Escrima knife techniques

[kendork]

I'm sorry if I'm beating a dead horse by asking this question, but how reliable are Escrima knife techniques? I've seen a couple vids of Kali and Escrima knife demonstrations, and their technique looks terribly unreliable. Their stance and arm movements leaves their ribs and other vital points wide open for attacks and they don't attempt to conceal the knife whatsoever. I always learned that the knife is supposed to be a secretive weapon, that you should conceal it and then when your opponent least expects it you slice em' open. But they seem to focus more on the flashy aspect of it. Were these actual combat techiques I saw, or were they just demonstrations of manual dexterity?

[Naszir]

Could we get a mod to move this to the Kali style forum?

[Dak]

first of all kendo doesnt teach you good sword/knife philosophies at all really.

kali/escrima are (as far as i know and have seen) good knife arts.

[golsa]

I only took Kali for a couple of years, but never had an issue with its methods. Can you be more specific about what is flashy and ineffective?

[jeff5]

I like some of the knife stuff in Kali/Escrima, but some of it is very risky and hard to pull off. Particularly passing a knife in front of your body and going for disarms. Either of those if done even a smidge improperly means you die. I prefer controlling the arm with the knife and disrupting the computer. (the brain) Then letting a disarm occur naturally by beating the guy into submission and/or beating on or breaking the arm with the knife. Doesn't mean you'll never do it or pull it off, just that they are risky moves. One video I like a ton for knife disarms is the Dog Brothers, Die Less Often.

[JP]

A lot of what you will see publicly demonstrated from Escrima and Kali are the flow drills which can get pretty elaborate. I mean, publicly showing killing with a knife is a little dodgy, don't you think? I'm not saying it should be sugar coated but killing with a knife doesn't look visually impressive. Its ugly and nasty and usually really short.

I think if they're getting really fancy then its probably for demonstrative purposes and that perhaps to give people something pretty to look.

That being said, like anything else it depends on the instructor. Sometimes there's too much reliance on those patterns, the flow drills. Which might look dynamic but are usally pre-arranged. So they still fall into the category of dead training. If you're interested in Kali or Escrima check out the dog brothers or the Atienza brothers. The dog brothers do a lot of full contact sparring and the Atienza guys do what looks like mostly blades.

While I see a lot of close range, complicated flow drills, and exercises, when these a lot of escrima/kali guys spar you hardly ever get to see that stuff applied. It usually deteriorates into a kind of "tag your it" looking game.

And lastly, just to be a dick, a kendo guy talking about realistic blade mechanics is really kind of funny.

[variance]

I'm sorry if I'm beating a dead horse by asking this question, but how reliable are Escrima knife techniques? I've seen a couple vids of Kali and Escrima knife demonstrations, and their technique looks terribly unreliable. Their stance and arm movements leaves their ribs and other vital points wide open for attacks and they don't attempt to conceal the knife whatsoever. I always learned that the knife is supposed to be a secretive weapon, that you should conceal it and then when your opponent least expects it you slice em' open. But they seem to focus more on the flashy aspect of it. Were these actual combat techiques I saw, or were they just demonstrations of manual dexterity?

Ahahahahahaha......

a JMA weapons guy bashing on FMA for weapons training...

ahahhaha..

the same JMA that has an art entirely directed towards "drawing a sword". (Iaido)
the same JMA weapons arts almost completely filled with LARPers.

ahaha... comedy.... hilarious

the knife is a secretive weapon. what you saw is drills that teach angles, blocks, and muscle memory. Application is different from the dead pattern drill and demonstrations.

Look up Sayoc Kali or Pekiti Tirsia Kali knife work.
or the Dog Brothers video like the above post...

and by the way.. stop watching just our arms and the motions of the knives.
look at the body positioning and our footwork.


ahaha... still can't get over this.

I'll give you props. out of all the JMA weapons arts. you are in kendo. At least they train "alive" comparatively to the other ones.


Aahhaah.. your a H-town kid too.
Tell you what. Go find the Damag Inc guys.
Tell them their knife work sucks.
Or challenge them your kendo vs double / single stick
and see how well that goes.
or come up to dallas. or georgetown in two weeks for the WEKAF Regional Qualifiers.
I'll be there. and so will a bunch of other FMAers.

We'd love to see your mad kendo knife skills.

[JP]

Yadda yadda yadda.

What's H-Town?

Also, since I kind of bashed the fma's in my answering post, I'd love to hear what you think about that? Is it just that I've seen the wrong footage of FMA applied live? When you guys get together and spar do you get to see things like disarms and close-in work?

I'm not really talking about stick work here, and if memory serves, neither was the original post. He was asking questions about the knife work. How about, instead of getting all aggro, or offering that he go insult this school or that and get served, you just answer his question?

To be fair, are you gonna sit there and tell me that every existing example of FMA out there is the real deal and that its all footwork based? Maybe he saw some shitty examples the way I have.

Or maybe he's just a trolling douchebag. I don't know.

[variance]

What's H-Town?

Also, since I kind of bashed the fma's in my answering post, I'd love to hear what you think about that? Is it just that I've seen the wrong footage of FMA applied live? When you guys get together and spar do you get to see things like disarms and close-in work?

I'm not really talking about stick work here, and if memory serves, neither was the original post. He was asking questions about the knife work. How about, instead of getting all aggro, or offering that he go insult this school or that and get served, you just answer his question?

To be fair, are you gonna sit there and tell me that every existing example of FMA out there is the real deal and that its all footwork based? Maybe he saw some shitty examples the way I have.

Or maybe he's just a trolling douchebag. I don't know.

