Hello Everyone,
Over the past year I have been taking the Filipino martial art Modern Arnis. It has given me an eye opening view of something I wanted to bring to everyone's attention.
To use a technology metaphor, gun people generally tend to be more hardware (i.e., guns, accessories) oriented rather than software (i.e., tactics, techniques) oriented. Since my background is in firearms this seemed normal to me. What I never expected was how much of a mirror image many in the martial arts world are to us. My instructor and several others in my class are not involved with guns at all and almost completely software oriented. Although we train rigorously in knives, sticks, swords, etc. all of the instructors I have talked with would be hard pressed to give suggestions of specific brands, models, or sources for procuring quality bladed weapons or impact weapons.
For instance, my instructor is a twelve year black belt in this art and he carries an extemely low quality piece of junk Chinese folding knife from Bud K. When I asked him about names like Spyderco, Benchmade, Emerson, etc. he just looked at me puzzled.
Another example would be my suggestion that non-Filipino swords and knives could possibly be more effective in the arts' Espada y Daga (sword and dagger) techniques over the generally poorly constructed farm implements that were pressed into service when the Spanish invaded the Phillipines. Many seemed puzzled that anyone would suggest such a thing when Arnis itself teaches that the techniques are designed to be used with ANY bladed weapon. Once I got a couple of sketches down on paper and showed them to my instructor his eyes got very wide and he began nodding as he finally got what I was saying.
The point of all this is to simply to say never forget how important it is to mix both hardware and software aspects of self defense to ensure you are adequated prepared for the bad things in this world.
- Anthony
Over the past year I have been taking the Filipino martial art Modern Arnis. It has given me an eye opening view of something I wanted to bring to everyone's attention.
To use a technology metaphor, gun people generally tend to be more hardware (i.e., guns, accessories) oriented rather than software (i.e., tactics, techniques) oriented. Since my background is in firearms this seemed normal to me. What I never expected was how much of a mirror image many in the martial arts world are to us. My instructor and several others in my class are not involved with guns at all and almost completely software oriented. Although we train rigorously in knives, sticks, swords, etc. all of the instructors I have talked with would be hard pressed to give suggestions of specific brands, models, or sources for procuring quality bladed weapons or impact weapons.
For instance, my instructor is a twelve year black belt in this art and he carries an extemely low quality piece of junk Chinese folding knife from Bud K. When I asked him about names like Spyderco, Benchmade, Emerson, etc. he just looked at me puzzled.
Another example would be my suggestion that non-Filipino swords and knives could possibly be more effective in the arts' Espada y Daga (sword and dagger) techniques over the generally poorly constructed farm implements that were pressed into service when the Spanish invaded the Phillipines. Many seemed puzzled that anyone would suggest such a thing when Arnis itself teaches that the techniques are designed to be used with ANY bladed weapon. Once I got a couple of sketches down on paper and showed them to my instructor his eyes got very wide and he began nodding as he finally got what I was saying.
The point of all this is to simply to say never forget how important it is to mix both hardware and software aspects of self defense to ensure you are adequated prepared for the bad things in this world.
- Anthony
