VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 1
To thine own self be true
CONTENTS "To thine own self be true"
Vol. 1 - Stick Arts
14 Ron Saturno
Speed
34
52
72
Mark Mikita
Michael Blackgrave
Dexter Labonog
Cuentada: Learning to Prioritize in the Flow
The Long Pole: A Western Perspective
Bridges of Rattan, Bolos and Daggers
88
110
Mahipal Lunia
Burton Richardson
Hermit Training
Traditional Stick Fighting: Common Themes Oceans Apart
2 | The Immersion Review
130
150
Guido Caporizzi
Jeevan Gowda
Stick Fencing and Canne Italiana
An Interview with Sensei Sastri: Jo Jutsu Staff Techniques
162 Marc Denny
Dog Brothers Martial Arts’ Seven Ranges and Stick Grappling
180
208
226
Mark Human
Bryan Cannata
William McGrath
Applying stick fighting skills in the modern environment
Sticks and Chivalry
Tapada Staff
Contents | 3
From the Editors
LOOKING U
THE ROBES OF M WELCOME TO THE FIRST issue of the Immersion Review: a journal for the martial comprehensivists. You may wonder why anybody would put out a magazine now when everybody watches videos. And why publish another magazine on martial arts, when everybody knows if you want to know what the best martial art is, just try it out in the octagon and you will get your answer. ‘Hold on!’ others may say, martial arts are more than that; it can instill self-discipline, respect for others, and an honoring of tradition. These are all good points, I would respond, but the fights we know, people got jumped on by crowds, people fought with steel-toed boots, pieces of pipe, baseball bats,
4 | The Immersion Review
knives and an occasional revolver. Yes, martial arts can develop one’s character, but so could joining the Boy Scouts. Learning how to tie knots and identify clumps of poison ivy did not turn us into Junior Seal team-6 members, but it gave our parents a few hours free of us. The point is combative sports and raising good citizens has always played a minor role in martial art traditions of a community. The problem is now that these two minor aspects have taken center stage. As a result, people protected by their wealth and status ignore the fact that throughout the world, they rely on their ability to assault and dominate others to gain money or goods. Others successfully fight off assaults to
UP
MARS make it back home safe. Such is life at times. In a world where MMA gyms train competitive athletes, and martial art schools churn out healthy and respectful teenagers, there are still a few who hew to the old ways. They understand the training that is necessary to prepare someone for what is often one of the most frightening situations somebody can encounter; a real fight where you’re outnumbered, or weapons are involved. These types of fights might occur in several variable scenarios that should shape your response. The ways a soldier might clear a house full of enemy soldiers after his weapon jams are different, than
dealing with a group surrounding your wife and children in a mall parking lot. And this should differ from dealing with a drunk and angry friend. In all scenarios, though, one's responses should be quick, efficient, and effective, yet reasonable. However, the ability to dominate a situation is vital. If you can’t dominate a combative encounter, then all the other benefits of training are meaningless. And contrary to what many martial art teachers might say, most combative encounters are armed encounters. While jump spinning heel kicks and upside down reverse berimbolos to a heel hook have their place, an armed fight might not be the best place to try these moves out. From the Editors | 5
Being able to deal with a situation, get home, have a drink, relax, and get ready for work the next day is enough for many. However, for a few, their obsession to strip away all extraneous moves to perfect their combative skills becomes something of a quest. At some point in this journey, a simple set of trained responses to armed combat may become more than a couple of good moves; it transforms itself into art. It becomes a vehicle that can embody and reflect the maj6 | The Immersion Review
esty of a sunrise, the terror of a volcanic explosion, and the tragic beauty of a cheetah taking a down an impala through the effective, efficient and elegant use of combative principals to dominate a combative encounter. Over the centuries, many of those whose dedication to combative arts have risen to the level of an art form have codified their knowledges and passed them down. Many of these arts have died out along the way due
to catastrophic events, lack of interest, or students who just couldn’t ‘get it’. However, in this issue and those to come, the Immersion Foundation brings to you the ideas, the stories, the concepts, and the methods of those who have progressed much further on this journey then we have. Graciously they have come out of the shadows, back from the desert or come down from the mountains to encourage us, inspire us, and give us some advice to take a few more steps down this never-ending road to understand the truth of what lies at the root of all martial arts.
tack and riposte.
Opening this issue is the contribution from Ron Saturno. Blending an intense apprenticeship with Angel Cabales with recent scientific findings on physiology and neurology, Ron Saturno brings out the hidden knowledge buried in the most basic drills of serrada escrima in order to make their art more effective and efficient.
Solo training should be a key part of any martial artists training regime. Mahipal Lunia gives us a variety of solo training methods from various systems he has studied to cultivate specific skills we all need to take our skills to the next level.
Next in line, Mark Mikita’s article on cuentada advises us how to identify the logical progression of possibilities that arise when two weapons cross. From this event, he explains how this understanding can open your mind to the almost endless possibilities of countless applications of attack and counterat-
A common issue that arises among those who hew to the old ways to make it relevant to a new land and a new time. Michael Blackgrave tells us of his journey to showcase the advantages of any martial artist willing to adapt the six-and-a-half-point pole of WC to their training. In a wonderful and informative article recalling a disappearing Stockton, Dexter Labonog tells us how his teacher Leo Giron transformed his escrima to ensure its practicality and survival in the western world.
Burton Richardson takes us on a trek around the world to study the combative traditions of the Philippines and South Africa. Here he explores the commonalities and differences between two arts from these countries. In our opinion, Italy is a storehouse of combative traditions just waiting to be explored. Supporting this belief, Guido Caporizzi gives us a brief history of the
From the Editors | 7
martial arts of Southern Europe, specifically the role of stick fighting in Northern Italy and France. For years a group of dedicated men from this area have sought to preserve the hard-won knowledges of the old fighters yet find a way to ensure its popularity and continued existence in the 21rst century. In an interview with a man steeped in the Japanese battlefield arts of the samurai, Sensei Sastri answers some questions about his Ryu and the way energetics are used to charge and manipulate the jo. From the university of hard knocks on a thick skull known as the Dog Brothers gathering, Marc Denny breaks down and organizes what he sees as the seven ranges of combat. Here he urges us to take heed of all these ranges and have responses to each of them if you get in a fight or face the consequences of being unprepared. Forced to leave their lands and adapt to new ways, some rural Africans did better than others. Some turned to crime, and conversant with the stick and stabbing spear transposed their knowledge to modern weapons to make their way in the world. In this article, Mark Human describes how security officials in
8 | The Immersion Review
South Africa continue to adapt their training to deal with these people and their ways of fighting. Again, demonstrating how one expression of fundamental combative principles is often expressed in different ways, Bryan Cannata’s article gives the reader the history of another path to search and cultivate the truth of controlled fighting as a training tool. As the Dog Brothers took off on a journey based on the teachings from the old Filipino escrimadors to discover the truth of fighting, another group of North Americans looked backward to the pre-modern days of chivalric Europe to learn best how to hone one’s combative skills. Finally, one of the first generation of students of Leo Gaje of Pekiti Tirsia, William McGrath, teaches us a short spear form from the island of Cebu that he learned years ago. The roots of our ideas that led to this journal go back to the mid19th century during a time when European nations began expanding their reach around the globe. One problem that arose was that after hundreds of years of the supremacy of musketry, the sword and spear again came to the fore in European combat. The problem was no one remembered how to fight with these weap-
ons. The French turned to the Poles, who had a long experience fighting mounted warriors from Central Asia. England, on the other hand, turned to the Northwest of India, where insanely brave and disciplined warriors armed with swords, lances, and muskets wreaked havoc among English soldiers for many years. So, there was a practical need to learn how to fight with bladed weapons. Second, with the growing expansion of European exploration and colonization of
the world, the colonizers began to run across peoples who lived in varying forms of political and technological societies as if they were lost in time. This coincided with scientists' interest in evolution. And scientists turned to look at these people and rank these societies in an evolutionary ladder to show how the entire world will one day become modern and civilized like the West. Out of these two projects, Sir. R. F. Burton, who began his military service in India with
the 18th Bombay Native Infantry, blended the two interests. How do people arm themselves to fight? And what does the way people arm themselves and fight others tell us about the process of human evolution? He called this discipline Hoplology. Or the science of armed combat. The word derives from the big oval shield or hoplos that ancient Greek hoplite warriors once used to form a phalanx. Since then, the fortunes of this discipline have risen and fallen. Hoplology has taken many forms. But still, the fundamental question remains. How do people choose to arm themselves properly and fight? It is this question that drives 10 | The Immersion Review
The Immersion Foundation. Finally, some of you might wonder about the name. While the name might appear a little strange or cumbersome, however, it reflects a core concept regarding the way The Immersion Foundation approaches the study of combative arts. What we mean by the term Immersion is a complete deep dive into a modality or discipline to the point of being where the complete mind/ body/spirit is involved in the discipline. Moving to the term martial comprehensivists is a nod to Buckminster Fuller. Bucky coined the term comprehensivist to refer to someone who special-
izes in comprehending knowledge within the broadest possible framework. Bucky further added that a comprehensivist might periodically plunge very deeply into a narrow subject or specialized project; however, this is always a part of a much larger plan.” We follow that lead in our goal of becoming martial comprehensivists – developing as broad a framework of combat as possible while diving deep into our fascinations. But don’t let this take intellectualizing deter you from the wealth of wisdom gained through hard work that lies within these pages. Read, think, put down the magazine, and experiment with what the
Mahipal Lunia Executive Editor
authors are saying. Then pick up the magazine and read some more. Then write to tell us and what you found out. With help from the authors and the readers, we hope to bring out better, stronger, and more exciting material with every issue. Once we feel we have lost our mojo, our passion, we will shut the journal down. We are not going out like the Rolling Stones but more like the blues singer Robert Johnson or Little Walter. Struggling and playing with every ounce of passion we possess until the lights go out. Enjoy!
