This isn't the same video Mr. Martinez posted, but I would like to hear your opinion.

This is more of an optics issue, and I can totally respect it--and by corto, I don't mean clinch.

There's a reason there are corto techniques in FMA. The forgetting and/or forsaking is the issue.

 

I'm sure there is, but it might not be for dealing with the person who doesn't intend to facilitate corto techniques

There's also a reason why appeal-to-tradition arguments can be dismissed as an informal fallacy. :whistleblower:

 

the point

It is. Very much so.

Only I'm not making an either/or argument, I'm making an inclusive argument for all largo/med/corto, concepts/methods/drills/techniques be saved.

If there's new ways of doing things, great! Add on. But don't take away because of the fetishizing of the blade, rites of passage, or for the sake of sparring. Train smart.

If you can come up with robots for these drills, throw away tradition, go digital, but stay within that FMA way thinking, master all your ranges, that's the point here.

 

that all depends on the skill level

 

"Flatland"

Exactly. This is a mastery issue. Read "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott, that's the closest metaphor I can muster.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8oiwnNlyE4"]Flatland: The Movie - Official Trailer - YouTube[/ame]

 

Bambi presented a very good point when he asked about how one would assess competency:

I define an individual's skills level based on their effectiveness at achieving their goal. The "performance" you've described only pays attention to the individual executing it. And yet an individual does not fight in isolation. Therefore, "performance" can only be measured by assessing what that individual achieves in relation to their task (in this case, neutralising a capable adversary). Referring to the above quote, if we are to assess speed, power, and technical knowledge, we must actually look at the adversary for answers, NOT the person performing the techniques.

Assessing things in context:-

To measure "power," we don't look at the initial payload delivered by the performer - we look at the effect it has on the adversary.

"Speed" has less to do with velocity the performer moves, and more to do with the perception of his adversary.

Finally, "technical proficiency" has nothing to do with the quantity of techniques at the performer's disposal, and everything to do with efficiency with which he applies it to his adversary.

I would therefore define "skill" as the ability to consistently complete a task with minimal expenditure of resource, minimum exposure, and minimum collateral damage. In other words: Maximum control, minimum waste. Of course then, this means that drills are utterly useless in defining the skill of a practitioner, as they are so far removed from the combative context that the technique would be applied in, their effectivity only exists in hypothesis. It is the RESULTS you achieve that prove your worth. Otherwise it's just all talk.

This is why i look to largo range for an indication of skill, as it is the range that one operates with maximum efficiency against a capable adversary. Corto is a reckless decision, unless you are either being beaten at largo, or have perceived your opponent to be incapable (or rendered incapable) of protecting themselves. In either of these cases, one cannot accurately assess the skill level of a practitioner. The only time then that true skill can be demonstrated at corto range is when a practitioner is ambushed. And in this scenario, you would be hard-pressed to witness any great display of technique. Instead, the only indicator of skill would be their survival!

 

Thanks, Janno! A very well thought piece here. I agree 100% with the above.

My cousin in the P.I. is a "professional" sparring partner for up and coming boxers. He makes a point of not fraternizing with various stables and camps, 1). to be more marketable and 2). to be more objective. Aside from being a really good boxer, his critiques and advice are sought by coaches and boxers.

Performance is evaluated by you (only you'll probably be the easiest person to lie to, by you), by your coach (subjectivity), and by your colleagues (subjectivity varies). So the best assessor of skill are independent folks--but you basically have to pay someone good money to get an honest assessment.

As for real combat, how do you assess for this? When so much is based on luck and other variables.

Again, "reckless decision" is more an optics and/or mastery issue. One man's "recklessness" is another man's confidence in skill.

An excellent largo guy, will be less than the guy who's both excellent in corto & largo.

I agree with your last sentence here, in the end there are really no solid indicators (both subjective & objective), since much of combat is chaos--either way, you have to gauge skill level though. But this shouldn't be the reason to not train inside corto.

 

i grew up in the rural and remote island in the philippines, in my lifetime i've seen 4 bolo/sundang/pinute fights, real fights, 3 of those fights ends in largo. the only time it went to corto was when (these are brothers right beside my house) the fight was a pinute against a firewood. guy with pinute strike with a 1 and the guy with firewood hit the pinute with a 1 strike, the pinute got stuck on the firewood and the corto and then take down after.

 

Bro, I'm more of a city kid and have seen my fair share of these fights as well, but never are they by skilled FMAers. Many times these are drunken fights, mental illness issues (going amok) and lately, due to shabu use (crystal meth).

Since my exposure to blade or shank fights are from the city, most happened, as Janno mentioned, at close ambush range, ie. argument over a basketball game that left one guy with his guts on the court, weapon knife; a Red Horse symposium turned fight leaving two guys with plenty of small holes; weapon BBQ sticks... the list goes on.

These farming implements, you've mentioned, were once ubiquitous, in middle Mindanao especially, this was the best way to determine where everyone was from, ie Ilokano, Ilongo, Cebu, etc. by what type of sundang they carried. From my grandfather, I've heard plenty of these sundang/bolo duels.

At the end of the day, we're all subjects to our own experiences (this I can totally respect), but I would argue here that just because these duels can end outside, many still do not. There are times when you don't have the luxury of distance, sometimes you need to close in because it's the only way to dominate.

This necessity has been told time and again by old timers in WWII, ie. a Japanese soldier with a fixed bayonet, Filipino guy closes in, not because that range is "reckless", but because he does not have the luxury of a duel.

