Master Chuck Gauss Seminar on June 28th

I'm excited to announce that Master Chuck Gauss will be coming to Oshawa on Saturday June 28th to teach a 4 hour Modern Arnis seminar. This will be his first time here in Oshawa and I'm looking forward to having all of you meet and experience Chuck's powerful Modern Arnis ! The seminar will be at the Legends Community Centre. More details to follow !!

Pictured here is Chuck demonstrating a technique called a "cane takedown" on yours truly at last year's Michigan camp.

10 Years in Modern Arnis

This post is a bit late but, in February, I passed the 10 year anniversary of my involvement in Modern Arnis, starting with Dan McConnell of the Hilliard Martial Arts Center in Columbus, Ohio. I remember the students who were there, in February of 1998, such as Matt Burnett, Roger Predieri, Katy Ray, and Amy Snow, among others.

The seeds for the involvement in Modern Arnis were planted in October of 1989. A Notre Dame (where I went to university) friend of mine, Drew Sandler, and I travelled to New York City over fall break of the ND academic year to visit with Professors Robert Cooper and his son (and my instructor), G. Rogers Cooper as well as to visit with Professor Jose Velez. Drew and I worked out in Professor’s class at the YMCA and hung out with him as well with Professor Velez. During the course of that week, Professor Velez took Drew and I to visit Professor Vee in his apartment. As an aside, during the course of that week, Jose, Drew, and I were actually shot at while driving through one of the nastier neighborhoods of NY City. An armed robber, running out of restaurant or a grocery store, spotted us and fired. Fortunately, nothing happened. After we got back to Jose’s apartment, we inspected his car for bullet holes and found none. Whew. Anyway, back to the visit with Professor Vee (real name is Florendo Visitacion).

We were in his apartment for two hours. At this time, Prof. Vee was approximately 79-80 years old and was still quite a vital man. He introduced us to some basic arnis. Prior to that time, I had only a vague awareness of what arnis was about. We had practiced some basic empty hand against stick techniques but I didn’t really think about them in an organized way. Professor Vee introduced us to the first 5 angles. If I recall correctly, they are the same as Modern Arnis. While I do not remember much of what he taught us, I do remember that he showed us some locking techniques with the cane and they were PAINFUL !! He would then stop in mid-lock and, with a mock evil cackle, and ask if there was a camera nearby. We did take a few pictures and they are in storage somewhere. I was fascinated that you could actually lock people up with a cane. Afterwards, we had a conversation with Professor Vee. Again, I do not recall much of the conversation (other than the application of music theory to martial arts). But I did ask him some basic questions about Arnis. I told him that I was moving to Columbus, Ohio after graduating from law school the following spring. I specifically asked him what style/system of Arnis he would recommend that I study. He said “whatever you find in Columbus.”

After graduating from law school and moving to Columbus, that was the first thing I looked for. Remember, in the spring/summer of 1990, the world wide web, as we know it today, did not exist back then. I resorted to the Yellow Pages and school directories of various martial arts magazines. I could not find anyone teaching Filipino Martial Arts. So, on the recommendation of Jim Hoff, an ND friend of mine, I took up Kenpo Karate (Tracy style), which I studied for 7 years.

Over the years. I kept an eye out for any Arnis/Filipino Martial Art possibilities. Brian McCarthy, another ND friend of mine, alerted me to a martial arts e-mail list called the “Escrima Digest.” I subscribed to the Digest sometime in the mid 1990’s. Further fueling my desire to learn Arnis was Rick Clark, a pressure point expert. I attended a few of his seminars as well as a couple of camps. Very often, he would bring out the arnis sticks and show us some basic techniques. In addition, over the years, I picked up Black Belt magazine and noticed that there were listings for seminars by a Remy Presas. But I never took advantage of them....figuring that it was too far to drive and there was the practical question of “who would I train with after attending a seminar ?” If I could go back in time and change my mind, knowing what I know now..........anyway.....