Michael J Ryan Editor-at-Large
From the Editors | 11
SPEED Ron Saturno
“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” I say. It’s my mantra. When I practice escrima, I mentally repeat it again and again. It’s hard, damn hard to seamlessly transition from movement to movement during a spar smoothly and efficiently. It’s a very rare breed that can.
14 | The Immersion Review
16 | The Immersion Review
“SLOW IS SMOOTH and smooth is fast,” I say. It’s my mantra. When I practice escrima, I mentally repeat it again and again. It’s hard, damn hard to seamlessly transition from movement to movement during a spar smoothly and efficiently. It’s a very rare breed that can. My teacher, the late Angel Cabales, the progenitor of Serrada Escrima, could. I have a long way to go, and yet a few believe me to be fast. In my fashion, I am fast but not in the same manner as my late master. After repeated spars with the late serrada master, I eventually realized that no matter how fast I moved, he was waiting for me. He accomplished this by superb timing, zone defense, and setups for a world-class wicked backhand, balls of steel, and actual combat experience. I am saying that “in fact,” Angel Cabales only appeared
SPEED • Ron Saturno
| 17
VOL 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 2
Traditional and Modern: False Dichotomies
For the martial arts comprehensivist
Top - Mahesh Kumar Ramakrishna Bottom - Mestre Avelino & Mahipal Lunia
VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 2
Traditional and Modern: False Dichotomies
118
92
Dr. Marco Quarta
Bethany J. Dillon
First Things First: The War Club in Native American Warrior Arts
The Italian Stick Fighting Tradition: A Journey from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era
138
52
Pedro Silva
JC Cabiero
The Pure Art of Angel Cabales Serrada ng Escrima
22 T. J. Desch-Obi, Ph.D
Grima: the Venezolano Moderno Style
Jogo do Pau and the Differences between Dueling and Group Combat
154 Vincent Tamer
(Post-Script) Strife and Folklore: Discovering the Rural Fighting Art of Jogo do Pau
40 Jorge Prina
Bonafont Argentine Cane Combat System: Combat with a Tango Flavor . . .
CONTENTS
Traditional and Modern: False Dichotomies
Vol. 1:2 - Stick Arts
182 Toby Cowern
Sticks: Branching Out
190 Henri-Robert Vilaire
The Art of Jo Jutsu
70 Mahesh Kumar Ramakrishna
Indian Lathi
14 Jigaba Bwaira
African Stick Fighting in Maguzawa/Hausa and Zulu Cultures
206 Stevan Plinck
The Staff in Pentjak Silat Sera
TRADITIONAL &
MODERN FALSE DICHOTOMIES WE WERE IN A SCHOOL HALL learning to tie knots for our Boy Scouts merit badges. As a ten-yearold kid, I just stared at my manual and twisted my piece of rope in all kinds of ways, trying to look busy and hoping nobody would notice I had no idea what I was doing. One of the older, cooler kids saw me flailing away uselessly and, with a smile, said to me, “Here, let me show you an easy way of tying a clove hitch.” He took my piece of rope and held it two in both hands, then, with a few quick, deft twists
4 | The Immersion Review
of his fingers, tied a clove hitch. I was impressed at his abilities and felt so good he actually would talk to me and not just sneer at my incompetence. He went over it with me a few times until I got it, and I felt good. I can tie a clove hitch, and an older guy likes me. “Why are you teaching that kid that? That won’t work!” I looked up and, for the first time, noticed an older overweight man in his 60s sitting in a fold-up chair about ten feet from me. The teenager responded with a smile, “What do you mean?
From the Editors
This is the best way to tie a clove hitch!” “How are you going to do that to a tree with a 20-foot diameter? What good is teaching that kid when you have to tie a clove hitch to a big tree?” The teenager just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. The old man looked at me and said, “C’mere kid, I’ll show you how we used to tie knots. I’ll show you how to tie knots like a lumberjack. Put your arm up! Now watch, you got to throw the rope around the tree and catch it on the other side like this,” he said as he gently tossed the rope around my bony forearm, cinched it up, and tied a nice clove hitch. “This is how you do it out in the forest.” Then he showed me a timber hitch and told me a story about how, when he was young, he used to cut and haul logs from a forest. I was in heaven! A
real lumberjack was teaching me how to tie real lumberjack knots. I left with a swollen head and a smile like a Cheshire Cat. Let’s fast- forward 25 years, and I’m cutting trees and dragging them through the Amazon rainforest. I remembered what that old man said, as I threw my rope around some trees that I just cut and pulled trees down to the river and lashed them together to make a raft. My girlfriend at the time looked at me like I was Crocodile Dundee, Daniel Boone, and MacGyver all rolled up into one. Or at least that is what I think she thought as she watched me. ‘Tradition! These old guys knew what they were doing,’ I thought to myself. This works a lot better than twirling your fingers to make a knot. However, to be honest, while the old ways worked best this time,
From the Editors | 5
they are not always the best option. What matters for someone faced with a challenge in their everyday life such as a violent encounter is to successfully emerge from the situation in a way that can be judged as victorious. That is what matters, not whether one best relies on traditional or modern means. From an evolutionary hoplological viewpoint, the body, in conjunction with material technology occurring within specific environments, has adapted itself over the last 50,000 years to push, pull, throw, or launch objects or jump and run in efficient and effective ways. How these fundamental principles of movement manifest themselves is contingent upon
6 | The Immersion Review
what a culture feels is appropriate, right, and normal, the technology available at the time, and the individual’s potential to enact these moves. With this understanding, a hoplologist’s concern is not with what is traditional or modern. Instead, a hoplologist looks at how people continually draw upon what is considered traditional and what is identified as modern to successfully engage in combative acts. In such an inquiry, questions arise such as: What factors led some arts to persist and others to die out, and others to change radically? Among those arts that have persisted, what has been preserved? What are some of the reasons an art has changed, and how has this change manifested itself
in the art? Or, how is the art being used by those practicing it today? In the second release of the Immersion Review, eleven highly trained martial artists explore the connections and disjunctures between what has been called “traditional” and “modern” through their personal practice of their arts. First, turning our eyes to specific communities, the reader is introduced to three warrior cultures from the continent of Africa. In each place, the ethos of the warrior and learning the traditional modalities of combat in a modern world is valued and treated as a relevant and enduring method of preparing young men to withstand the vagaries of a modern world. While an incredible amount of knowledge about African history has come to light, the history of Africans in the Americas is still yet to be known. Many Africans that came to the Americas with the first European ships were conquistadores, free servants, sailors, and slaves. Many of them took off to the interior, where they created independent communities and forged alliances and trading relationships with Indigenous peoples and different European communities to maintain their freedom. Other times, these communities isolated themselves
to such a degree that they came to the attention of coastal elites only in the 1990s. Arising out of the struggle to build themselves new lives was the development of a number of combative traditions that are still unknown to those interested in martial arts. Dr. Desch-Obi has kindly shared with us a few lines about one school of the 30 schools of Afro-Colombian grima open today out of what must have been dozens 50-75 years ago. Here he gives the reader a history of the origins, development, tactics, and some of the life histories of practitioners of the school of venezolano moderno. Staying in the New World, around the same time that the wild west frontier in North America was coming to an end and the cowboy was being turned into a ranch hand, similar social and political conditions were occurring down South. Between the Rio de Plata and Parana Rivers, the once immense grasslands of the pampas where men and wild cattle could roam free were slowly being fenced off by barbed wire and privatized. The wild gauchos who once owed allegiance to no-man, no-god, and no-law, were reduced to scrambling for temporary paid labor to ward off starvation and poverty.
From the Editors | 7
Forced to move to urban areas, they competed with hordes of immigrants fleeing poverty and political repression in Europe and the Ottoman empire. Many of them ended up working in newly established industrialized abattoirs set up to process and export beef in refrigerated ship-holds worldwide. In this mix of rural and urban, native and immigrant, traditional and modern, Jorge Prina writes of the new cultural forms arising from the blend of the old and the new, and new ways of fighting emerging from this jumble of people, technologies, and times. Then, the ever-reclusive JC Cabiero channels the spirit of Angel Cabales in his fascinating article on serrada. Some authors here, by contrast, have cast their gaze wide to examine the combative traditions that once created empires, fought off neighboring enemies, or resisted the onslaught of colonialism. In these articles, the reader can get a hint of how the past still informs and shapes the minds and bodies of practitioners today as they draw on traditional weapons to make sense of and deal with age-old issues in a modern world. Asana Mahesh Ramakrishna, while ostensibly identifying the use of the staff—or lathi—in the combative traditions of India, provides a fas-
8 | The Immersion Review
cinating overview of the wealth of indigenous combative traditions still extant in India today. Only recently, the Immersion Foundation has been able to open these doors to outsiders that have been closed for so long. Stay tuned for further work on this part of the world. Moving across the Atlantic to the New World, Bethany June Dillon takes us on a historical panoramic journey across the Americas and through time to marvel at the wealth, diversity, and long history of the weapons developed by indigenous peoples: how they armed themselves, trained their youth, and fought a range of rivals and enemies, and how these old ways are adapted and used to navigate a modern world. In the same vein, Dr. Marco Quarta provides a panorama of armed combative traditions from all over the Italian peninsula. Beginning back in the Middle Ages, Dr. Quarta introduces the reader to paintings and instructional manuals proving the existence of an old, wide, and varied approach to fighting with sticks used up and down the peninsula. Bringing us up through the present, Dr. Quarta presents some of the prominent exponents of stick/blade fencing and the schools they began that one may still train in today. Then
going down into the rural Mezzogiorno, we learn about the wealth of secret societies dedicated to the pursuit of protecting or exploiting one’s community, who still operate and have lately opened their doors to strangers and hosted modern competitions. Changing levels, so to speak, we dive into a hoplological or pragmatically oriented exploration of the pragmatic corporeal knowledges, developed in conjunction with material technologies designed to overcome those who would stand in one’s path. There are fans of MMA who proudly boast the Octagon is the best place to judge an art’s practicality.
