You deleted my thread in the Boxing forum for cross-posting from here, and now this! Wow! Talk about unfriendly! I haven't gotten this reaction on any other forum! You see the problem is that there may be a very small group of people on each forum that are interested in talking about Panantukan. That's not enough to really generate some good learning. But, if those few people from each forum came together in one place, then there would be a good group for some productive discussion and exchange. That's all I'm trying to do. None of the forums want to start a Panantukan sub-forum because they don't think there is enough interest. But I think Panantukan is a great art that deserves to be emphasized and promoted in its own right! So I started my own forum to do just that! If you guys want to be all stodgie and not help support that.....well, Ok then. But like I said...you are the only ones that has given me this response.
It's this type of response that keeps MAP at such a high quality. Why not become an active member here, start a few threads, engage with the community, then post your Facebook link on your profile? People will find it easy enough if you use MAP properly.
A sampling of the discussions that aren't being had on panantukan here at MAP: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121708&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121677&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120198&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122614&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119585&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119490&highlight=panantukan http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117330&highlight=panantukan Those were just the first few that came up when I searched for "panantukan" in the FMA forum. So that leaves dozens of threads I didn't cut and paste. Additionally, it didn't account for threads in which "panantukan" wasn't used and terms like "mano mano," "pangamot," "suntukan," etc. were. There's interest right here Keith. You just need to handle it the right way. But that's your call. Stuart
My apologies! I stand corrected! You guys seem to have a larger group with interest in Panantukan than most. I hadn't been here in awhile to check it out. I have posted on FMA forums in the recent past to try to get something going on Panantukan and....tumbleweeds. But, even on the threads you posted here it is mentioned that Panantukan is typically a sub-set of a larger curriculum. It often gets kind of "lost in the shuffle." I think it is a great art that deserves to be emphasized and promoted for itself to generate more awareness and interest. But no one is willing to give the topic its own forum to help do that. So I did. Its not a competition. People can post in both places.
Indeed they can. The point is that you hadn't even attempted to discuss panantukan here. Only to use MAP as a lead generator for your site. I'm not upset about it. But it's a policy. As the moderator for the FMA forum, I would LOVE to see you generate some dedicated threads regarding panantukan right here at MAP. If we could become a place to go for meaningful discussion on FMA empty hand, I'd be pleased as punch. So have at it, yeah? EDIT: As for your point about panantukan being a subset of a larger curriculum, that's just the fact of the matter. FMA empty hand generally IS taught as part of a larger curriculum. It needn't necessarily be the case, but it historically has been, so it makes sense that the discussion would reflect the historical reality.
The other thing to think about is that the larger curriculum is how you draw many people to panantukan in the first place. When I started FMA in 1989, I was aware that there was some empty hand, but it was like the gag from The Simpsons, where an all-you-can-eat buffet hires Homer to sit there and eat as an advertisement. "Come for the freak. Stay for the food." Besides, empty hand in FMA is far from being a homogenous thing. Different schools' approaches to empty hand (whether they call it dirty boxing, panantukan, mano mano, suntukan, whatever) vary wildly. There's no standardized format for empty hand FMA. Which is what makes it such a great topic of discussion.
I'm really not sure what direction this thread is going, so this is probably way off topic. I wish more schools, or the schools here, would have separate panantukan classes. I often feel like it's just something we throw into a class or do occasionally for a bit of a change. But I'd like to spend more time and focus on the area. A dedicated class would also do a lot for promoting the art, especially in Europe where we have stricter laws regarding carrying weapons than say the US. I often feel a lot of potential students are put off by the heavy emphasis on weapons. They like the idea of messing around with sticks and knives and FMA has quite a good reputation for being an effective art but a lot of people can't see the point in spending so much time training with a knife when you're potentially going to get into a whole lot of trouble for even carry one! Spending more time with empty hands would pull in both groups of people, those who want the weapon work and are training for fun and those that are looking for something more "usable". Oh yeah I forgot...all the skills are transferable!
I think you raise an interesting point and maybe this is why JKD works for me. I consider myself an empty hands guy with a bit of an FMA weapons understanding. I think what you describe is possibly a cultural thing.
The Philippines is a "blade culture"* thing? *Sorry Ap! Another thing that concerns me is that I feel a lot of FMA students aren't getting the time in with panantukan, but are training for "self defence". An hour a week with empty hands, or possibly less, just doesn't really amount to anything imo. And a false sense of confidence is a dangerous thing.
Maybe again this is a cultural thing. We cannot carry arms in the UK to defend ourselves, so we turn to empty hands, and those of us who do FMA may turn to Panantukan. If I can stereotype for a moment, the average Filipino isn't a 6ft 2 inch muscular individual, so although their empty hands syllabus is very good, maybe it isn't their area of focus. Of course like any art you need to see and practice the entire syllabus, but if you want self defence you want a quicker fix.
Hmm, tricky. There is an argument that whatever you're doing you're training the empty hand because the movements with hand stick and knife are analogous. Also there's plenty of people training Karate, Kung Fu, Jujitsu, whatever for 1 hour a week. If you look at Rick Faye's place they seem to have as many Panantukan as weapons classes, and I suspect this may be the case with some of the other large Lacoste places. Of course with Lacoste most people are also doing Muay Thai and Jun Fan so 1 or 2 hours of Panantukan is plenty as it's part of the collage.