In 1996 and 1997, I met with a fella in the Columbus area on an occasional basis to exchange knowledge.....my Vee JJ in exchange for his knowledge of the Advincula arnis system. We met about 10 times total and it was fun. However, the guy had to move away. Instead of being discouraged, this whetted my appetite even further.

Then in late January or early February of 1998, I was alerted by Brian McCarthy to a seminar announcement on the Escrima Digest. I immediately opened the Escrima Digest e-mail and found an announcement by Dan McConnell, later to become my Modern Arnis instructor. He announced the first Remy Presas seminar in Columbus, to be held at the Norwich Elementary School in April of 1998. I said to myself “Norwich Elementary school...mmmm, that sounds familiar.” Being a single guy, I was in the dark but it turns out that it was the local elementary school ! Just two minutes from my house ! I immediately e-mailed Dan and asked him about the seminar and where and when he taught his arnis classes.

I believe that this was in the first or second week of February of 1998. The rest is history. I had 9 great years with Dan and met a tremendous number of people, through Dan, over the years. It’s safe to say that I just fell in love with the art of Modern Arnis and went to many seminars and camps with Dan over the years, in addition to 9 years of classes at the Hilliard Martial Arts Center. He has done a great job of spreading Modern Arnis in Columbus (starting with one adult class per week and then eventually expanding it to three adult classes and two childrens’ classes per week) and bringing in folks like Professor Presas, Tony Marcial, Ken Smith, Chuck Gauss, Kelly Worden and a few others. Even though I’ve moved to Canada, here’s to many more years of growth for Master Dan and the HMAC in Columbus. Since I moved here to Canada, I understand that he has big plans for himself and his school. Best of luck !

So that’s the story of how I got involved in Modern Arnis.....it took a lot of patience!!! I will continue growing in the art by teaching it here in Oshawa, training with Master Chuck Gauss (an unbelievable martial artist) in Detroit whenever I can, and attending IMAF camps and seminars, time and finances permitting.

Toronto FMA Workshop

Kudos to Mike Cooper for a great job in putting this together !!

I have to say that I really enjoyed the FMA Workshop, which was very well organized by Mike Cooper and featured several instructors such as myself, Sean Tyler of FCS, and Punong Guro Rudy Cosico of Arnis Canada.I kicked things off by teaching the 2 canes vs. 1 cane drill and throughout the two hour session, the folks seemed to enjoy this aspect of Modern Arnis. I have to admit that I’m a big fan of this drill and its applications since it does such a great job of developing one’s natural attributes. I have to give credit to Master Chuck Gauss for teaching me this drill and for which I helped him make a video on. It’s a very challenging drill and so for that reason, I took my time in teaching it and allowing the folks to get a hold of it. Fortunately, the students were a talented bunch and caught on very quickly. After getting the basic drill down, we then moved onto one right hand technique and one left hand technique. Then I finished the session off by teaching them a right hand and left hand single stick technique. I really enjoyed teaching this session.

Next up was Sean Tyler of FCS (headed by Ray Dionaldo), who did a very impressive job of teaching footwork drills and I got a pretty good cardio workout in the process. He then moved on to teaching knife techniques which piqued the interest of my wife. She really dug this session and is now thinking of ways of slicing and dicing me thanks to Sean’s teaching. :-)

Punong Guro Rudy then gave a demonstration of Cinco Teros movements against a baseball bat, rifle with bayonet and other weapons. It was very interesting to watch this man move. Many of the moves were what Modern Arnis players would call the “traditionals” and among my favorite Arnis techniques. On display during PG Cosico’s session were techniques such as figure 8, banda y banda and the like.

The workshop concluded with a group of participants demonstrating full padded sport sparring. The action was quite fast paced with 15 second rounds. While that may not sound like a long time, I can testify, from watching the participants, that those 15 seconds can take a lot out of you. We finished off with the traditional group photo shoot.

A very gracious gift was given to myself, Mike and Sean Tyler by Rose Cosico (PG Cosico’s daughter). It was a photo of PG Cosico and Professor Remy Presas taken in Buffalo in 1997 as can be seen in the photos. Great photo !!

Pictures are courtesy of Mike. Thanks !

All in all a great time !

