bart

Kali, Eskrima, and Arnis are the same arts generally. They are Filipino martial arts though, not brazilian.

Eskrima, Arnis, and Kali all generally refer to the same thing: a weapon based Filipino martial art (FMA). In different styles they sometimes have different meanings, but in general they have the same meaning. It also goes by garrote, yantok, fraile, estokada, and others. Your definition of Kali is different than any that I've ever heard. That doesn't mean that somebody doesn't call the weapon you described "kali" however I myself have never heard or read until now of it describing a short sickle or kama.

I do Doce Pares Eskrima San Miguel and Multi-style Systems. We use the 28"-36" rattan stick, dagger, sword, chain, bullwhip, fist weight, and throwing knife.

The FMA (Filipino Martial Arts - Arnis, Eskrima, Kali) have a lot to offer. Because of the emphasis on weapons, not as much time is spent SPECIFICALLY on developing empty hand (or foot) skills. However, the idea is that everything that you do will crossover and build skills to use when you are "weaponless". Everything in "Kali" should begin and end with the weapon conceptually. How much kicking and punching you do will depend on who is teaching you. Arnis Sikaran employs a great number of kicks. LucayLucay family Kali employs a lot of punches. Cacoy Canete's Doce Pares features Eskrido which employs a lot of grappling. So does the Dog Brothers style of Kali. San Miguel Eskrima features a lot of deceptive trapping and power striking. These are all trained primarily with weapons and the "empty hand" part comes as second nature. I would say that there is enough in Kali to keep you going, but it might not be spoon fed. If you were going to look into something else though for cross training I think that boxing or jujitsu might be good. Wing Chun would also help. Muay Thai or another kick boxing would be a great compliment as well.

Hey There, In general they all mean the same thing. In different styles they may have different meanings. Arnis is the most common word throughout the Philippines. Eskrima/Escrima comes in second. Kali is generally used as a term outside of the Philippines however it is gaining in popularity. Some examples of styles using those terms are Lightning Scientific Arnis, Doce Pares Eskrima, and Pekiti Tirsia Kali. There is an international organization called WEKAF (World Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation) which uses all three terms as equals. There are other terms like fraile, estokada, baston, and yantok that also refer to that art. All of those words can also refer to the stick as well. Some myths out there are that Arnis is more common in the northern Philippines, Eskrima in the central Philippines, and Kali in the south. There is actually no hard evidence that this is true. It really depends on the style not on the geographical location of the practitioners. Also there is no hard evidence that Kali is the mother art of all FMA. Double stick practice is common to most styles regardless of name and it usually is called sinawali, doble baston, dos armas. In FMA it's best to keep an open mind to terminology and keep in mind that often the same thing has several names and that some words mean different things from system to system.

searcher, Although there are those that would differ in this opinion, I think that WEKAF tourneys are good prep. Likewise, I think that the DB are a good training ground for WEKAF, because it will make you fight as if you have no gear on. Each of these is part of a whole, they simply isolate and develop different parts. Prior to doing the DB I had only done WEKAF, however, I was also a bouncer in a nightclub and I had several years of Wing Chun experience under my belt. So my goals in doing the DB and WEKAF were a little different than somebody else's may be. DB is a controlled environment, however, in WEKAF chances are that the novitiate will come out still able to go to work the next day. In DB if you don't know what you're doing, then there is a good chance that you will get hurt. Even though the people are nice and the goal is mutual growth, if you don't protect yourself at all times, you have a good chance of getting toasted. To be honest, it's kind of like rugby. Without a little bit of ramping up, I wouldn't want to go out on the field with a bunch of pros. But once you know what you're doing and have some technique, you can really get out there and have a good time. In my honest opinion, I think that even people who don't do the FMA would benefit from doing a WEKAF tournament. I would love to see Okinawan practitioners use their weaponry skills in the WEKAF environment. I highly recommend that weapons training include sparring. It is important to be safe, but it is also important to bring full contact training against uncooperative opponents into the picture if you are training for self defense. Sparring, be it WEKAF rules, DB rules (there are rules), or some other type (stop action, point), must be part of your weapons training or you are simply going to be unprepared for an actual encounter. If you are going to use WEKAF tourneys to train for the DB it's imperative that you don't let the armor entice you into fighting as if you have armor on. Avoid absorbing body blows and fight as if the opponent can thrust you. But WEKAF will give you the chance to spar against an uncooperative opponent at high speed which you find anywhere else, and that will definitely help out. By the way, in the end of the promo vid clip on the DB site, that's me who says "the helmet doesn't really offer much protection".

