The Essentiality of Training with Your Co-practitioners in FMA

      It is not unfamiliar to Martial Artists that practicing with their fellows is as important as breathing. If a person does not practice his techniques with a real person, he or she will only be scratching the surface of his art. Even dancers have to show their moves to critics in order for them to determine their mistakes. After all, real life combat, which is one of the purposes of practicing a Martial Art, is a very dangerous thing which will cost you your life if correct and functional movements are not altogether practiced diligently and accurately.

The Filipino Martial Arts also heavily emphasize training with a partner. In fact, partner drills almost take as much as almost 70%-90% (Depending on the style) in the practice of repetitive partner drills. This is a very important part of FMA practice because of some reasons such as but not limited to:

  It trains your eyes. You can hit a certain target all day, memorizing the very same spots where the angle you are supposed to hit would be. However, what if these angles move like in real combat? Drills keep your eyes open and alert, it teaches you that a target, in real combat, will not be stationary when you try to reach it. And you will definitely reach it if you have a trained eye. Furthermore, drilling can help you be familiarized with certain telegraphic movements which were otherwise invisible when you were just thinking of an imaginary person in front of you. However seasoned your partner may be, sometime during your practice, you will discover his unconscious pattern. And this will therefore help you see the bigger picture where you can fit your techniques into.

      Your hands will hurt. Because you will surely be hit. Imagine that a drill is not just a drill between you and your co-practitioner, but that it is a three-person micro-class. Where is the third man? The third person is your master. He hits your hand by way of your co-practitioner’s stick. He always reminds you of your flaws. And that’s how you learn that the way you did it was wrong.

      You will learn to dance. In some drills in FMA such as the Kontradas(a drill where a Feeder gives you a semi-telegraphic attack to defend and parry and you respond with your own semi-telegraphic attack. By the way, the degree of telegraphing and speed of the attack decreases as you and your co-practitioner advances in level), the feeder sometimes lead you in a dance like manner, opting you to use your footwork in order to adjust to the attack given. In this drill, sometimes you unconsciously use the footwork you have tried several times in your own but never really quite got a hold of. Some of these moments will send chills down your spine because of the realization that footwork should be a natural reaction engraved heavily in you as a result of rigorous training in drills.

        You can get valuable information from your partner. Your partner in a drill is your first and foremost critic. If your partner is a senior, he or she can point out your flaws and it will help you adjust and correct your own movement. If your partner is a junior, there’s a hell lot of chance that one of you will get hit. And that is a signal that the two of you are doing it wrong, or that you should ask your Instructors for clarification and help. If your both at the same level, well, it only shows that you have the same passion for Martial Arts and that it will be comforting for you that you are practicing with a person who will potentially become your close friend or acquaintance. By this, and by your own enjoyment at your own risk, you can lift the challenge in your execution of your drills like vamping up the speed of your strikes, therefore improving the quality of the results of your practice.

      You will have a new friend. The Martial Arts world sure is teeming with hatred, jealousy, controversies, rivalries and all sorts of negativity. After all, Martial Arts at its most primitive form, is killing, and it is not nice. But over the years, the concept of Martial Arts had softened and has become a path of improvement and development for a lot of people. It has become a concept that instead of bringing war, it has made itself an instrument of peace. A lot of people in our modern world today are getting more and more disconnected as technology have become closer to our reach. Having a Physical Activity such as Martial Arts can improve our People Skills. And under the banner of Martial Arts practice, drilling is one of the most intimate way of learning to connect with people. Therefore, there is a greater chance that you can find a new real friend in a dojo than in an internet cafe teeming with people on their facebook.

These are just 5 of the reasons why drilling is important in the practice of Filipino Martial Arts. Although it is not just exclusive to Filipino Martial Arts, there are some reasons why it is “essential”, which means that, without drills, Filipino Martial Arts may not be identifiable from other Martial Arts because the way FMA practitioners do these drills have a unique touch than other Martial Artists.

Say for example, we have two Martial Arts (Disclaimer: I am only familiar with the practice of Karate because I am a Green Belt in Shorin Ryu, that doesn’t mean that I am an expert, and that I am just presenting a comparative scenario, if in anyways there would be lacking information here, please share your thoughts) Karate and Arnis/Kali. Both of these arts have drills but the way they are taught (at least in the very traditional styles of Karate) may differ.

Example, in Shorin Ryu you have a drill where a premeditated set of block for a premeditated set of strike i.e. you only use the inward or outward block for strikes in the body, and upward block is only for a jodan tsuki or a punch in the face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iq1Eizd2Ts

Which then evolves to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5I-bwAqmzw as their practice progresses.

In some styles of Arnis, we also begin with this, like for example, in Balintawak where there is a basic block for a certain angle of strike. But some Arnis/Kali Styles have more flexible drills, depending on how you want to control your opponent. I could not describe this very much but if you have time, please just watch this link on Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg-He20szeo

This is a presentation by the timeless Grandmasters Antonio Diego and Christopher Ricketts with music by Grandmaster Yuli Romo and under the sharp supervision of the Legend GM Antonio Ilustrisimo. As you can see there are differences in the drills and sometimes these differences often define the principles of a certain Martial Art. As we have observed, some of the unique characteristics and principles of the Ilustrisimo drills are:

1.    The Essentiality of ‘Defanging the Snake’ or hitting the hand which holds the weapon. Which is almost an indispensable principle in all the very old Eskrima Styles such as the De Campo Orihinal. Also, the primary emphasis of training with the weapon creates this principle.

2.    The Circularity of the responses or the counter attacks. Circularity in footwork and in stick motion as opposed to the directness of the Karate Drills. But this is not to be misconstrued as ‘fancy’ moves – in their circularity, you can see the directness.

3.    The use of counter to counter attacks. As it is shown in the demo of the Ilustrisimo Grandmasters, the feeder (GM Diego -Black)) would also spend a little time in counter attacking a counter-attack of the defender (GM Ricketts -Red) wherefore giving the feeder a chance at the worst, when it comes to real life application. Its like this, imagine if, what if your counter to certain attack gets blocked or was negated? How would you respond? Ilustrisimo gives you a drill to answer that.

4.    The rhythm of drill can be adjusted, as opposed to the 2/2 speed or cadence of the Karatekas. As an observation, these above is not yet comprehensive but they are the characteristics which clearly initially shows up. The point here is, these characteristics show principles which makes Ilustrisimo unique with other Martial Arts. Some FMA practices have unique drills to. But if I may just be allowed to say a little more, practicing with a partner is also a characteristic of Filipino Culture. The Filipinos are basically a family and socially inclined culture. If we will relate this to the practice of drills, then we can surely say that truly drills are inseparable in FMA like Kata is inseparable to Karate where individual hard work is emphasized. A point of observation also here is, in the practice of FMA, sometimes, we are allowed to have fun, play with and create our own expression. 

                                                                                                                                               K.A.Cinco