Comment by Joshua Morale on February 19, 2010 at 7:44pm

Greetings,
To be honest, if you do not carry at least one thing that can be used as a makeshift self defense tool you are foolish. there are many legal options for self defense, pocket/palm stick, walking cane, pepper spray, stun gun , Flashlight, fat marker etc. Defending yourself empty handed should be the absolute last resort. I have always said unarmed= lack of fore-planning

The biggest plus to FMA training is that the basic principles of movement apply to anything you pick up , there are only so many ways the human body can move. A stick is universal to any weapon with the exception to flexible weapons but essentially they are restricted to the same lines of movement as well. I am fond of explaining this universal concept by defending myself with a frying pan. (one of my favorite weapons).

I agree that weapons training allows for faster acclimation of skills, i have found if training a novice, by using a stick, it gives the newbie a visual representation of the movements as it correlates the concepts with a tangible visual reference.

unfortunately most systems that do not do a lot of weapons training are severely lacking in terms of understanding of the underlying principles of the weapons they train. if a school trains heavily for kata based competitions, they rarely have an understanding of the movements they perform. most of the time the movements are regurgitated from one person to the next with out knowledge of the application. Its great that you look like you can use a weapon but the false sense of security goes out the window real quick should you be faced by someone who really does know a weapon . Great post thanks -Josh

Comment by Ramyer Asonalleba on February 20, 2010 at 11:30pm

The mind, body and soul, if they are in one accord then you have a much powerful weapon. Some people always think that if they have a deadly weapon then the advantage is on their side. I always learned that the best weapon of defense is not to engage if you don't have to. A safety conscious person will always assist and survey every situation if the risk involved to be too high that you might get into situation or accident. Some people would always say that shit happens but accidents can be avoided or if not can be anticipated.

It is always a big advantage to develop our awareness towards safety consciousness and this would most likely delimit the risk involved to be likely get into an accident. Our decision and judgement will always predict the outcome of the situation. Do we have to get involve? When to make contact?, or simply when the moment calls for a life saving decision as a last resort to engage as swift and precise as possible.

Simple lessons that I learned from my boyscout years is that to be ready at all times and be resourceful. Survival is never taking advantage of the weak but to overcome challenges and never give up, never surrender and always keep that strength and well to survive.

Everyday, as we goes out into the open, our life is always at risk. That is the reason why we have to prepare ourselves and we invest our time and devote our resources for self preservation training. We expect the worst as we always trained hard and hope for the best.

As not at all times that you carry something that you can utilized as a defensive weapon, but at the same time if it is the last resort then we can be resourceful and creative. Survey the scene and if you look around you then I am pretty sure that something can be put to good use. I am sure that their will be a lot of stuff that we can be imaginative as a defensive weapon and we just have to be creative about it.

The chair is always a good tool to build a shield against a yielding knife, a handkerchief can be a deadly weapon if you know how to use it, ball pen or the the belt and buckle is my favorite, it is very effective. Many to mentions but I am sure that there can be a lot of things that we can put to good use as a defensive weapon.

The human body is the most complete and well equipped defensive weapon, if you use it wisely and properly then you can be as deadly as the man with a deadly weapon on their hand. Life saving specially your own is never a competition who makes the most points and scores but if I have to cheat death then I'd be smart to use it in order to survive.

We have to think outside the box and just be a little bet creative and express yourself in a graceful manner and hopefully it'll be alright.

Here's some of my crazy suggestions: But mind you!, they works!

Spitting,bitting,gauging, poking, scratching, pinching, squeezing, belting, snapping of the handkerchief, and my favorite is the farting! it can never be as simple as that.

Mapasalamaton!
LSK-FMA

Comment by John R. Malmo on February 21, 2010 at 10:27am

Good points Ramyer. I think you, and many members on MyFMA.net, are able to reason and understand with this perspective because we DO train with weapons. Someone that does not train with weapons, is limited in their understanding.

A good friend of mine was a police officer in Rockford, Illinois. He was called to a domestic disturbance where a mother had pulled a knife on her children, and was threatening to kill them. He was the first on scene. As soon as he entered the home, he found her facing him with knife ready. Thankfully, she was 10 to 15 feet away. Rather than dropping her with her service weapon, (which the department's attorneys would have preferred) he grabbed a chair and threw it at her. The chair knocked her down and the knife went flying safely away. Backup arrived and they 'cuffed her.

The situation certainly presented a "justified" shooting. However, he chose to spare her life because he assessed the situation and acted. A modified weapon is a great tool, but it's still a weapon. =)

Comment by Kurt Schanaman on February 28, 2010 at 11:11am

Had my first REAL training on Saturday and I must say I appreciate the appearance of "randomness" in the training. Quite literally, it seems GM Shelley is all about providing the random "tools" first in preparation for testing whether a person can put them all together in any situation to be effective.

Having witnessed how fast, random and chaotic real street skirmishes can be (where no rules apply), I can see now that Eskrima has some very realistic instruction, depending on the instructor and mindset of the student.

I'm new to all of the "muscle memory" technique yet though. The one thing I can see that will be hard to overcome is the fact that, from an early age, we are taught to think first then act. All our education is "think think think" from day one. Even some of us who were in the military weren't trained very well in spontaneous reaction to the point where the reactions were correct.

It will be interesting to see how the training can help me, a student, break old habits of "thinking through actions" and just simply having a complete mind-body-spirit spontaneity.

When some of you speak of "muscle memory", are the actions and reactions generally the right ones? I know this may be a hard question to answer since most folks don't find that they run into real-life tests (thank goodness for that!) from which to see if it really works for them, but it's just a question.

Comment by Ramyer Asonalleba on March 3, 2010 at 9:31pm

Good luck to you and always remember that it is a good and life long investment, thus I would say you surely pick a good investment. A good investment will always yield a good return. Train hard, expect for the worst and can only hope for the better, this way we kinda used to a hard situation and always survive them one after the other.

Time will get by so fast and next thing you know, you will become what you are and not how other people want you to become. That is the beauty of the Filipino Martial Arts. It constantly evolve in every person and adaptive in so many ways and later you will realize that you are more effective if you do it the way it works for you.

Some things may not work with others but if you adopt to the way you think it works for you then somehow the Art would just evolve in a mysterious ways and you will be the living testimony. We cultivate not only the physical aspect of the art, nor the mental aspect of the Art but the most important of all is the spiritual aspect of the discipline.

All of these, will guide you in your journey towards your goal which most Martial Artist tend to neglect. Skills without knowledge is emptiness and without soul is loneliness. You and me and others is always connected as complex as the universe but we can only find a common ground where we can be one as a whole. Mind Body and Soul. Without any of these, we are nothing.

Mapasalamaton!
LSK-FMA

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