New Link on the Right

For ease of reference, I've added a new link to the right called "Training Schedule." Just click on it for the training schedule. No need to scroll through the blog to look for the current training schedule.

Information for Sunday's FMA Workshop (April 13th)

The workshop will be begin at 12:30 p.m. and end around 5:30 p.m. on
Sunday April 13th, 2008 at the following location:

Holy Family Community Centre
141 Close Avenue
Toronto, ON
M6K 2V6
CANADA

Parking is available on the street and in the church and school
parking lots. Again this is a free event with a goodwill donation
being encouraged to the host school to cover expenses (Arnis Canada).
Make sure you bring two sticks and a training knife.

Tony Marcial

To my pleasant surprise, there is a nice article on Punong Guro Tony Marcial in the latest edition of the FMA Digest (FMAdigest - Vol5 No2 ). Tony teaches Marcial Kali Tirada in the suburbs of Cleveland Ohio. I attended two of his seminars in Columbus at Dan McConnell's school. He is an extremely skilled martial artist and just an all around great guy. His students are fortunate to have him as a teacher.

I had posted an entry on the FMA Digest (on 12/6/2007) and put up a link to that digest. Go to that link and download Vol 5 No 2 of the FMA Digest and enjoy the article on Tony !

Book Review: Warrior Arts of the Phillipines by Reynaldo Galang

As I have a number of books on Filipino martial arts, I will embark on regular reviews of books dealing with various FMA topics. The first is “Warrior Arts of the Phillipines” by Reynaldo Galang. One can find this book on the Bakbakan International website (www.bakbakan.com), which has a number of books on FMAs for sale.

This particular book has a great overview of 6 Filipino martial arts:

(1) Balintawak Escrima
(2) Kali Ilustrisimo
(3) Lameco Eskrima
(4) Lightning Scientific Arnis
(5) Modern Arnis
(6) San Miguel Eskrima

This book is packed with 1600 photos. Each chapter opens with a biography of the founder and prominent students of each of the above FMA followed by essays of prominent students. For example, the chapter on Modern Arnis opened with a biography of Professor Remy Presas, followed by bios on Roland Dantes, Vicente Sanchez, Jeremias De La Cruz, Rodel Dagooc, and Pepito Robas. Following these bios, there are essays by Dan Anderson, Tim Hartman and Kelly Worden. This book is a great resource for those who want to find out more about the more prominent Filipino martial arts. For me personally, I was fascinated by the chapters on Balintawak as it was one of the major systems studied by Professor Presas before he founded Modern Arnis. In any case, reading the entire book carefully, one can find out how various FMAs teach their style and the concepts underlying those arts. In the process of reading and absorbing what this book has to offer, one can think about your Filipino martial art in different ways, whether it be from the perspective of being a student or a teacher.

Being a practitioner of Modern Arnis, I found the chapter on Modern Arnis to be well done, especially Kelly Worden’s excellent essay, which gave a great overview of the rich history of Modern Arnis from its earliest days up to Professor’s untimely death in August of 2001. His essay covers all the major players in the art of Modern Arnis, both those in the Phillipines and in the US. It is a difficult task to be able to cover all them major players with respect in so few pages, but Kelly Worden manages to do so.

As an aside, I have met all three essayists (Dan Anderson, Tim Hartman and Kelly Worden). All are very good martial artists, particularly Kelly Worden. I met Dan Anderson at the 2004 ArnisFest, where he taught two excellent sessions on the dive throw and joint lock reversals. I last saw Tim Hartman several years ago but remember when he was promoted to Datu by Professor Presas at the 2000 Michigan camp after testing. Tim is an excellent player. Regarding Datu Kelly Worden, he is just a phenomenal martial artist and I have had the pleasure of meeting him three times as a result of teaching weekend camps at my instructor’s (Dan McConnell) school in Columbus. Kelly does an excellent job of connecting concepts from various martial arts to the art of Modern Arnis.

Anyway, getting back to the book, I highly recommend this book as it would be an excellent addition to one’s martial arts library, particularly if you practice some form on Filipino Martial Arts.