about getting cut in a fight to many whiners out there,we all have opions,I have been cut many times had 17 stiches across 4 fingers on my left hand and yes it was a knife it hurt but i was not on the ground in a fetal position crying!but my point is those disarms work if someone is showing them to you the right way of course!Besides with all those techniques out there hey you never know when you might need them!I have sparred with other guys in the FMA and I am pretty happy with my skills plus i always slap the sh-t out of my buds!excluding my training partners of course because i get the same amount of abuse!! LOL
Peace
 
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