I would suggest the point has merit but fails to consider how people actually fought in the past and still fight today under a range of circumstances—situations where the attributes learned in the Octagon are not always the most relevant or practical. No matter how many social media masters say differently, ambuscades, mass attacks being chased down streets and through alleys by groups of armed men, have been the way many people since time immemorial have experienced violence. In the mountains and down in the river valleys of northern Portugal, this was a real everyday concern up until 50 years ago. From a rural hard-working people determined to maintain
From the Editors | 9
their land and dignity in the face of all who sought to take them away, the art of jogo do pau emerged and has persisted until today. Looking at today’s reduction of martial arts to one-on-one encounters, Pedro Silva describes some of the strategic and tactical issues between one-on-one combat and massfights in their numerous configurations with just a humble stick for protection. Then, coming from a modern Special Forces background, Toby Cowern looks at the multiple attributes a simple stick possesses and how it can aid one in a wide range of challenges one may encounter in everyday life.
10 | The Immersion Review
From here, we are taken back to two Asian traditions, one derived from the military elite of feudal Japan and the other from Java’s laboring and elite classes. Befitting an organized, hierarchical, and literate society, Sensei Vilaire provides a list of principles, weapons, and ways of using different lengths of sticks as taught in the kaze arashi ryu. Writing of the West Javanese art of silat sera, Stevan Plinck provides an overview of his art through the concept of base-angle-leverage to maneuver any sized weapon in any situation one may come across.
What all these authors have recognized is that the traditional is not a moribund museum piece suitable for folkloric exhibits, nor does it hold all the secrets of combat. Neither is it true that the modern is merely a hodgepodge of moves taken from a few different styles and called something new; or alternatively, that the modern is a more scientific, effective, and efficient way of doing things. Our bodies have not changed too dramatically since the Neolithic Revolution that led to the beginning of settled villages, the domestication of animals and crops, and the need to acquire more or defend the property that one had. In this struggle, new technologies and new tactics were continuously introduced. Training the youth to prepare for combat in settled areas led to a plethora of unarmed and armed fighting styles of various forms of lethality and ways of training or practicing to prepare the youth for their expected obligations as warriors. Weapons change, rules of engage-
ment change, but there are a limited number of ways to use the body either offensively or defensively to maximize a move’s power, efficiency, and efficacy. Sticking to Western unarmed combative arts, such moves as “Ruby Robert” Fitzsimmons solar plexus punch, Jack Dempsey’s falling step punch, or Lancashire’s holding head in chancery, are bread-and-butter moves that have withstood the test of time. They are often forgotten and reintroduced time and time again to upcoming generations who find them useful. Each generation trains many of the same moves as those who came before them, because it works. What martial artists, warriors, and fighters have always sought out is a way to move the body in conjunction with material technology that is effective, efficient, and judged by one’s community as the proper way to take a guy out. And it is within this pragmatic logic that the traditional and the modern lie.
Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D Managing Editor
Mahipal Lunia Executive Editor
From the Editors | 11
INDIAN LATHI Mahesh Kumar Ramakrishna
MY NAME IS MAHESH KUMAR RAMAKRISHNA, and I am happy to be a part of The Immersion Labs to bring my experience in showcasing one of the popular forms of Indian martial arts practices across India. I started to practice silambam and kuthu varisai (the name for lathi comes out of silambam of Tamil Nadu state) at the age of eight and completed it at the age of 18. I then started researching, teaching, and then traveling across South India to gain more knowledge. It has been a long journey since then, and it is still going on.
INDIAN LATHI
· Mahesh Kumar Ramakrishna | 71
Introduction to the Lathi The Indian lathi is a bamboo staff, which is hard as steel. I cannot compare it with any other weapon available in nature as regards its strength and durability. Today across India, the lathi is often the preferred weapon of choice. The use of the lathi has a long history in human history. Archaeological research has uncovered evidence pointing to the use of staff by Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens to hunt. There still exist hunting and gathering tribes in parts of remote India today who rely upon lathi, spear, bow and arrow, boomerang or valari, deer horns or madu, and small sharp weapons like a dagger for hunting and defending their territories against farmers and bandits. The Indian subcontinent is one of the oldest on mother earth and has made significant contributions in all fields of human knowledge. The journey of ancient Indian warfare has its own significance as the Indian subcontinent was well versed in the arts of war. Strategy, tactics, and weapons were developed in the field of battle and used successfully to defend our land for thousands of years from invaders from Asia and Europe. As India became occupied by invaders from West Asia (in the 15th century by
72 | The Immersion Review
the Mughal empire) and Europe (in the 18th century by the British), the colonial overlords banned the training and practice of the arts of war. India’s warriors suffered a major blow through the imposition of this edict. Additionally, it proved to be a great challenge for those who struggled to keep the arts of war alive for the next generation. Possessed of a profound understanding of how to teach men how to fight, groups of warriors came up with the idea of training the next generation in the lathi, as it was not among the weapons banned by the colonial authorities. In the end, this turned out to be a prescient move on their part, as seen in the fact that police throughout India still use the lathi as the first weapon of choice for crowd control or other security issues. Before India won its independence from British colonial rule, hundreds of independent kingdoms made up what later became the nation of India. After independence in 1948, India was reorganized into one nation, made up of 29 states and seven national territories. Today, many of these states have their own martial art traditions. However, in all these regions, the lathi is the primary weapon of choice.
Looking for the roots of Indian martial arts, we turn our eyes to the writings known as the Vedas. One of the oldest Vedas dating back to 1700-1100 BC mentions the existence of Indian martial arts in the chapter entitled the Dhanurveda. The Tamils of south India are among the oldest populations in India. Over time they have amassed a rich written collection. Among the Rigvedas dating from 1500-1200
BC, several hymns—attributed to the hermit sage Agastyar—known as the Kampu Sutra, describe advanced fighting theories in verse. Furthermore, the Akananuru and Purananuru books that make up the Sangam Literature of the 2nd century BC also reference existent martial art traditions. Tamil civilization contributed to a range of arts and sciences such as martial arts, siddha medicine, music,
INDIAN LATHI
· Mahesh Kumar Ramakrishna | 73
VOL 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 3
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
For the martial arts comprehensivist
Top - Maxime Chouinard Bottom - Keegan Taylor
VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 3
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
218 Steaphen Fick
20
The European Quarterstaff
Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone
Bataireacht
196
240
Nicole Holzmann
Roger Norling
La Canne de Combat
Joachim Meyer, the 16th-Century Fencing Master
174 Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente
Juego de Palo Canario
Rondel Benjamin
92 Keegan Taylor
116
50
A Journey through the Monastery of Kalinda
Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Keegan Taylor
Warriodhood: A Deep Discussion
Kalinda
60 Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Rondel Benjamin
Life and Strife: An Ongoing Conversation
CONTENTS
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
Vol. 1:3 - Stick Arts
138 Scott Park Phillips
Reclaiming the Magic of the Chinese Staff
150 Damon Honeycutt
Monkey Kung Fu Staff
164 David Giomi
Shaolin Staff in the 21st Century
296 Adam H. C. Myrie
Stick Fighting in North Africa
270 George E. Georgas
The Greek Stick/ Staff Fighting
318 Ethan Minor
The Bando Staff
MAINTAINING REIMAGINING AND TRANSLATING MARTIAL ARTS TURKU IS THE OLDEST CITY in Finland. This means that it also has the country’s oldest cathedral. Like many such large buildings, it was not completed in one generation, but was modified and made grander as the centuries went on. It is a constant reminder of past times, though, as is the city’s medieval castle that was host to royal intrigues of both Swedish and Polish kingdoms. The ruins of a bishop’s castle in the neighboring town tell of how such contests were not always peaceful.