Maybe not so anymore in the civilian world (where Janno's ambush scenarios are more likely to happen),

but these scenarios are still very relevant in police, military or other security type work, sometimes you just have to get in there--and that's a very bad time & place to realize you didn't train inside.

 

Given your earlier observation about the Dog Brothers, this might be of interest

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBRXK1DG1Q"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBRXK1DG1Q[/ame]

 

Thanks for this Hannibal (and also Burt's video). I think this goes back to my point about drilling being the core when training in corto (and sparring to test). Going back to Janno's point here, as the video and his take on drills relate:

Again, as above, combat and training will never perfectly align, but you have to have a means from which to measure your efficacy in corto. Testing it within a sparring type scenario, is great, but as the DB video shows very difficult to gauge performance. I'm assuming the really good techniques were the ones "censured", digitized out?

To add to drilling, remember the best way to take from these drills is to be the one administering it, not as the receiver (the former is actually the one benefiting from the drill, not so much the latter). That's a concept usually lost in these corto drills.

The most ideal situation is for both to have a lot of experience in the administering portion, since a lot of corto techniques requires the ability to "read" movements. Only after having achieved this, should you get into sparring otherwise it's all for naught. The whole point of that video, I think is you have to cover corto, period.

 

No offence taken

There are other DLO vids on there - they are basically "teasers" that show you enough to decide if you want the videos or not. I bought all three and they are exceptional, although more specialist than the standard DB fare

 

I can understand and respect the proprietary angle here, after all it's a business. My take is, it's not the techniques, not even the drills, but the mastery. We only have so many hands, fingers, elbows, knees... in the end, there's really nothing new under the sun that you can't do on your own with a little time and practice, and some dedication.

Compare that DB video to prison shankings, and you kinda get how a little time, practice & commitment goes into mastery of these small movements in the corto--and those guys are without the benefit of our esteemed predecessors.

Whether you master one or two moves inside, or have mastered a gamut of corto techniques applied as second nature, the most important is the realization that corto is important, so I'm glad DB has these videos, even if we can't see it.

 

I did read the whole thread. For instance, in response to Janno saying that showing corto techniques is more art than martial, you replied:

If your intent was not to say that everything in FMA that isn't corto is just 1s and 2s, then you need to choose your words more carefully. Then you could avoid explaining that what you actually said wasn't what you meant, which you seem to do frequently.

Tim

 

Again 1s and 2s, and moving around a lot, is a Tim specific reference as per the first videos in the beginning. I understand things can be taken out of context online, but I'm pretty good at wrapping up my points at the end, and at the end of that comment, I went back to my point... which was Tim specific.

If you wanna compare corto vs. largo, fine. But remember, my stance is to master all ranges, I'm just bias within corto, since things are a lot faster inside, mastery here will make mastery in largo a lot easier.

 

It's not taken out of context - you're making an assertion about the nature of FMA to make your case against a PTK style without corto. Rather than take offense at your characterization as a practitioner of a style that specializes in largo, I was simply offering you some advice to avoid the possibility of someone less calm than I am taking offense. By all means, continue to ignore it.

Tim

 

Tim, I don't know if youre a PTK practitioner or not, or somehow affiliated with them, but my issue with PTK is only Gaje's leadership style (micro and macro ramifications of). With PTK as a style or system, I am with everyone else, in that it is pretty good, though not the best.

Again, we've already covered (if you read the whole thread) that PTK does indeed have corto, but for some reason, since the assumption of this whole "blade culture" stuff, this corto focus has been put in the back seat, as evidenced by the focus Tim Waid tends to put out (kalimutan made similar observations).

If you are just a person who specializes in largo, and have somehow taken my bias in the corto out of context, that's fine, this me trying to explain.

But it's still my opinion that corto is where it's at, and has always been, otherwise we're just doing Western fencing (at least what's survived of it). The first thing to disappear is the corto, and understandably so (as we've seen here), we can all follow suit like the other lost sword arts the world over, OR

we can take our FMA corto stuff seriously, and focus more on this than just writing it off as some extraneous stuff within FMA "for the tourists",

I am making the case that corto is at the heart of all this that we do.

You're a Western fencing scholar, how much of the corto stuff survived in Spanish fencing?

 

It looks like these exchanges expend a lot of excess energy, it would be hard to keep going for more than two or three opponents. They must have a lot of cardio drills in their workout. there also seems to be a lot going on with the off-hand which is different than i'm used to even with Ni-to. it's pretty cool, and yeah the pause thing also happens in our exhibition fights. if we're using iaito then you're expected to use good jugement fighting, the exhibition is just that, you're not really graded on it its just something flashy for the onlookers and a chance to see higher level fighters using advanced techniques but the swords are dangerous even though they're dull one swing to the head could pretty much end you so yeah I don't blame them for taking a pause when they move into close quarters. it kind of gives both fighters a chance to say "okay we're gonna do some slightly harder stuff now, you ready?" its a courtesy but a necessary one.

 

Agreed, that's the moving around a lot part, in the 1s and 2s and moving around a lot. But this is more on the individual, I noticed not too many fat bodies in PTK, so they're at least doing something right in this regard.

As for the moving around alot, I find that Maestro Sonny Umpad was the most economic, parsimonious, and even elegant in his use of footwork, I've ever come to witness.:heart: