Chapter 26 – Flawless Body Mechanics
When we think of power, Thai boxing comes to mind. When we think of leverage, jiu-jitsu comes to mind. However, when we think of body mechanics (a more subtle and sublime attribute) it is difficult to pin point an art. Or is it ? The most graceful coordinated and super tight, athletes/martial artist that I have ever trained with, are Kali and Escrima masters. I am not referring to people 40 or under, that refer to themselves as master, I am talking about true masters in their 70’s and 80’s. For some time it took me a while to understand, just why there is such a mark difference, in the movement of authentic 70 year plus Kali masters, and only as we delve into history, can we find our answers. The original art that migrated from the Philippines to America, was called Kali. Kali, is a semantically shortened down version of the word Kalis, which means knife or edged weapon. This original Filipino art brought to America, was 90% about blades. As the years went on, and these masters started passing away, and their new generations of students, would begin to sprout up, we began to notice, less and less knife techniques, and more and more stick techniques. Stick fighting, became, very vogue in America, so much so, to the point of actually changing the name of the art from Kali to Escrima. As we look at various escrimadors, there is a considerable less proclivity, for body mechanics. When one makes contact with an edged weapon, in order to cut the skin, there must be a slicing action occurring, this slicing action, facilitates a bending of the knees and twisting, which are the staples for body mechanics, world wide. Now as the years move one, we see a further delusion, of the art, as stick fighting becomes so popular, that stick tournaments sprouted up all over America, like mushrooms after a rain.
Due to the idiocy of the rules of these tournaments, what little mechanics, folks practicing escrima had, went right out the window. Resulting in two participants, flailing at each others head, reminiscent of a pillow fight. As these tournaments became more and more popular, the Filipino martial arts got more and more diluted. The participants of this homogenized version of fighting, called themselves Arnis practitioners. And all though these people may have a weapon in their hand, the quality of movement, doesn’t even resemble the old masters who practiced with live blades. So at the end of the day, if one wants to take their body mechanics to the next level, I would recommend the first thing that they do, is in addition to sticks, add 50 blades, to your training arsenal, long blades, short blades, single edged, double edged, straight edged, and wiggly.
Once roughly after 50 hours of edged weapons training has been accrued, when you look at yourself in the mirror, you won’t even recognize that dude. See ya next week !
Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.
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