4 | The Immersion Review
Like a medieval cathedral or castle, systems of martial arts need maintenance in order for them to be passed down through the centuries. This is particularly so, as technologies of fighting have long since made close-quarter combat less significant for victory in battle. Even the mighty walls of a castle can become obsolete when cannons can fire into its yard from a hill across a river, something unimaginable at the time of its construction. Yet, like a cathedral, some martial art systems are about
Editorial by Juha A. Vuori, Ph. D
more than the building or the technology they used to wield. Ways of fighting can contain philosophical, cosmological, and other forms of belief, and serve other functions beyond prowess in violent engagements. Indeed, forms of combat, even when performed ritualistically, in sport, or in theatrical forms, can work to join a community together. The simile of a cathedral can offer some insights into the longevity and passage through time of mar-
tial art systems, but it also has its limits. Indeed, people who train such systems are not as stationary as grand buildings. For example, the migration of people has meant transportation and translation of martial arts to new social, cultural, and political surroundings, too. A society where weapons like knives are ubiquitous affords different forms of individual civilian conflict from one where weapons are illegal. Concomitantly, not all arts are displayed in public for all to see or participate in. As such, forms
Editorial | 5
of martial art have developed to serve certain needs, and these, too, can change with the times and as things around them evolve. Even the religion and its interpretation practiced in the Turku cathedral has not remained the same as the society and its mores around it have transformed. This has also affected who is allowed to use force on whom, and in which kinds of situations. While Europe is currently experiencing war that has caused a refugee and energy crisis and may yet result in famine elsewhere, the long trend has been the reduction of violence in societies around the world. While social, economic, and political disparities are perennial, most states limit the right and means of inflicting bodily harm on citizens. Far gone are the days when some members of society could be beaten, tortured, or even killed with impunity merely based on their social position, creed, or gender. When this happens today, it can gain worldwide attention. Even capital punishment is rare among the countries of today. Such a state of expanding negative peace in most societies has implications for martial arts, too; if the immediate use of a combative skill, especially in armed form, is less and less likely in the everyday, why
6 | The Immersion Review
should the art be maintained? Similarly, how can one find enough people that share an interest in carrying the knowledge forward when its practical use is becoming increasingly remote? The articles in this issue of the Immersion Review show how martial arts have been maintained and continually reimagined over the centuries to suit the needs of the holders of their legacy and those who choose to learn from them. Such passage through time and context raise questions about what is essential about an art, and about what gets lost when the art is transplanted to a new setting. Is it possible, or is it even wise to seek to popularize a once semi-restricted dangerous type of knowledge? Is it better perhaps, at times, to keep it, or versions of it, going through pre-modern face-to-face interaction, away from the gaze of the public? Some of the articles approach such questions by suggesting that it is better to maintain older forms of transmission, while others emphasize adaptation to contemporary mores and ways of conduct. This dilemma is not always a question of either/or, as while something is always lost in translation, it still retains something of the original.
[Photo credit: Mika Hanski, 2021]
Editorial | 7
Forms of stick fighting that may have been quite popular and widely practiced have later become frowned upon in many societies. As the need for sticks in everyday life and the mores of societies have evolved, the practice of stick fighting has become rare, or disappeared altogether. Maxime Chouinard and Nathan Featherstone open this issue of the Immersion Review by presenting us with such a history in the case of bataireacht, or Irish stick fighting. While this martial art was at one time widely practiced to the extent of characterizing Irishness itself, it eventually became more obscure and has been removed from popular imaginaries. The art has been maintained in the margins, though, and is being adopted for use in mixed styles of stick fighting like the Dog Brothers Gatherings. The article goes through the living lineages of the art and how it is practiced, and lays out its future.
8 | The Immersion Review
Kalinda is an example of how stick fighting can be more than just about physical engagements. Rondel Benjamin introduces this way of fighting that encapsulates hybrid forms of African and Indian life that inform Trinidadian culture. Here, fighting with sticks is part of a larger system that incorporates spiritual, educational, cultural, and healing aspects. These also feature in the ongoing discussion on kalinda between Benjamin Rondel and Mahipal Lunia, some of which is provided for us here. For kalinda, maintaining ways of fighting is a way to recover old ways of being, heal the community, and rejoice in the building of a better future today. Indeed, Keegan Taylor tells us about his personal journey through the monastery of kalinda. The recounting and discussion of the deep meanings involved in a free-play with gilpins on a beach in Barbados between Taylor and Mahipal Lunia rounds off the special feature on this tradition in this issue of the Immersion Review.
Mentioning staff-fighting to an average person on the street in many parts of the world would probably evoke images of Shaolin monks. Indeed, China has a long recorded history that is replete with martial strife, and contains many philosophical and cosmological traditions. Accordingly, it is also its own microcosm of martial art systems and styles, as well as traditions of opera and theater that still display martial art elements. Scott Park Phillips makes a connection between popular comic theatrical performances of monks and Chinese literary classics. Together, they have informed the tradition of the staff work of Shaolin monks, but they were present in seasonal festivals that predate the famous temple. The play with staves served a ritualistic practical purpose in educating dragons to keep the weather harmonious in order to provide for good harvests. The sexual connotations of an enlarging and hardening staff have often been edited out of the play and performance, but Phillips makes an argument for reclaiming the magic of this tradition.
Damon Honeycutt presents us with a different take on the Journey to the West by discussing some of the staff work within monkey style kung fu, or the “cudgel of the great sage.” Here, the myth of the king is interweaved and informs the practical application of the various forms the staff can take. In this sense, the staff is about more than just a practical implement— it maintains cultural traditions. To round off the issue’s section on Chinese staff arts, David Giomi gives us a look into the pragmatic generation of chi energy in using the Shaolin staff in the 21st century. The staff works here as an implement for learning how to cultivate and concentrate the kinetic energy of the body.
Editorial | 9
Traditions of martial art that have been maintained for centuries do not always agree on what is the correct form or interpretation of certain techniques or other aspects of the art. Such disagreements can also include the terminology used in the art, or even its name. Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente gives us a sense of this aspect of martial art maintenance through his documentary analysis of the juego de palo canario, a form of stick fighting practiced on the Canary Islands. People have varying motives for why they train martial arts, and such varying personal viewpoints can evolve into a tradition stranding off into directions that aim to maintain folk traditions while others prefer to treat the art as pure sport. Indeed, many martial arts have been developed for warfare or self-defense to later take on formal modes of sport. This is also the historical trajectory of la canne de combat that we are introduced to by Nicole Holzmann. La canne has its origins in sword fighting that was still part of how the more well-off warded off unwanted encounters on the streets of Paris up until the French revolution, which
10 | The Immersion Review
eventually banned sword carry from civilians. During the belle époque, the sword was replaced by an urban walking cane that took on the role of the sword in such encounters. With development in men’s fashion, canes became less common. At the same time, many masters of the art of la canne were lost to the World Wars. The tradition has been carried on to today in the form of a formal sport that Holzmann showcases for us. While some arts have been maintained, and made grander with the passage of time, forms of life around such constructions tend to transform at a quicker pace. Indeed, many forms of fighting have been lost to time. Still, some discontinued arts have left historical traces of their practice either in the form of archeological finds, cargo lists of ships, court records, or even manuscripts and treatises that concern the techniques of fighting. Beyond the maintenance of living martial traditions, such traces have allowed new generations to explore some aspects of these old forms of martial art.
Indeed, people are fascinated with past forms of life. The cathedral and castle of Turku form the backdrop for Turku’s annual medieval market where historians and archeologists from the University work together with blacksmiths, jewelers, other craftspeople, food vendors, and amateur actors to enliven and reenact the medieval history of the city. A part of the old town is cordoned off with wooden fences, and visitors can experience medieval sights and sounds. Luckily, the smells are limited to pigs roasting on a spit, and such savory smells as the sewage system are not reverted to quite so olden times.
[Photo credit: Mika Hanski, 2021]
Editorial | 11
View of Turku Cathedral from Vartiovuori Hill. [Photo credit: Otto Jula (Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)]
12 | The Immersion Review
As interest in medieval ways of combat has increased in the 2000s, the market these days also hosts a medieval tourney with horse-men jousting with lances and armored individuals engaging in buhurts. In other parts of Finland, there are also Viking markets, where groups of people engage in scripted Vikings-versus-city-guard engagements with appropriate gear. Indeed, interest in recreating old weapons, armor, ships, siege machines, and even entire medieval castles using technologies available at the time has concomitantly led to an interest in reenacting ways of using these new-old artifacts. As the professional historians involved in this type of enlivening and embodiment of cultural history tell us, reconstructing a lived past is not possible. Written history is inevitably a narrative reimagining of past events and ways of being. The same holds for archaeology. The traces of the past cannot render a full account of what actually happened, and particularly what they meant at the time. Indeed, even the international organization involved in the embodied reenactment of mainly European history before 1600 is jestfully named the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Hoplologists interested in past forms of combat that may have since been abandoned face the same issues and hurdles in their research. HEMA has become an established form of martial art, yet even its practitioners realize that embodying weapon techniques from manuals is a reimagining of movements and uses of techniques. While the medieval tourney-enactments in Turku are informed by HEMA practice, there is no such basis for the Viking fighting arts. While there are numerous Viking artifacts that include swords, there is essentially only one tapestry that visually describes the way they fought. Not all cultures have produced drawn or written records of their ways of fighting. Discussion on this aspect of contemporary martial art practice in this issue begins with Steaphen Fick’s historical review of European uses of the quarterstaff. The article gives a summary of European manuscripts on long weapons through several centuries and is a great introductory resource for anyone who wants to conduct their own explorations into these historical records and the forms of fighting in them.
Editorial | 13
Roger Norling follows this general review with a more focused introduction of how Joachim Meyer presented the use of polearms in his weapon manuals from the 16th century. When reimagining such ways of fighting, it is prudent to take into account the weapon technologies of the time, the context of combat, as well as the laws and customs that concerned armed combat. These provide for vital insights for the practical testing out of the techniques and mechanics described in the treatises themselves. George E. Georgas leads us into Greek uses of staves in fighting. Ways of fighting are not only depicted in manuscripts, but myths, legends, and stories also indicate how weapons have been used in earlier times. The article once again points to the importance of historical and political context in discussing how various periods of occupation and changes in ways of war impacted the use of staves for fighting. Still, staves and skill in fencing could come in handy even in the 20th century, when knives were used as the implements of political assassinations and attempts at them, as Georgas recounts one such attempt that took place in Japan.
