What you know about Kamatuuran Kali?!??!

[Zendetta]

Seriously, anybody know anything about this style?

My understanding is that they work alot with the kampilan. i was given a nice kampilan a while back and want to get competent with it.

Any thoughts?

http://home.inreach.com/gldnbear/kamatuuran/

[Epa]

I haven't personally trained with anyone from the style, so take this for what it's worth. Based on the website, the founder, Mr. Arriola, studied the Villabrille-Largusa system under Ben Largusa. They don't say exactly when, but that was the only FMA influence that I saw. I didn't his name listed on Ben Largusa's website as an active instructor. That doesn't mean that Mr. Arriola didn't train in the Villabrille system. I think in the early days especially there wasn't much focus on certification. Here is the link:

http://www.villabrillelargusakali.com/instructor.html

I've seen some of the Kamatuuran Kali clips on youtube and it looks like he does a lot of circling which is a signature of the Villabrille-Largusa method. To me it looks like there is a lot of internal Chinese influence in the way he moves. It looks softer than a lot of FMA I've seen. Though I don't know enough about how the Villabrille system does it to say for sure.

With regards to the kampilan, it's not a very common weapon in a lot of the FMAs in the United States. It may be more common in the Philippines, but most of the instructors I've trained with prefer a smaller sword like the ginunting or barong. I don't recall it being a specialty of the Villabrille-Largusa system. In all the pictures I've seen, they tend to use shorter sticks and swords.

Most of the styles that are taught in the United States are from the central or northern regions of the Philippines. By all accounts, the kampilan was favored in the southern regions. There just aren't many practitioners of the southern styles teaching openly in the states right now, but if you can find a good FMA teacher, they should be able to give you some solid skills with almost any kind of edged weapon. Hope that helps.

[selfcritical]

Also, stylists from the south have a lot more muslims among them, who teach outside the phllipines very little.

[filgaijin]

My two cents worth, Mr. Arriola's teacher moves a lot differently. He maybe claiming to have been taught by Ben Largusa but he is not teaching what he learned. Its seemed to me that its a mixed of everything. Even his knife figthing techniques are so different from the other well known FMA teachers.



There maybe several flavors of FMA being taught, but there are more similarities than variance. For one FMA emphasizes practical movements and no fancy stuff. Movements and foot works are basically similar. in the case of Mr. Arriola , it is very fancy and has too much movements . it looks pretty but not practical. To me its not FMA better look for for other teachers.