I actually offered a group class focused on the unarmed/pangamot/dumog side of things for a while and it really just ended up as private lessons for one guy so I discontinued it. Now I offer it as part of a rotating schedule of focus areas during my group classes. But as a stand alone it didn't have the draw that the weapon classes did.
Yeah, if the USP of Kali is the weapons work then the people who come are likely to be interested in the weapons work.
Damn you, Salazar! First, to your point about weapons (i.e., access to them, "weapon culture," etc.): I agree wholeheartedly. God only knows that many Americans don't have hangups about being armed. But in some way, that's the issue. If someone is serious about weapons use in self-defense, they're generally going to gravitate toward gun ownership before they dedicate years to a study of melee weapons. Even melee weapons that are either 1) easy enough to carry or 2) easily improvised in the environment (e.g., a stick). So I don't know that the ability to use weapons draws crowds to FMA (except those crowds that would have been drawn to learning archaic weaponry to begin with). Your second point, about learning empty hand for a few minutes at a time in most classes, is a great one. We talk a lot in FMA about how weapon skills translate down to empty hand. But there's no real reason why the empty hand can't be taught either first in that sequence or in isolation. I'm mostly interested in empty hand myself these days, though not necessarily empty hand versus empty hand specifically. I don't know if interest in empty hand FMA is ever going to be sufficient to, for instance, keep a whole school up and running (the way it is with taekwondo for instance). But a class certainly. That said, there is apparently a yaw yan (Filipino kickboxing) school near here. But that has the added advantage of plugging nicely into the current interest in kickboxing/MMA. Plus it's still essentially kickboxing. Less the sort of thing we associate with panantukan.
The thing is...most people aren't training that way. As you know, you have to put the work in and I honestly think most martial artists outside of the competition lot really don't get that. I guess the majority of FMA practitioners are doing a few hours a week which is split between stick, blade and empty hands. Jack of all trades... But it's something I have been thinking of doing myself. I don't think we do enough empty hands, so getting in another art that would work well with my FMA. Then trying to get a couple of guys together to put everything together. A mate of mine is/was actually a Muay Thai coach for the Finnish Womens' team....I should give that guy a call. That's a shame. The problem with our club, and possibly it's a problem in the country, is that FMA is incredibly small here. Although I'd like to see a dedicated class I think it would go the same way! Edit: I've turned up for class and been the only person there on the odd occasion!
I hear what you're saying about weapon training applicability, especially in the context of UK law and culture. For a long time I 'heard' about weapon/empty hand crossover, but I didn't get to train it directly very often. So now in my classes I always try to find a way to teach some empty hand (or at least empty hand defence) in every lesson, regardless of the main focus: it could be as part of the warm up (which also uses movements we'll be using later with a weapon) It could be a smooth part of single stick - one gets disarmed so it's empty hand vs stick It could be 'movement crossover' from double stick It could be range and angulation crossover from stick and dagger Knife defence is obvious, and even knife v knife has accessing, as well as fluidity crossover. In total we probably spend about 50% of training time unarmed which, for me, seems like about the right balance for someone living in the UK and not planning to carry a specific edged or impact tools. Nevertheless, for me the USP of kali is weapons and weapon crossover . It seems to be working with my class as they're becoming nicely addicted
I agree with you completely. Like I noted before, that was one of my reasons for wanting a forum dedicated specifically to Panantukan. To get more people thinking like you are thinking. For a long time Panantukan was just a one of many "phases" of empty hand training in most schools, and still is to some extent. It gets lost in a maze of JKD, Thai Boxing, Savate, etc. But that seems to be changing. More and more FMA schools seem to be "fleshing out" their empty hand methods with some western boxing. I saw a video clip just the other day that was a Doces Pares group doing empty hand training on focus pads and including boxing combos. There is a good Suntukan DVD out that is from a guy with a Modern Arnis background. So it really is no longer almost solely in the realm of the Inosanto Academy students to do a version of FMA empty hands with a strong modern boxing base. I do think Panantukan as a "thing" is starting to come into its own. While Stuart is right in that FMA empty hands can vary wildly, with some systems only having a somewhat rudimentary version. To me, Panantukan is a western boxing base to which all the cool and nasty FMA empty hand tactics have been added. I think we are starting to see more and more FMA systems using the modern boxing base to bring new life to their empty hand training. At least a I hope so! ;-) Because this is what I like. I want to do Panantukan, not JKD or Thai Boxing. I'm really not a "blend it all together" guy. I like the flavor of Panantukan all by itself!
Now another interesting thing, that may be topic unto itself.....I got away from a lot of weapons training and focused exclusively on Panantukan for awhile, using that modern boxing base or biomechanic. Then when I went back and picked up a stick I sort of "reverse engineered" my Panantukan. Things changed in my stickwork a bit. They got tighter and a bit "closer" and ended up somewhat like Serrada Escrima. Many years ago I went to Ted Lucaylucay's "stick boxing" seminar and some of the things he did really stuck with me and started coming back up again. So rather than doing lots of weapons and the empty hand being a relatively small subset of training, I do lots of empty hands and my weapons training is an out-growth of that. Would that attract enough people if I had a store-front school to support? I don't know.
