Hi Stump, Anton St James (Doce Pares) is a good guy, you dropped on your feet there, I noticed you are in London, so why not drop along to GM Danny Guba's classes. Your right, videos are good starting points but not a good way to really judge a style. I have been very lucky in that I had the oppertunity to train with the late GM Presas. Trust me, he has a lot more than you get ot see on video. It's like the old Filipino thing of don't listen to what I tell you, watch what I do, if you know what I mean. Best regards Pat
Pat, unfortunatley at the moment I barely get time to train MMA (my main style) more than twice a week thanks to work so FMA is kinda on the backboiler for now. I had the chance to receive instruction from Danny at the Seminar yourself, Danny and John Harvey ran in Leicester and he is pretty good! Hopefully in future I'll get back to it properly. My main criticism of Remy Presas is that he "karatefied" the FMA and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. I'm not arguing about his abilities though.
Sorry to hear you had to put your FMA on the back burner, but things change and I am sure you will get back to it. But yes you are right GM Presas did karatefy it to a certain degree, when he first went to the US to promote the FMA this was the biggest audience and a great way for him to get FMA to a wider audience. and Yes many of his guys on the vid's do look like they are doing Karate with a stick. But turn off the volume and ignore them and watch how GM presas does things. Like I said, what he does and what he say's are 2 different things. You may like what you see. I was training and talking with him at a seminar in Germany once, and we where in the corner having a laugh. Well more like I was in pain and being bounced off the walls and he was laughing. and he stopped to teach another thing to the audience. Before moving on to the mat he said "look at this Pat, they won't get it" and he just smiled. GM Remy walked on to the mat and explained a drill he would like to see done, now he moved with fuidity and grace and smiled as he played with his assistant. As he walked back to me he said, "Look, I told you they won't get it". I looked over and seen a room full of people doing Karate with a stick? They listened and did not look, we both had a chuckle about it too One guy came up to me later in the day and asked "why do you just talk to the Master?, why do you not train all the time?", he looked confused when I responded with a smile and said "sometimes you can learn more from talking than doing and other times you can learn more from looking than listening" GM Remy butted in with a smile saying "see he get's it". The guy obviously did not notice the pain I was going through courtesy of GM Remy as others were drilling away. Best regards Pat
Basicly everyone I learned from was a family friend and was introduced to me because of family or a friend of the family. My brothers guro performed a eskrima demo during my 12th birthday. Tatang, Joe Mena and Andy Ibrahim were introduced to me through my father. The same goes for my silat instructor. I forgot my backpack at Sunny Umpad's house when I was 15 and he still remembers that. Sometimes the biases of whoever my current teacher is have rubbed off and I've missed what was available. Years ago one of my teachers had made up a joke about GM Lema, and when I met him later that week at a tournament I barely paid any attention to him. I didn't realized my loss untill this year. Mark Wiley was visiting Tatang when I was training with him, and I ignored him because one of my instructors in the states always spoke badly of him. For years my father was taking seminars from people like Ernesto Presas, Cacoy and Matt Marinas, but we never knew cause who listens to their father :bang: . Oh well .
This is a good piont. My brother tried to start teaching me when I was 12, but he was new to the art, and both he and his instructor were still old school. I spent my first couple of lessons with welts on my knuckles and on my head. When I took up the art again it was because of the camaraderie of the class and I no longer cared about the bumps and bruises. I've also cut ties with instructors who had great ability but very little integrity.
Pat has it here 100% correct. Turn off the volume on the tapes and watch the old man (* Said with utmost respect *) move. Ignore the others when they are demonstrating. I suggest the first six he preoduced.
Well, I first saw my teacher do some Eskrima... then Suro Jason Inay came and did a seminar at our school... I was sold instantly