14 | The Immersion Review
Adam H. C. Myrie’s article explores the use of sticks in ancient Egypt and the Maghreb region through the history, basic techniques, and the current place of stick fighting there. This represents North African efforts to preserve the history of fighting arts based on research of oral and other non-written forms of passing on traditions. This work has then been formalized within associations as ways of training, and published in newly written manuscripts. Once again, the training and traditions have taken on different forms that can emphasize sport activities or more cultural forms. Ethan Minor presents the past and current ways of applying the bando staff as it has been used in Myanmar. Staves have not only been ways of self-defense or combat in conflict, but they have also had more civilian uses in maintaining health, procuring food, moving in environments, and providing shelter. Like with so many other forms of combat, the same implements can be used to both hurt and heal when it comes to the staff. Accordingly, there is a close connection between the staff and its user, beginning from the manufacturing and choosing of the staff to its practical application.
Reimagining forms of martial art properly requires the same kind of sensitivity as transcultural ethnography, anthropology, or study of history. Indeed, a hoplologist needs to be wary of the possibility of succumbing to “cultural colonialism” in their investigation. Explorers should not assume or impose universal ideologies or values, even when things can be tested out competitively “in the cage.” Whether one is studying hoplology within maintained systems of martial art or exploring historical forms with discontinuities, there is a need to do so within a shared space of understanding among cultures that requires a perpetual task of translation and reworking of one’s particular position. When this is done properly, a hoplologist may transcend one’s own culture in the evaluation of one’s own and others’ cultures through their ways of fighting. This is so
despite the fact that different cultures have different standards for the admissibility of ideas, whether those concern cosmology, religion, philosophy, or other standards of knowledge. Academics have the luxury of distance and set standards for their practices of research. The practitioners and keepers of an art, though, inescapably face the dilemma of translation through time and culture. How does one maintain arts that were developed and used in wild frontiers when a specific type of expressive honor-bound masculinity was tied to celebrating extremely risky behaviors, such as gambling, excessive drinking, and public acts of violence? The establishment of a modern centralized government has often meant the end of this type of general masculine behavior and the retreating of such activities to the corners of so-
Editorial | 15
ciety. Practices of class and other social stations, as well as systems of honor in mainstream or more marginal parts of society, have also had a bearing on forms of martial art. Some forms of art have lost living connections to their roots entirely, yet have been resurrected by later generations, which may allow for more diverse groups of practitioners to partake in the art. Those who pick up the mantle after a long disjuncture see such lost arts as still providing benefits to a practitioner in a contemporary world. Yet, what is lost in these types of moves? Do deadly arts that have survived or that have been resurrected inevitably merely become a folkloric dance bereft of all risk and danger? What would this mean for the future of martial arts? As full-contact combat sport—whether armed or not— has shown, though, these types of activities are not without even the risk of death. Indeed, it is problematic to demonize the sportification of an art. Sportifying an art is not all about loss; it can still maintain
16 | The Immersion Review
the memory of past forms of being and allow for risky behaviors and contests among people so inclined. At the same time, sportification, like festivalization, can serve political purposes when connected to nationalistic ideologies and ideas of martial bodies. Indeed, society, culture, and politics all matter for practicing martial arts, and for understanding them academically. Accordingly, many arts have been kept within families, tribes, or other restricted groups while maintaining different moralities from those found in mainstream society. Such arts have been quite effective in particular times and places. The issue remains what happens when such traditional forms of transmission are continued, when they are reinvented, or sportified. What is retained, and what is lost in their translation? Answers here depend on the reasons for why someone trains, teaches, or maintains an art by other means. Is the purpose practical application, intellectual or spiritual enlightenment, sport or other forms of competition, cul-
tural discovery or appreciation, self-expression, or simply physical exercise? All are valid reasons and result in various views on what is the essential part of an art to maintain or transform. Similarly, is the context for the use of an art military, constabulary, or civilian? Is the art used to serve, or has it been appropriated by the state, or is it used to work against forms of oppression, whether sanctioned or not by the state? Is the practitioner committed to work within the law, bend the rules or mores of mainstream society, or even break the law? As the articles in this issue have also shown, a martial art can be deployed to suppress communities, but it may also be a means of resistance against such structures. Indeed, a martial art can be about more than its combative aspects. It can be about recognition, healing, community, and spirituality, about maintaining, reimagining, and translating ways of being.
Juha A. Vuori, Ph.D @ juha.vuori.54
Editorial | 17
20 | The Immersion Review
BATAIREACHT A ONCE-FAMOUS IRISH MARTIAL ART COMING BACK TO LIFE Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone
IF YOU GO TO IRELAND today, it is unlikely that most of the people you will meet will be aware that a martial art was once extremely popular in their homeland. Mention that it was called bataireacht, and you will undoubtedly raise eyebrows. Explain that this was the art of using the shillelagh, and you will get many varied reactions.
BATAIREACHT
· Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone | 21
Until the late 19th century, you would have been hard-pressed to find a parish in Ireland where no one practiced bataireacht, to the point where it became somewhat of a preconceived notion in other European nations. If you were Irish, you were surely quite an expert at stick fighting. This idea is now extinct, but bataireacht itself is not, though it is incredibly rare, especially in its country of origin. In this article, we will examine the history of the practice and explore the living lineages that are still taught today—how it relates to the modern martial arts scene, how it is perceived in Ireland, and finally how this is all shaping its present and future. Where It All Started As with most martial arts dealing with sticks, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the origin of bataireacht. The job is made even harder due to the fact that, before the 18th century, Irish history was almost exclusively shared through oral tales, and descriptions of daily life were put under writing, more often than not, by foreign visitors or invaders. The written descriptions we have of Irish fighting methods before the Williamite War could probably stand on a sin-
22 | The Immersion Review
gle sheet. Nevertheless, there are clues that can be found in those descriptions. We hear of clubs in the Irish Heroic Tales, such as in The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, where warriors are said to carry “great clubs of thorn with bands of iron.”1 We also hear of an insurrection in a Dublin friary in 1381, where monks used clubs called crannibh.2 It should not be surprising to find weapons like these in Medieval Ireland, as the cudgel (a ball-headed club) was common all over Europe at the time, as can be seen in countless representations, including in Ireland. Although they were probably not a new phenomenon, we read with increasing frequency about faction fights and the sticks used in
1 Charles W. Elliot, ed., Vol. 49, Epic and Saga: Beowulf, The Song of Roland, The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, The Story of the Volsungs, and Niblungs, The Harvard Classics (New York: Collier & son, 1910). 2 Mervyn Archdall, Monasticon Hibernicum: Or, A History of the Abbeys, Priories, and Other Religious Houses in Ireland; Interspersed with Memoirs of Their Several Founders and Benefactors, and of Their Abbots and Other Superiors, to the Time of Their Final Suppression (Ireland: W. B. Kelly, 1876), 69.
Daniel Macdonald’s “The Fighter” (1844).
BATAIREACHT
· Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone | 23
VOL 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 4
The Ring of Fire Part 1
For the martial arts comprehensivist
Top Left - Te Waitere Jason Paahi Top Right - Riichi Kitano Bottom - Michelle Manu
VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 4
The Ring of Fire Part 1
56 Michael Belzer
My Path to Menkyo
146 Dr. Michel Farivar
Geijin Ryu Staff Arts
238 Riichi Kitano
Katori Shinto Ryu
210 Mukatder Gül, Ph.D
The Wing Chun Long Pole
38
Daniel Schultz
Drunken Boxing: The Staff
228
Scott Meredith
Yiquan Staff Energy
CONTENTS
Vol. 1:4 - Stick Arts
The Ring of Fire, Part 1
14 Michelle Manu
Secrets of the Lua
102 Andrea Rollo
Various Types of Fighting in Filipino Martial Arts: Modernity and Tradition
262 Michael Mulconery
The One and the Many: Hawaiian Tobosa System
Michael Mulconery
136
Romeo Macapagal
Tatang Ilustrisimo's Combat Efficiency through Measure
222
Roedy Wiranatakusumah & Gending Raspuzi
History and Development of Ulin Limbuhan
166 Te Waitere Jason Paahi
Traditional Māori Martial Arts
334
The “Barabara” and Basic Long-Weapon Approach
MARTIAL ARTS IN THE
RING OF FIRE THIS ISSUE OF THE Immersion Review steps into the Ring of Fire. Even today, the notion of martial arts tends to bring to mind mainly East Asian forms of armed or unarmed fighting. Those versed deeper in the field may include Southeast Asian forms in their denotations. Still, despite these persistent imaginaries, martial arts can be found all around the world and, indeed, all around the Pacific. In the present issue of the Review, we trace the seams of the Pacific tectonic plates, the literal Ring
4 | The Immersion Review
of Fire, and cover arts all the way from Hawai’i, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China, to Japan. This journey through the fiery seams of the Pacific presents us with some of the panoply of fascinating indigenous forms of fighting that can be found within the ring. This issue includes many firsts. Although widely practiced outside Japan, Katori Shinto ryu has remained secretive about the advanced understanding of their tactics and techniques. In this issue,
From the Editors
though, we get some sense of ways of using long weapons in this art with a century-long unbroken lineage of teachers and teachings. We will also get to read about two lesser-known indigenous arts, namely Ku’ialua, the ancient combat art of the people of Hawai’i, and Mau Rakau, the traditional Māori fighting art from New Zealand. Martial art systems in the Ring of Fire are not only about physical confrontations and prowess in them. Indeed, maintaining the legacy of a martial art system can
also be about maintaining forms of life, and maintaining communities. Kumu Manu opens this issue of the Immersion Review by presenting us with the history and weaponry of Ku’ialua, the ancient combat art of the indigenous people of Hawai’i. Even though its public display was for a time forced underground, it remained a means to maintain forms of commitment, honor, integrity, respect, and perseverance as forms of life. The article provides us with a view on various combat tactics and the implements used in Lua.