H-town = Houston

I never said FMA was perfect or that its practiced properly all the time.
It has its share of Mcdojoism. I'm a FMA nuthugger. Yes. but I'm a pragmatistic one.

FMA won't make you the end-all be-all of knifework. but its tactics are simple and sound.

Practiced live, (DB-style) yes disarms, and in close tactics can, and do work.
Like anything else. Disarms and such in FMA can be separated into High Percentage, Middle and Low percentage techs. High Percentage disarms are best with weapon vs weapon (stick vs knife, knife vs knife, etc) Empty hand vs Bladed weapons take a good amount of training to get to the high percentage level. I won't lie. Empty Hand vs Blunt is easier. It takes awhile for people to really respect a knife. Rubber trainers tend to make people cocky and careless.

Certain schools of FMA are very poor in their curriculum (I believe i even outlined that FMA would die(in the where do you see your martial art in x years thread)
Actually here's my post from that thread

Arnis/Kali/Escrima - Will die a slow slow death unless someone can pick it up and fix the way schools are approaching it.

* Incorporate the Dog Brothers mindset of active pressure testing. (Throw in WEKAF armor or padded stick style as well for kiddies/less hardcore people)

* Better marketing better.
With all the hollywood screentime FMA gets. It's a wonder it's not more popular.

My dumbass friends(read: general public): "Har Har Har. There's no such thing as Filipino Martial arts. Bourne Identity was Krav Maga. Now that's a REAL martial art."

* Get the WEKAF to include switch to a fencing helmet only or at least have the option to use the really really stiff padded sticks instead of wearing that godforsaken homosexual armor. We need a UFC/Pride of weapons fighting. Something that could maybe let those Historical Fencing types, the CMA weapons types, and the Kendo players join in too.

Format of a FMA class should be like this:
* classes 3 - 4 times a week.
* Each night focusing on a different aspect.
One night is sticks, One night is knife, one night is empty hand, last night is pure sparring and mixing it up with whatever combinations the students want to do.

Format of each class should be similar to a Judo class.

Light/Medium warmup (MA Class isn't for getting in shape. It's for conditioning and learning, Get in shape on your own time goddammit) - consists of stretching, warm-up dead pattern drills.

Learning new fundamentals/drills/techniques/applications/footwork and refining technique.

Last part of every class should be similar to randori except with weapons. Not as hardcore as the night that focuses on only sparring/application. but It's important that application under pressure happen in every class. IMHO.

That kind of curriculum and outline for a FMA school would keep retention up.
New recruits coming in. and Produce skilled weapons fighters.

Secondly, it's not all footwork based. It's about everything. Simultanous utilization of both your arms while using good footwork/positioning. Yes it sounds trite and like what any other MA would claim. well aware of the cliche. go to the Kali Forum and read up some footwork threads. We nitpick angles, "beats/rhythm/balance" as much as Chunners nitpick lineage.


and yes
His post sounded like a troll.
He wasn't very descriptive about the techniques he was describing.
If he posted a video. I could have critiqued and addressed his complaints or misgivings directly.

[JP]

H-town = Houston

I never said FMA was perfect or that its practiced properly all the time.
It has its share of Mcdojoism. I'm a FMA nuthugger. Yes. but I'm a pragmatistic one.

FMA won't make you the end-all be-all of knifework. but its tactics are simple and sound.

Practiced live, (DB-style) yes disarms, and in close tactics can, and do work.
Like anything else. Disarms and such in FMA can be separated into High Percentage, Middle and Low percentage techs. High Percentage disarms are best with weapon vs weapon (stick vs knife, knife vs knife, etc) Empty hand vs Bladed weapons take a good amount of training to get to the high percentage level. I won't lie. Empty Hand vs Blunt is easier. It takes awhile for people to really respect a knife. Rubber trainers tend to make people cocky and careless.

Certain schools of FMA are very poor in their curriculum (I believe i even outlined that FMA would die(in the where do you see your martial art in x years thread)
Actually here's my post from that thread


Secondly, it's not all footwork based. It's about everything. Simultanous utilization of both your arms while using good footwork/positioning. Yes it sounds trite and like what any other MA would claim. well aware of the cliche. go to the Kali Forum and read up some footwork threads. We nitpick angles, "beats/rhythm/balance" as much as Chunners nitpick lineage.


and yes
His post sounded like a troll.
He wasn't very descriptive about the techniques he was describing.
If he posted a video. I could have critiqued and addressed his complaints or misgivings directly.

Thanks. That made for really good reading.

While you guys might not be the end all be all of knife-work, you guys do have the market fairly cornered. Admit it. I'm stymied for another system that does as much with blades as you guys. I know that silat is supposed to have fairly extensive blade-stuff but I've never seen anything that made much sense to me in terms of "this will work, this is high-percentage" I've seen some of the deThuoars' stuff but their pervasive religious mentality turns me off, plus a lot of it looks too fancy for me. Multiple grips, ripping the guy to shreds after you have him down, etc.

I really need to watch more dog-brothers stuff. They really impress me.

I do like the emphasis on angles and footwork. I never understood just what that meant until I started training in an art with hard-contact fighting.

It doesn't sound trite because you obviously know what you're talking about, you're not back-pedaling or justifying. So it sounds credible.

My last question is the Sayoc and another kali system who's name escapes me at the moment. The rig with the multiple knives. Is that just to drill different carry positions or are they actually advocating the carry of 7 plus knives at a time? I don't have a problem with this, as crazy as it looks, but does that really make sense? If two won't save you, what are seven going to serve?

And yes, the fact that he hasn't checked back in on his own thread screams troll to me. But thankfully his **** thread has been salvaged into at least something at least I can learn from.