I respect your opinion and I didn't feel any negativity. But I did sense some misconceptions about what the ethos of that group is. The part that I was referring to in my last post was: I wanted to make clear that nationality or tradition of a weapon doesn't matter and there is no mold there to be broken. Also I wanted to point out that the bokken is not any more traditional than a stick in the environment of the Gathering. It is however understood to be a Japanese. As a practitioner of non-chinese, non-korean, non-japanese arts I often find that "traditional weapons" mistakenly are used to only refer to weapons from those countries. Albeit this is KarateForums, but I just wanted to point out that distinction. Thanks again for your input. '

Hey There, I'd suggest going to one of the Gatherings. I watched two Gatherings and then I fought in a Gathering in the Fall of 2000. It's more of a combative exercise than a tournament. It is actually quite friendly and geared toward personal growth and development. I should point out that growth is sometimes painful People are really trying to hit you. People are really trying to choke you and kick you. It seems apt to say that they are NOT playing around, but actually they are just playing REALLY rough. I have to disagree with this statement. The guy with the bokken is one of their exponents and he is employing their methods to do that. If you wanted, you can go in there with any weapon and a good friendly attitude and play. They are an equal opportunity show when it comes to who to beat on. On occasion aside from sticks, people have used staves of varying length, daggers, and even a chair. They do skew in favor of contact. They say that contact is important for development, not a light touch, but full contact fighting practice. This grows out of the ethos of the arts they study and teach, most notably those from Southeast Asia and South America. And by the way, in FMA the stick is a "traditional" weapon.

History tells us that they were at some points evenly matched by Westerners toward the end of the 1500's. Firearms were in use yes, but there were no revolvers and chances are you would be cut down before you could reload so their combat still consisted mainly of blades. It's hard to say who would have fared better. In southern Europe especially at that time, advancement in society for many depended on their ability to survive duels. Duels were fought regularly and over trifling things. So even a successful renaissance merchant may have been in several dozen duels and killed a few of his opponents. However, leaving the Samurai behind and getting back to the topic of Arnis vs Fencing...

Arnis/Eskrima/Kali as a whole are weapon based. Empty hands are integrated in at the beginning, but not in a sense of dropping the sticks and doing the same techniques with no weapons. All principles arise from the weapon and come back to the weapon, but they often travel through the realm of empty hands on their way back and forth. With Arnis/Eskrima/Kali you work mainly with weapons and your empty hand skills will be developed more indirectly than directly. For what it's worth I believe that your empty hand skills in the end get just as good as they do from arts where weapons are introduced later. However, I don't believe it works the other way around. Getting back to the original point of weapon only martial arts, lots have been mentioned, but you can also find western fencing, jugo de pao, palo canario, kyudo, tapado, garrote larense, and gatka.

Ted Buot is a GM of Balintawak and Bong Jornales is GM of Arnis Sikaran and a very high level Modern Arnis practitioner. The FMA community is pretty small. I'd be surprised if he didn't.

Hey There, They don't have one that I know of, but you can find their addresses in this page: http://142.58.12.77:8080/FMA/Instructors/ Take it easy.

Off the top of my head I believe that Ted Buot and Bong Jornales are out in that state. I think there is another group led by Paul Janulis out there too. Do you train with any of them or are they close by?

I believe it's a competition only, but there's always something to learn at those even just by watching. From what I've heard the tournament is open to all styles so I imagine that Kenpo and other style stick work would be welcome there as well. I'd like to see that myself.

Hey Folks, I'm going to be bringing some of my students and competing myself in the Kilohana Classic tournament in Campbell, CA (near San Jose) on March 19. http://www.shinbukandojo.com/ There's going to be stop action and continuous single stick using padded weapons and a knife fighting competition as well. Are any other people from Nor Cal going to give it a go? I'm still playing phone tag with the host for more details, but it looks to be a lot of fun.