Editorial | 5
Our next stop is in China, where Daniel Schultz shows us how the staff is used in the style of Drunken boxing. Shultz goes through the three common ways of using the staff in Chinese arts, namely the dragon pole or single-ended staff, the box or double-ended staff, and the old man staff. These ways of holding the staff accord with the progression of a practitioner from an “infant” to a “cocky teen,” and finally to an “old man.” Like with many other forms of Chinese staff arts, its applications in Drunken boxing concern profound principles and philosophical ideas. Our exploration of Japanese arts begins with how Michael Belzer, who has had an important role in preserving Donn F. Draeger’s hoplological archive, describes his path to the rank of menkyo in Shindo Muso ryu jojutsu. The beginnings of this journey go back all the way to the 1970s, and show a glimpse to a past era of martial training and pioneering international exploration of Japanese martial arts. Belzer’s path also showcases the multiple aspects of Japanese martial
6 | The Immersion Review
culture that go beyond the use of weapons and unarmed techniques, like the value of learning calligraphy. Indeed, training martial arts can be as much about culture and philosophy as fighting skills. Andrea Rollo begins the presentation of Southeast Asian arts with a discussion of different formats of stick dueling in the Philippines. Indeed, agreed-upon engagements with sticks have abided by a great number of different rules or conventions. Some sports associations have detailed rules for giving points in matches, yet the times of old had shared understanding of what was appropriate in different types of stick fights, and what the criteria of winning were. Fights could consist of merely “marking” a place where there would have been a hit to “full play” where nothing was out of bounds. Rollo suggests that this is the origin of the notion of the legendary “death matches” retold outside the Philippines. As such, death did occur as a result of such duels, but it was not always a necessity. Indeed, stick duels could range from friendly
[Photo credit: The Ring Of Fire by GaryMachen]
plays between masters to serious challenges where the health and life of the players was at stake. Full duels were not always limited to the use of sticks. Indeed, one legendary figure of such contests was Antonio “Tatang” Ilustrisimo. Accordingly, the Southeast Asian leg of our journey in the ring continues with Romeo Macapagal’s discussion of measure in Ilustrisimo’s fighting system. While there are multiple categories of measure,
the most famous one is to have the opponent miss you by “one inch” while you are able to reach them with deadly effect. The mastery of simple movements taken at the right time and at the right place requires a thorough investigation of geometry and efficiency. Moving away from an attack, while doing a riposte without a parry, is one of the most important—and impressive—means of gaining such efficiency in combative engagements.
Editorial | 7
The secret to such mastery can be found in the deployment of correct footwork like the elastico-retirada and the doble carrera. Simplicity and effectiveness is emphasized in Illustrisimo’s system. Physiological functionality is also essential in the principles at play in Geijin ryu staff arts that are introduced to us by Michel Farivar. The art emphasizes the seamless transition between armed and unarmed techniques. At the same time, blocking is avoided as it hinders the flow of energy in the bodily movement. This is particularly important as Genjin ryu explores how parts and elements of the human body align in movement and deployment of techniques. Unlike in many Okinawan and Chinese martial arts, Genjin ryu does not have any solo forms, or kata, but uses partnered exercises as a form of bodily discussion. The art also does not work through categorization, but through sensory experience in applied scenarios that aim at realism.
8 | The Immersion Review
Allowing us a rare glimpse into Māori forms of fighting, Te Waitere Jason Paahi starts his discussion with Mau Rakau, the traditional Māori art of wielding the taiaha, a two-handed flat “bladed” hardwood weapon. This, however, is only the beginning as he situates Mau Rakau in the much wider context of the Māori warrior culture. This, in turn, contains a comprehensive set of weapons and a holistic worldview, constituting a form of life comparable—and rivaling— that of the classical Japanese weapon arts. As such, these arts are also seen as a cultural revival of “the old ways” resulting in healthier and more resilient communities. Mukatder Gül gives us insight on Wing Chun kung fu’s use of the sixand-a-half-point long pole form from the Ip Man – Ip Ching lineage. He argues that the roots of the long pole form date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s and the famous Red Boat Opera Company. When using the pole as a weapon (or, indeed, the system as a whole), key factors in play are simplicity, effectiveness, and explosiveness.
Furthermore, Gül discusses the ways in which the long pole training connects to and improves all the understanding contained in the first four forms of the system. He also argues that, unfortunately, the true form has been lost in some Wing Chun lineages. Roedy Wiranatakusumah and Gending Raspuzi shed light on the history and development of Ulin Limbuhan, a style of pencak silat specializing—perhaps surprisingly in the context of Indonesian arts— in the use of sticks. The roots of the art, however, are deeply in traditional West Javanese forms of silat. The founder of the system, Gending Raspuzi, came to realize the interconnectedness between, firstly, armed and unarmed training and, secondly, different training forms, or jurus. He also gives us a brief outline of the structure of the Ulin Limbuhan system. Scott Meredith describes the physical and energetic dynamics of Yiquan long staff training for internal energy. Although the art is historically derived from Xingy-
iquan, the training methodologies of these two arts are quite different. At first glance, Yiquan seems to begin from a rather abstract and pared-down form of solo training. At a closer look, though, the three seemingly simple exercises described by Meredith contain a wealth of concepts and ideas to start one on the path to understanding this unique art. Our journey also includes rare insights into Katori Shinto ryu’s use of long weapons from Riichi Kitano. The weapons discussed here include the yari and naginata. Indeed, while Katori Shinto ryu is perhaps most well-known for its use of the katana sword, the art consists of training with multiple weapons. When engaged in battle, a samurai had to be prepared to handle situations where their spear tips were broken and the yari essentially turned into a bo staff. Such flexibility on a battlefield requires training that supports encounters with asymmetric weapons and the use of various different types of weapons. While the weapons of the samurai are no longer in
Editorial | 9
everyday use, training with them— and thus following the principles of Katori Shinto ryu—can still instill a practitioner with confidence that translates into other aspects of life beyond combat.
set required to speak the language of Casag fluently. Mulconery finishes the exploration of Casag with a brief introduction to ways of using the barabara (staff) on its own, or as part of Casag.
Michael Mulconery provides us with a long article on Casag and the Tobosa School of Arnis-Kali-Escrima from Hawai’i. His is a rare and detailed insight into the formative years, multiple influences, and comprehensive martial arts background of the Tobosas, leading, first to the KAJI Kumi system and finally to Estilo Casag. The strategy of Casag is quite simply to use all of the eight directions to drive an opponent to angles that disadvantage them. Still, simple does not mean easy. This strategy requires one to be able to immediately translate one’s responses according to the relative distances and positions—“to speak with meaning in all situations,” to paraphrase the writer. What follows is an analysis of the different strategies, tactics, and training methodologies, not to mention the mind-
All in all, our brief tour of martial arts in the Pacific has veered open the door of some secretive martial traditions, shed light on different ways of fighting with sticks, and shared insights from personal martial art journeys. Despite the persistence of the Asian martial art imaginary, the richness of other martial traditions, too, is beginning to come to light. Like the tectonic plates of the Ring of Fire, hoplology shifts to produce new heights in comprehending the pluralities of human combatives and martial arts.
10 | The Immersion Review
Mahipal Lunia Executive Editor
Juha A. Vuori, Ph.D Managing Editor
Mika Harju-Seppänen Managing Editor
Editorial | 11
“BY THE 18TH CENTURY, each major island chiefdom had a Hālau Ku’ialua where was taught the martial arts science blending harmony of the loina wahine a me loina kāne (duality in nature) with mauliola (harmony of life’s principle) and with evenly balanced intellect, spirit, and emotion. As a physical art, the purest form of Ku'ialua comprises the arts of lima hāmama (open-handed techniques), including defensive and offensive strategy, stealth, invisibility, ritual participation, and ceremonial dance. Knowledge surrounding the ‘oihana lapa’au (medicinal profession), ‘oihana limalima (physiotherapy), hahā (diagnostics), ha’iha’i (acupressure and osteopathy), and mea ai (diet) completed the picture. At the onset of the seventeenth century, maximized armed tactics were introduced, augmenting the function of all major weapons, altering the warrior’s fighting style from that time onward.”1
SECRETS OF THE
LUA
Michelle Manu
1 History of the Ku’ialua The pure form of Ku'ialua or Lua, the ancient combat art of the people of Hawai’i, was open-handed or lima hāmama. It is like other indigenous combat art forms and lifestyles in the sense of commitment, honor, integrity, respect, and perseverance. The maoli or ancient ways demanded no less, or it was punishable by death. The Lua was prohibited from public display and went underground into the hula dance. Warriors, male and female, held titles and ranks in King Kamehameha’s military. As the culture changed and visitors arrived, the metaphysical way of life and its purely open-hand warfare evolved to incorporate weapons for King Kamehameha’s military and bodyguards. Wood, pohaku or rocks, shark teeth, tree bark, roots, and fish and human bones all serve as materials to create weapons. The weapon becomes part of the warrior. It becomes an extension of his or her body. In 1917, Henry Okazaki secretly learned Lua from a male kumu in the Puna district and concealed it in his art, Danzan ryu.
