FMA for a new guy

If your timing is bad yes but if its good its a valid tactic that is and has been used to success.

But then again getting into a fight with weapons is not advisable.

 

Not against someone hitting hard enough with a live sword.

 

I had a guy in a night club where I worked try to hit me with a live bar stool and it worked. Does that count lol.

 

Ok, i'm going to take a stab at contributing to this discussion - my apologies if i've misread anything...

From what i can tell, we're trying to argue the point of whether or not blocks are USEFUL. The fact is that blocking techniques are taught and used as a REACTIONARY tool to buy time for a counterattack or escape. This has been the case for military units, bodyguards, and general survivalists throughout history. In terms of whether or not it is superior/inferior technology, i would say that it is certainly less preferable to more pro-active methods, such as evasion, redirection, or counter-offense. HOWEVER, it still must be ready to use as a contingency, in the event that pro-active methods fail, or cannot be deployed.

With regards how PTK treat the "blocking" debate: I was in NYC in Nov 2008 with Simon Burgess, and he was telling me how Leo Gaje had come to the understanding that - despite all the different ranges and techniques that are taught and trained - you ultimately DO have time to move, or you DON'T have time to move.

In the event that you DO have time to move, a block can be deployed as a counter-offensive tool. In the event that you DON'T have time to move, a block is a damage-mitigation tool. Often this results in the sacrifice of the blocking tool, in exchange for momentary preservation of the intended high priority target.

Examples:

Martial arts
Fighter gets caught with a stiff jab, sees a left hook coming. Uses right arm to block, giving time to deploy countermeasures: Left uppercut, right overhand.

Bodyguarding
2-car convoy is engaged by improvised roadblock. Support car (2nd car) overtakes Principal car (1st car) and provides cover from fire. Principal car reverses, J-turns, and escapes.



Blocking for the sake of blocking is, in my opinion, pointless. On its own, a block does little more than offer the attacker the opportunity to cause further damage to secondary targets, or compromise the blocker's manoeuvrability and cause further damage to primary targets. But blocking for the sake of immediately allowing weapon-access, counterattack, escape, etc is not only useful, but an ESSENTIAL part of combative/tactical training. Therefore it is not so much the technique that is at fault, but the way it is taught and applied.

 

That (among other things) is what you use single six for. Still not what I'd consider a block.

 

So what do you call a block then? It helps if you define your terms rather than play a game of "guess my semantics"

 

I've already gone to great lengths in order to clarify what I feel that a block ISN'T. In any case, have a look here again: http://martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1074793527&postcount=87

 

If you mean "block and go" a la "karate style" then I agree...but PTK has plenty of slide, slip, deflect and counter motions that fulfill the defensive criteria. The problem is that "block" is seen as a permanent state, and it isn't. Isolate individual movements and they ARE blocks, there are just transistionary

There are quite a few examples of a block-esque (really a parry or deflection more than a block) a U drill variant and a few others in this clip

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZbDQ4IIFlU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZbDQ4IIFlU[/ame]

There is plenty of "blocking" (in the sense that ANY of the FMA systems "block") in this demo too

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClCHubIlDhM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClCHubIlDhM[/ame]

 

The counter-offensive criteria.

 

There are still plenty of 1.5/2 beat combinations within those vids - many motions are clearly "active defenses" utilising blocking motions

Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of what I see is pretty much identical to a lot of the FMA I have done...and that's not a bad thing.

 

I think we're talking about a distinction without a difference here. Nobody who blocks in FMA is doing so without flowing straight into counterattacks. And every block I was ever taught in FMA involved targeting the fingers rather than the stick (making it an attack on the offending limb). Even those movements that do flat-out stop the path of the incoming weapon are still attacking into the attack. Whether you call them a block or not is semantic, not substantive.

 

If you're referring to the tapping, it's not practiced that way anymore. The counter-offensive application (derived from double stick single six) is much more apparent and direct these day. Starting PTK, I thought I had a good bead on such things after eight years of seminars...boy was I wrong.

 

That has not been my experience, however. http://www.pekiti-tirsia.net/GT_Impression.php?lang=en&soundsParam=on&file=GT_Impression

 

But you have to take into account two things

Firstly your experience changes with time. You said as much in a recent post regarding what you thought you knew when doing x amount of seminars. I do things now I thought where pointless years ago but have since served me well.

And secondly. When training within your own group there is a certain amount of 'we don't do it that way because we think its inferior' therefor you don't train it to a point where you know for certain.

An example. I was fighting at an event in Manila in 92 where a certain well known practitioner who was cornering his guy against me was shouting to the judges that my abaniko techniques should not score as they where inferior yet moments later I break his guys wrist with an abaniko. He took umbrage and blades where pulled out from his group and blades where pulled out from the Pinoy group I was with. We had a bit of a Mexican stand off as you can tell I'm still here and it still never changed the fact that the so called inferior technique actually did the job to great success.

If you feel they are inferior either don't use them and you will never know for certain or train them to death in the right environment until you know for certain. But just because you and the group you belong to consider them inferior does not actually make it so. You simple may be looking at them and understanding them from a different context and perspective.

Basically. Don't take anyone's word as gospel. Find out for yourself regardless of the opinion of the majority otherwise you may be lacking something you may have to rely on later on.

 

Can I ask how long you've been studying FMA?

And are you saying you've encountered FMA teachers who have taught that you're NOT targeting the fingers when you block?

 

Two years formal PTK training, a couple of seminars every year since 2003. In the course of Sayoc practice I've only done knife, so I can't say anything about their their long weapons tactics, but I've done weapon-to-weapon contact in Lameco, Atienza and Pekiti. Of course, in the latter it's not referred to as blocking; in blow-by-blow (as seen in the last clip I posted) there is weapon contact, in contradas there is not.

 

And the other question? You said it hadn't been your experience that FMA teachers teach that you're actually hitting the opponent's fingers on a block. Am I misunderstanding that, because literally every FMA teacher with whom I've studied or chatted since 1989 has been very clear on that count.

 

Exactly, all that time I was knife-tapping with my hands from a low position and in a reactive manner, without ever having the necessary counterattack emphasized from the get-go. Not so with PTK.

If someone can get the job done by having separate tactics for attacking and defending, then good for him. But that's not what I like to practice. I choose to focus on footwork and powerful strikes instead of trying to stop an attack dead in its tracks. Kind of like they do here:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8vdmVrJg24"]Arnis of the 50s: French Documentary - YouTube[/ame]

And btw, abanikos can knock someone out just as well as, for instance, a diagonal number one.

That is exactly what I have been doing. Thinking in terms of counter-offense rather than defense has worked wonders for me in being able to apply stuff I struggled with before.

 

In PTK, a deflection/parry does not equal a block. For reasons I've expounded on more than once in this very thread.

 

But I don't know ANY FMA player that DOESN'T emphasise that...hell it's one of the core tenets of JKD too.

If you were compaing it to say karate you might have a point, but you are doingpretyy much exactly the same thing as conutless other systems and seem to think it is a revolutionary concept when it isn't - or have I missed something? It is relatively early and i am only two mugs into my day