Just how known is FMA/Kali out there?

**mojo23** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 10:42am

Originally Posted by Whosthemaster

Normly I sparr with just the padded stick. It is not rattan but a hard plastic hollow stick, covered with stuffing used to isolate eletricity in pipes and tape. We of course refrain from striking the head, but one time I got an unlucky blow that got quite near my eyes and scared the **** out of me. But any other part of the body being hit is fine, even the knees and elbows. In order to prevent those unlucky shots to the eyes we tend to use caps whenever possible.
Boxing gloves and head protection are also used when going more serious.

Which kind of padded stick do you use? The ones with the handle or without? I caught one of the latter in the mouth this past weekend and was bleeding from it. No biggie- cleaned up and kept on fighting, but my main gripe with the cheapie foam rubber ones is that they bend so they're pretty worthless for locks, chokes, etc. Wondered if the handle kind (the $50 a pop kind) were better for that.

And hey Red, if you spar with rattan, can you grapple easily / at all with hockey gloves on? Just saw some video of Crafty, and he seemed to be pretty able to do it, but it's hard to tell on a postage-stamp sized video. I've only just started with the sticks, but I've got my 5 year plan for working them into a kali tudo / MMA kind of thing. Fencing mask and knee pads sound reasonable, but I'd prefer as little padding as possible for maximum freedom of movement.

**selfcritical** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 10:47am

I prefer smak-stiks(which don't bend very much) for light work so you don't have to throw on pads as much, and then Rattan or Lameco sticks for full on sparring. The biggest thing is that rigid sticks are more responsive, so it will encourage more technical sparring.

When working with actionflex, people who drill primarily with rattan sticks will almost immediately notice that the stick isn't doing what they're telling it to do, and thus you'll see a lot of technique go out of the door, especially with deflections or anything involving quickly changing direction of the stick.

**mojo23** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:04am

Originally Posted by selfcritical

I prefer smak-stiks(which don't bend very much) for light work so you don't have to throw on pads as much, and then Rattan or Lameco sticks for full on sparring. The biggest thing is that rigid sticks are more responsive, so it will encourage more technical sparring.

When working with actionflex, people who drill primarily with rattan sticks will almost immediately notice that the stick isn't doing what they're telling it to do, and thus you'll see a lot of technique go out of the door, especially with deflections or anything involving quickly changing direction of the stick.

Ah, okay, that's what the ones with the handles are called. Yeah, the ones I was working with were the foam black ones with the dragons on the side. Fun, cheap, but needed to be straightened every time I landed a blow. At the end of the day they looked like a pair of bent pipe cleaners.

**selfcritical** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:08am

There are multiple brands with handles. Actionflex is a floppier brand. Smak stiks is avery stiff brand. Ryno and his club are the only ones I know who can regularly break them(I don't do hard power work with them, so i imagine mine are just getting a lot less stress. I tend to wear out actionflex sticks fairly quickly at my normal intensity).

**Whosthemaster** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:16am

Originally Posted by selfcritical

The secret to Dogzillas success!

I'd prefer the Holodeck actually, since you can always turn the safety measures on. Not to mention being able to just say "computer, add holographical representation of Angelina Jolie. Good, now change background to heart shaped bed"...

Originally Posted by mojo23

Which kind of padded stick do you use? The ones with the handle or without? I caught one of the latter in the mouth this past weekend and was bleeding from it. No biggie- cleaned up and kept on fighting, but my main gripe with the cheapie foam rubber ones is that they bend so they're pretty worthless for locks, chokes, etc. Wondered if the handle kind (the $50 a pop kind) were better for that.

This is the tipe we have been using:

Spoiler:

Under the padding the stick is like this:

Spoiler:

The padding doesn't last long but the stick itself is very resistant so it is a cheap way to sparr.

**mojo23** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:34am

Cool. Thanks for the info. BTW, how much padding do you use when you spar with the Smak-Stiks? Reason I ask is I was considering bringing a pair to the next TD (folks seem to like it when I bring toys) but didn't want anyone to get hurt.

**selfcritical** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:40am

There's some video of me sparring on the site with no gear using smak stiks(i'm going pretty light). I'd probably put on some goggles and/or close-faced headgear if you're going to hit a bit harder and people are worried about bleeding or their eyes. Some people are also kinda weird about the hits to the hand at first, so maybe MMA gloves.

**mojo23** · Posted On: 12/19/2007 11:53am

Cool. I'll check it out. Is that this site you're talking about?

**btbl** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 3:35pm

i know this sounds newbish but. how the staight punch in FMA compare to boxing and karate because i've heard it is like boxing but i have never seen it

**Dr._Tzun_Tzu** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 5:04pm

Originally Posted by btbl

i know this sounds newbish but. how the staight punch in FMA compare to boxing and karate because i've heard it is like boxing but i have never seen it

I mentioned thrust punching earlier in rference to Wing Tzun, and how in that system it evolves into stabbing thrusts. In FMA you do not generally see a vertical thrust punch, but more arc based attacks like in boxing. So this is where the issue started in this thread and caused some confusion.