1 Lucia Tarallo and Natalie M. Jensen, Nā Kaikamahine ‘o Haumea: Women of Ancient Hawai’i, Daughters of Haumea (Honolulu, HI: Pueo Press, 2005), p.32. Partially re-formatted by current issue’s editors.
16 | The Immersion Review
VOL 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 5
The Ring of Fire Part 2
For the martial arts comprehensivist
Top - Maija Soderholm Bottom - Mark Stewart
VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 5
The Ring of Fire Part 2
106 Mark Davies
138
The Stick: Man’s Oldest Tool and Weapon, and Its Use by the UK Special Forces
Martin Wheeler
Systema Stick Fighting
156
142
Jeffrey Finder
Luis Preto
Training Weapons In the Modern Era
Prevention Of Injuries And Power Output In Stick-Fighting
122 Banjamin Judkins, Ph.D & Jared Miracle, Ph.D
86
The Weapon of a Jedi Knight
Miguel Quijano & Miguel Machado
216
A Brief History of the Afro-Caribbean Dances
Nick Merchant
WEKAF and Dog Brothers: Together at Last!
278
324
Darren Patrick Friesen
Arturo Bonafont
Stick Grappling in Central America
Bonafont Cane Fighting System
CONTENTS
The Ring of Fire, Part 2
Vol. 1:5 - Stick Arts
18 Maija Soderholm
Tell Me About Yourself: A Conversation in Random Flow
38 Darrin Cook
Essential Kabaroan
192 Mark Stewart
Kali Abtik Largo
236 Harjit Singh Sagoo
Punjabi Wooden Weapon Fighting Arts: History, Philosophy, Conspiracy, and Technique
166 Geoff Willcher, Ph.D
Bando Staff
MARTIAL ARTS IN THE
RING OF FIRE PART II This issue of The Immersion Review wraps up our tour of the Ring of Fire, and continues on to examine the fallout of these and other martial traditions that have sparked renewed interest in martial arts around the world. The issue also touches on the theme of creating or inventing martial arts. Martial traditions have informed many fictional authors in how they have constructed their—at times— fantastical worlds. Some have been very thorough in establishing such
4 | The Immersion Review
new worlds, like J.R.R. Tolkien who went as far as inventing languages for the fictional peoples in his stories. Even the worlds of cinema and television have seen the invention of languages like Klingon in Star Trek. It is therefore not surprising that forms of martial art are either developed for or based on such fictional worlds. There is, for example, Teräs Käsi, a fictional martial art based on pentjak silat that exists only in the Star Wars universe and canon. This kind of world-making has been per-
From the Editors
haps most popular and thorough in the case of lightsaber fighting based on Star Wars, as discussed in this issue by Benjamin Judkins and Jared Miracle. Stunt coordinators, too, draw on martial arts, and practitioners can delight in spotting individual techniques or even styles that are used to choreograph fights in film. Inventing a martial art does not only happen in or inspired by fictional stories. The kung fu and ninja crazes in the 1970s and 1980s
were accompanied by self-styled martial arts masters who either invented their own styles or pretended to be masters in an existing one. Today, YouTube is replete with both invented arts and channels that aim at debunking the most outrageous charlatans in the guise of martial arts. Still, all martial arts are based on some form of invention. Many of the most widely spread styles can point to the originator of their style, who usually drew on previ-
Editorial | 5
ous ways of doing and training another form of martial art or arts. Innovations in pedagogies, transformation of society, and change in technology can also impact ways of fighting to the degree that a new style is formed. Sometimes, wholly new ways of fighting are proposed. We have an example of this in this issue in the form of Artura Bonafont’s style of cane fighting. Indeed, in his manual that is translated in this issue, Bonafont states that the techniques he presents are based on his own thinking, and go against the—at the time—given way of cane fighting based on fencing. Individual masters or maestros of an established art can also be innovators. Maija Soderholm shares some of her experiences from working with Maestro Sonny Umpad, and how he tasked her with passing the method of “random flow” on as his legacy. Sonny kept on innovating new ways and implements for training, and he had arrived at this method after already having taught a few of generations of students. Rather than
6 | The Immersion Review
a collection of techniques or set patterns, random flow is a means to connect the nervous system and the conscious mind through dance-like play with blades. It also allows one to internalize new ideas and get past “freezing points” that fear, among other things, produces in practitioners. Skill in this type of development is measured through the ability to first “see” and “read” the opponent in order to eventually “write” what they will do. Random play is a way to experience “when” and “how” something becomes effective in the sense of getting a hit while not getting hit, which in turn develops a sense of strategy and tactics. While this was the final teaching method Maestro Umpad developed, Soderholm has found that it can be deployed to hone tactical skills in many other martial art traditions even beyond those of the Philippines. Traditions can be continued by trying to preserve or archive them as they have been received. Another approach to keeping a tradition going is to alter it innovatively together with the times. In accor-
dance with the second approach, Kabaroan, meaning “the newest,” represents—according to Darren Cook—a radical break with the traditional forms of Filipino martial arts. Firstly, the art in question utilizes a heavier and longer (36-inch) hardwood stick compared with the rattan sticks commonly used in other forms of Filipino fighting. Secondly, whereas the traditional arts, with their lighter and shorter weapons, rely on blocking the incoming attack, a Kabaroan artist emphasizes merging with the attack rather than blocking it. Kabaroan methods, however, are closely guarded, and this has led to a host of misunderstandings regarding its composition. Cook discloses that, although Grandmaster Estalilla did publicly teach, for example, sinawali (double stick) or staff and stick methods, these are not Kabaroan. He then proceeds to share with the reader the essence of the art as taught to him by GM Estalilla by describing, in detail, a form called the “abriged 15” containing different strikes, their counters, and core tactical principles of the system.
Codified martial art traditions are present in most cultures, and yet it comes as a surprise even to most aficionados that—aside from more well-known arts like Brazilian capoeira and Trinidadian kalinda—there exists rich traditions of Afro-diasporic arts of maní and kokoye in Cuba and calinda, cocobalé, and cocolembe in Puerto Rico. Miguel Quijano and Miguel Machado trace the present forms of these arts, firstly, to the slave owners’ policies of appeasement which, quite unintentionally, led to solidifying of African culture on the islands and, secondly, to interactions (or rather, fighting) with other ethnic groups’ martial arts, such as Portuguese jogo do pau and Canarian juego del palo. Maní, meaning “war,” was kept alive and practiced in dances. The combative “game” of maní is, however, played in a circle with the goal of knocking down one’s opponent with kicks, punches, sweeps, and so on—it is a true full-contact form of fighting in contrast to the more commonly known folkloric and performative form of the
Editorial | 7
game. Cocobalé and calinda, on the other hand, are played with sticks of varying lengths—or, in the case of cocobalé, even with machetes or knives— with the goal of making the opponent bleed or become unconscious. Further, cocolembe is a hand-to-hand art played by the community elders when a master of the aforementioned art has
[Photo credit: Clive Kim]
8 | The Immersion Review
passed away. Indeed, all of these arts are steeped in tradition and ritual, preserving the unique Afro-Cuban heritage into the present day. Creativity and innovation is part of the evolution of warfare. Here, close-quarter battling has been deployed in contemporary mili-
tary contexts on the basis of “usewhat-works.” For example, British Special Forces were created during the Second World War to conduct deep strikes behind the enemy lines and to recruit, train, and organize local resistance fighters. These units—Commandos, Special Air Service (SAS), Special Operations Executive (SOE)—were taught “last ditch” combatives by William Fairbairn for situations where the soldier’s normal weaponry was unavailable or not preferred. Fairbairn’s stick method relied on a 18 to 24-inch weapon used predominantly in a two-handed grip. The system was very simple and basic, as it needed to be taught quickly. The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan renewed the military’s interest in combatives as Special Forces soldiers found themselves fighting in very close quarters, and even with improvised weapons. As a result, the stick training in British Special Forces can nowadays be grouped into three categories: short stick, baton, and staff/spear. The short stick method is based on reverse-grip knife technique
taught by James A. Keating, whereas the baton methodology relies on both Filipino martial arts and the old Fairbairn method. Staff/spear, on other hand, is based heavily on bayonet training as well as sibat and jo staff methods. The training itself proceeds progressively towards “fog of war,” aiming at operating reliably in less-than-ideal conditions. Not all traditions are ancient or, indeed, connected to earthly human reality. Take, for example, Lightsaber Combat; a competitive sport and martial art based on ideas around the Star Wars universe and franchise. In this context Benjamin Judkins and Jared Miracle remind us that even established martial arts are wrought with invented histories and imagined traditions with tenuous connections to reality, although, like Lightsaber Combat, they are practiced as if they were true. Lightsaber Combat has its true beginnings in the early 2000s when the current generation of LED-equipped replica lightsabers became available. This coincided with the in-
Editorial | 9
vention/exploration of the “seven classic forms” of Lightsaber Combat furthering the lore and mythology surrounding the art. After a while, this attracted actual martial artists to try and figure out how one, in “reality,” would fight with a lightsaber. This resulted in hobbyist groups, different rulesets, and differing self-identifications springing up around the globe. The ahistorical and mythological nature of Lightsaber Combat enables creative play—mixing and borrowing from a variety of sources allowing for genuine martial exchange uninhibited by organizational politics. This also elevates the practice to hyper-reality, enabling one to connect with mythic structures and surpassing one’s mundane existence. It must be noted, however, that this element of hyper-reality is also present in traditional arts, although the line delineating it from the mundane is much clearer in Lightsaber Combat. The Star Wars narrative and, by extension, Lightsaber Combat conveys the values and qualities of modern heroic archetypes—not unlike tra-
10 | The Immersion Review
