So what is the general opinion of Modern Arnis?

[jwinch2]

For your style being so awesome and macho it's incredibly hard to find anything about it that doesnt scream SUCK.

I'm a pretty so-so kickboxer and one-stripe BJJ white belt and I'm pretty confident I'd tool most Presas Modern Arnis players in EH.

Glad you liked the writeup.

Please do me a favor and do not judge the style based on this particular guy. We spar hard at my school in EH, stick, and knife.

You may in fact be able to take someone from Modern Arnis in empty hand, I have no idea. What I would mention is that we only spend about 35 - 50% of our time on EH work as so much is weapons based as well. As such, the average brown belt in Modern Arnis probably has the EH skills of someone less experienced in other arts but also has a serious weapons background that practitioners of other arts do not have. Long story short, there is only so much time in the day and only so many days to train class and when you are spreading your learning around to EH, Baston, and Knife, it takes longer. Many of the techniques overlap but it still takes time to understand those translations and to be able to pull them off in a live setting. That is why live training is so important and why we emphasize it so strongly at our training group. It is also why I carry a couple of pocket blades pretty much everywhere I go. That is what I perceive to be an advantage of FMA, though I do perceive that if you don't carry, your EH skills may be lacking until you get more experience.

Again, I can't speak for what other schools are doing when I have not observed them. The ones I have seen convince me that some schools are training hard and some are not. Hardly surprising I guess.

Cheers,

[Ronin.74]

I'd like to say thanks to everyone for the posts so far. It seems that opinions of Modern Arnis are all over the place.

We have people that believe it to be the lowest common denominator when it comes to FMA, people that state it is a matter of who is teaching it some schools spar and teach it well and some are just out for profit, and people who are quite zealous in their support of Modern Arnis stating that everyone else in an idiot.

So what I would like to ask to those who train the system is, Does your school pass students to BB level based on "Attack Scenarios", which I would equate to TKD one steps, or do they have to actually spar full contact to be advanced to BB?

[jwinch2]

I'd like to say thanks to everyone for the posts so far. It seems that opinions of Modern Arnis are all over the place.

We have people that believe it to be the lowest common denominator when it comes to FMA, people that state it is a matter of who is teaching it some schools spar and teach it well and some are just out for profit, and people who are quite zealous in their support of Modern Arnis stating that everyone else in an idiot.

So what I would like to ask to those who train the system is, Does your school pass students to BB level based on "Attack Scenarios", which I would equate to TKD one steps, or do they have to actually spar full contact to be advanced to BB?

I can only answer for our school and system which is under the World Modern Arnis Alliance directed by Tim Hartman. In Tim's curriculum, there are several belt levels. White, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, three levels of brown, and then starting into black. As a point of reference, one is not considered a full instructor (Guro/Guru) until 2nd degree blackbelt with the highest brown belt and first degree black belt being considered "apprentice instructors". To answer part of your question there are certainly "attack scenarios" as a small part of testing but that is hardly the only part of the process. Also, they are much more dynamic than the typical TKD one steps that you are referring to.

In our curriculum, the sparring part of testing starts when testing for green belt. Brand new students who have not tested for yellow belt yet are not asked to spar though if they want to it is encouraged. Students who are already yellow belts are encouraged to spar but are not typically required to. Once you test past beyond yellow belt to orange, everyone is asked to spar on a fairly regular basis. So, to answer your question in a word, no. No one can even get beyond blue belt without performing live sparring during the testing process. Which means that in order to move beyond what is considered really a beginning student to the level of an intermediate student, you will absolutely have to live spar. By the time someone would be testing for their 2nd degree black (guro) they would have been required to live spar for testing purposes at least 6 or 7 times and countless times during training.

During our testing for green belt, we are required to live spar with rattan sticks, empty hands, and training knives. We typically devote the last half hour of class once per week to live sparring with either stick, knife, or empty hand. Or, any combination of the three, e.g. stick vs. knife; empty hand vs. stick, etc. In addition, we will do two on one sparring, sparring where one person starts from the ground while the other is standing, and other "scenario" types of sparring that still include full contact. Our instructor is also a regular participant in the sparring and has no problem mixing it up and proving that he can perform the skills he is teaching in a live setting. He has also been known to spar with students as a way to gauge what students are and are not able to pull of in live fighting. That way, he can tell what skills need to be focused on more during training and which ones people seem to have a good handle on.

Hope that helps to answer your question.

[Ronin.74]

So in your experience it is unheard of for someone to be advanced to BB without sparring during the test.

