Empty Hand Kali vs. Other arts

[aznkarateboi]

What is empty hand kali like? what does it emphasize? is it circular?angular? linear? does it incorporate kicks? how does it compare to other empty hand styles?

[Kirves]

I studied the "Inosanto-blend" for some years about ten years ago. It has the same moves as it's knife fighting. So it has jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, elbows, headbutts, knees, roundhouse kicks (shin, instep), front kicks, side kicks, back kicks, stomp kicks, takedowns, joint locks, holds, strangleholds/chokes, wrestling.. The whole package, but usually it focuses on the standup stuff and some simple takedowns.

[Pacificshore]

If you look at the FMA(Filipino Martial Arts), and compare it to any of the many martial arts out there, it does things in the reverse. What I mean by this is that you start with a weapon first, meaning the eskrima stick. You learn the striking angles, then the defense and counters, progress to knife, stick and knife, and so forth. Finally you take all that you learned with the weapons, and apply it to your empty hand defense. In other MA, you usually start out with empty hands and progress to weapons. At least this is my opinion on the topic.

[Treebranch]

That same approach is usually how real Combat MA's train. Budo Taijutsu Trains in a very similar way. Weapons and Hand to hand, go hand and hand. Ha Ha Ha I make the joke. No really, everything that you do with a sword or stick we can do with ours hand as well. The principles and body movements (Taijutsu) are the same. The only thing that changes is your distance and timing. I would like to check out a school that teaches Arnis, I'm interested in understanding it a little better.

[delta1]

Kali empty hands are, like the weapons moves they are based on, more circular than linear. They have excellent flow, and make good use of angles. In fact, those circular movements are really superimposed on compounded angles.

 

One major difference in the PMA's and many other styles is that they tend to pick you apart a piece at a time, where arts like Kenpo (my base) tend to be more direct. Note I said "tend" in both cases; this is not an absolute, as both arts do some picking apart and some direct destruction.

 

All in all, I find Kali to be an extremely effective and practical art. And, since the new by word on this board is "aliveness" (and a good thing that), I'll say that you won't find a more alive art. When you play with sticks, you either get real alive or really whomped!

[Kirves]

While having "aliveness" as the new word, let's also clarify that some kali/eskrima systems focus too much on "dead" pattern drills instead of alive ones. So, as with any art, you need to make sure you are training a good style in a good school under a good instructor. But if we assume a good instructor, kali is very effective. The problem just is that it takes a while (years) until they really focus on empty hand stuff, as they start with weapons and only show some basic stuff with hands. But that pays in the long run. If you are in no rush, then you will be great with hands, because your reflexes, timing, motion, range-handling and flow will be extremely good after they have been honed with the weapons training. Weapons take more coordination than fists to work properly, so you learn them very well.

[Treebranch]

Kirves since you're somewhat of the historian here, do you know who coined that term "aliveness"? Just curious.

[Kirves]

Hey I know this one! The answer is: Matt Thornton from http://www.straightblastgym.com/.

 

LOL

Edited July 26, 2003 by Kirves

[Shorin Ryuu]

If you look at the FMA(Filipino Martial Arts), and compare it to any of the many martial arts out there, it does things in the reverse. What I mean by this is that you start with a weapon first, meaning the eskrima stick.

 

Many traditional Japanese arts (Note: Japanese, not Okinawan) started out this way, since it was a way for samurai to fight with little or no weapons, in case they were damaged or lost in a fight. Take jujitsu, for example. The huge emphasis was on taking down the opponent or disabling them enough to stab them and this method was used because they often wore armor. It is hard to punch through armor, or so I'm told...Later, as with most all traditional Japanese fighting arts, its focus shifted more towards tournament training or self-improvement. That wasn't the point of this post though, I was just saying that a lot of the traditional Japanese arts started this way as well. Hehe, like combative swimming (I didn't think it was an art till I read about it).

[Kirves]

Shorin Ryuu, you are very right. The reason why the Japanese arts begin with defences against a wrist grab is because they needed to defend against someone preventing them from drawing the sword. This is another reason why you absolutely must know the history of your art to know why you do certain things the certain way (i.e. why certain arts always start with the ridiculous (in modern street mind) wrist grab defences) and so on. Excellent point.