ditional arts carrying ideas about correct morality and behavior. The varying uses of sticks display the creative range of humans in various environments and contexts. Sticks are also used in contemporary constabulary professions in many parts of the world. Their use has also been part of more military forms of close-quarter combat. Martin Wheeler shares some of the insights on stick-use that has been parted onto him by his teachers in the combat system developed for spies and special force members in the Soviet Union, called systema, or “the system.” Here, the expression is not so much tied to specific techniques regarding how to use a stick, but about how the system comes out when using a stick. Fighting with sticks is, by definition, an activity conducive to physical trauma. There is, obviously, an opponent trying to hit you but also, according to Luis Preto, types of injuries caused by your own actions, wholly independent of your opponent. The key to preventing these kinds of injuries is
implementing a strength training program designed to strengthen the relevant musculature. This should be accompanied with technique-oriented training designed to develop greater body awareness, postural control, and technique. While discussing power output, Preto starts by making a distinction between reaction and movement speeds. Improving the reaction speed can be accomplished by improving one’s ability to identify the stimulus and lessening the time that it takes to select a proper response to it. Movement speed, on the other hand, can be developed by improving one’s ability to execute the relevant motor patterns (techniques) and building up one’s ability to generate relevant muscle tension (force). Preto then offers the reader different strategies for both injury prevention and power generation, depending on the level of the martial artist. Specific training weapons have likely been around for as long as there have been fighting skills worth passing on. The implements of training are another vein that
shows how innovation and creativity are part of martial arts and their evolution. Indeed, as Jeff Finder notes, nowadays we have a wealth of different materials to construct training weapons from, all suited for different purposes. For example, traditional arts may prefer their trusted wooden or metal trainers whereas more sport-oriented arts might like lighter and flashier aluminum weapons. Wood and rattan are cheap and easy to replace materials to construct trainers from, but one might prefer aluminum swords and knives due to their more realistic look and feel. A less common option is to construct training blades from high-impact plastics, which offer more durability than either wood or aluminum and, with correct specifications, also mimic well their “live” counterparts. Like with synthetic composite materials, combining things overall is one way of creating something new. According to Geoff Willcher, the bando staff forms that are taught today are synthesized from several older forms by eliminat-
Editorial | 11
ing repetitions and stringing parts from different forms together. He goes on to explain the mindset and naturalistic worldview of the Burmese people reflected in the forms. For example, the system consists of several different drills and nine forms, reflecting the Burmese fascination in the multiples of three. Willcher further explains the many purposes of the forms as well as the organization, principles, training, and tactics of bando itself, offering us a comprehensive overview of the bando staff system as a whole. Different martial arts prefer different ranges in accordance with their preferred weapons, strategies, and tactics as well as their understanding of combative engagements. While it is necessary to learn how to fight at all the ranges, for Mark Stewart, the optimal range for a given weapon is its longest reach, reflecting the viewpoint of Kali Abtik Largo. The aim is to utilize distance, evasion, and deception to deliver surgical strikes while avoiding weapon-to-weapon contact. The key to all this is proper footwork: without good footwork you
12 | The Immersion Review
cannot position yourself correctly either for attack or defense. Stewart continues by giving us an overview of Kali Abtik Largo concepts, including, for example, angles of attack, targeting, and timing, as well as a few tactical pointers to try and use in one’s next sparring session. How can you ascertain that your martial art actually works against an uncooperative opponent? You spar and fight. This is a true and tested way of evolving fighting styles that brings in the role of rules in how arts evolve and how creativity comes in. Nick Merchant notes that in the Filipino martial arts community there are two major rule sets to govern fighting: World Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation (WEKAF) and Dog Brothers, both with their particular pros and cons, which Merchant covers extensively. Succinctly put, WEKAF fighting tends to develop speed, accuracy, combinations, and endurance whereas Dog-Brothersstyle of fighting stresses versatility, power, movement, and strategy. They can thus be seen as comple-
mentary, rather than exclusionary, ways of testing and developing one’s skill and ability. Martial arts evolve, develop, and cross-pollinate each other over time—they are even manipulated by the ruling elite and foreign overlords. Take for instance the Indian arts of shastar vidya and gatka, the martial arts of the Sikh peoples of Punjabi. As Harjit Singh Sagoo demonstrates, shastar vidya is an ancient battlefield art that traces its roots all the way to the 15th century. Gatka, a weapons-based sport, on the other hand, is a product of the late 1800s and early 1900s and utilizes a meter-long stick. The practice of gatka was actually encouraged by the British as it took the people away from the original battlefield arts of the Sikh and would thus pave way to the continuing British rule. Singh Sagoo speculates that the later inclusion of additional weapons in gatka may have been brought about by the desire to revive the largely lost martial art of shastar vidya, thus leading to the misunderstanding that gatka actually is
the ancient art of the Sikh. He then continues by outlining the basic curriculum of gatka, including soti (meter-long stick), lathi (staff), and fari and soti (representing buckler and sword) sparring, revealing to us the simple but practical methods of the art. Preparing for the possibility of facing actual real-life violence on a day-to-day basis brings with it a host of considerations rarely encountered in most martial artists’ training. In his article, Darren Patrick Friesen shares his insights about these factors—and the experience of teaching conflict management tactics as a foreigner— based on his work training security guards in Costa Rica. He starts by exploring some of the emotional and behavioral background necessary for security-related work as well as the necessary restraint on using violent means in one’s job as a security guard. Furthermore, the dynamics of a violent encounter necessitates on-the-spot decision-making and prior thought on and training in the ergonomics of weapon availability and deploy-
Editorial | 13
ment, as well as retention tactics. Friesen thus outlines his no-nonsense approach and methodology of using a baton in security work starting from the first contact all the way until handcuffing and patdown. Sticks and canes have been used for self-defense since time immemorial. Especially during the belle époque in Europe, the cane became both a fashion element and the last legal weapon for defending oneself. Darren Cook presents us with a translation of Arturo Bonafont’s New Ways of Self-Defense on the Street with a Cane from Buenos Aires written in the 1920s and published in 1930. It has been difficult to get a hold of Bonafont’s manual of this one-of-a-kind system. What makes it stand out from other cane styles is that it mainly uses the stick in a “reverse” grip that tends to be a special way of holding a stick in most styles of fighting. For Bonafont, though, this is the most efficient way of striking with a cane in the number of self-defense scenarios that he goes through in his manual.
14 | The Immersion Review
As the articles in this issue show, creativity and invention are integral parts of martial arts whether one looks at old styles, their contemporary interpretation, the means and methods of training, or the development of new systems or entirely new arts. Hopefully the hoplological endeavors of The Immersion Review will spark new creative thinking in its readership, too.
Mahipal Lunia Executive Editor
Juha A. Vuori, Ph.D Managing Editor
Mika Harju-Seppänen Managing Editor
Editorial | 15
TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF A CONVERSATION IN RANDOM FLOW
[photo credit : Eric Nomberg]
Maija Soderholm
IN EARLY 2006, MAESTRO Sonny Umpad, my teacher and founder of Visayan Style Corto Kadena and Larga Mano Eskrima, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Soon after the diagnosis, he was taken to the hospital having lost motor function in one arm. Once there, he had surgery to remove tumors in his brain. He was told there were inoperable tumors they left untouched, and that he only had about six months to live.
SONNY UMPAD / RANDOM FLOW
· Maija Soderholm | 19
Arrangements were made for him to move into a care facility from the hospital ward, but the morning that the transportation was to collect him, he disappeared.
He told me: “Flow. Random Flow. Show them that. Show them the ‘pendulum’. If you can give them one thing, get them to flow. No patterns. OK?”
A few hours later, he was found by frantic family members at his own home, sitting at his table, working on his blade projects. He had walked out of the hospital, taken two separate buses, and then walked home from the bus stop. It was clear he had no intention of sitting around and waiting to die. Luckily, his amazing friend and former nurse, Elena, stepped up and volunteered to look after him so he could have his wish to stay home instead of going into care.
Of course, I said, “yes.”
During this period, his students continued to go over to his place and train, the workout space made even smaller now by a hospital bed in the living room. He told all his students he expected us to carry on his ideas and teach. Even before his stroke, I had already made plans to start a class. So, now we spent time chatting about how I was going to do it. In what turned out to be one of our last conversations, I sat by his bed, and he asked me to promise him not to teach any preset patterns or drills.
20 | The Immersion Review
My first class was scheduled for Thursday evening that next week. At 11 AM on that very same morning, the 24th of August 2006, he died. I taught my class, laughed, cried, and cursed his sense of timing, and wondered how I would ever manage to keep my promise. It turned out to be very challenging to teach following and using his restrictions, limitations, and instructions, but I tried, and at the same time also tried to make sense out of why it was so important to him. It has been quite a journey, and incredibly valuable experience to make sense out of his simple training philosophy. To give the reader a flavor of what it was like to be at the receiving end of his tutorage, here are some excerpts from an essay I wrote soon after his death that appeared in a memorial edition of FMA Digest. Reading it still brings me back vivid memories to this day.
SONNY UMPAD / RANDOM FLOW
· Maija Soderholm | 21