I understand that the "Attack Scenarios" are probably more dynamic than what you see in TKD but it was the closest equivalent I could think. Do you have any video of testing procedures being done at your school or know of any that in available on the internet?

[jwinch2]

So in your experience it is unheard of for someone to be advanced to BB without sparring during the test.

In our training group, that would be impossible. You would not even be able to get past the stage of beginning student without sparring. Again, I have no idea what other groups may be doing. However, I know for a fact that live sparring is a testing requirement in all of Tim Hartman's affiliated schools, of which we are one. To what level that is taken and how the sparring is handled, I have no way of knowing.

I understand that the "Attack Scenarios" are probably more dynamic than what you see in TKD but it was the closest equivalent I could think.

Not a problem, I understand completely. I just wanted to draw the distinction so that it was clear to others who may come across this thread.

Do you have any video of testing procedures being done at your school or know of any that in available on the internet?

There is no video of our testing that I am aware of. There has been talk of posting some training vids on youtube from time to time but it has not happened as of yet. I have no idea of it will in the future or not.


I would also add that if you are serious about learning more about this you may consider starting a thread or asking a question over on FMAtalk. There are ton of experienced FMA practitioners on that forum, many of whom are Modern Arnis players. They may well be able to give you the bigger picture of the system and what other groups within the Modern Arnis family are doing in regards to sparring.

[jwinch2]

Bram Frank, Rey Dionaldo, Dieter Knuttel...all these guys are top Modern Arnis practitioners that consider themselves and market themselves as experts in Modern Arnis ABOVE ALL THE OTHER ARTS THAT THEY HAVE LEARNED.

You are correct in that all of these people studied Modern Arnis. However, not all of them consider it their primary art. Dieter and Bram? Yes. Ray? No. Ray has founded his own system called Filipino Combat System Kali or FCS Kali. Ray, in addition to studying with Remy, is a Tuhon in the Sayoc system and has background in both Shotokan and Wado Karate as well as several other styles. It is my understanding from many discussions with people within the FCS organization that much of the stick work is based on Modern Arnis but that the majority of the blade work comes from the Sayoc system of which Ray helped develop a good part of it.

For someone who claims to teach Modern Arnis, you seem to know very little about it.

[escrimador6]

Long, stupid, angry rant,

How about instead of acting like a bag of dicks you provide some links to some proof about the awesomeness of Modern Arnis? Videos, interviews with respected practitioners, etc. It would be a lot more helpful in answering the OP's question. Not that your angry rant wasn't some what entertaining to read.

[jwinch2]

How about instead of acting like a bag of dicks...

Crap dude. I laughed out loud at that one. Very funny...

[Chili Pepper]

Kelly Worden, Pete Kautz and a lot of other guys take something that IMO is a bit limited and expand it and do it right.

Pete is my guro, and when he started teaching me (somewhere around 1990) he didn't bother teaching me the anyos (though he showed 'em to me once) or the empty-handed curriculum (which yeah, was based on Presas's Shotokan experience).

[Sikaranista]

He likes to brag about how great his 17 yr. old son is at MA and how he holds 4th degree in several styles.

Even if that is a generous exaggeration, isn't that enough of a clue that the kid is likely some sort of hack and not a good example of a serious practitioner? :bssign:

A few things beside his rank would make me a bit suspect. Mr. Remy Presas did a lot to popularize the FMAs within the United States. As a result, his Modern Arnis system is one of the more commonly found Filipino systems. However, "Arnis" or "Arnis de Mano" are fairly generic terms used in several FMAs, that may not refer to the Presas system. Personally I've heard a few exchanges that went like this:
Person A: "We train in Arnis"
Person B: "Oh, Modern Arnis? Yeah, I've heard of that"
Did Person A say they trained in Modern Arnis? No. That was an assumption made by Person B.

Another is the number of instructors in EH arts that have looked to the FMAs as a way to learn weapons, but haven't committed themselves to being a serious student of the program. These instructors learn certain tactics from seminars or other forms of minimal commitment learning, then teach that information to their own students without dedicating themselves to an FMA system long enough to earn a teaching rank in that system. If an FMA teacher took a few seminars in an EH system (say Kenpo or BJJ) and then tried to teach Kenpo or BJJ to his or her own FMA students, I think most Kenpo or BJJ instructors would blow a gasket over how the EH art was being presented and taught by an FMA teacher. Yet many EH instructors are doing the same with the FMAs and think nothing of it. As such, I'd be curious if the teenage ubergod was under an instructor in Mr. Presas line, or if it was taught by an EH instructor with a vague FMA lineage that called the teaching "Arnis" or "Modern Arnis".