General Curiosity on Weapons...

hi everyone,

I've been watching several videos on FMA lately, single stick, double stick, really long sticks - a lot of stuff... and I would like some input from you qualified people on the following:

there tends to be a lot of twirling - does this apply only to working with a stick or are the techniques the same if you are using heavier weapons? I am especially thinking about a clip I saw of some guys doing largo mano (I think it was the Giron line? - which looked pretty nice) - and ultimately - how do you deal with/train for the fatigue of the lower arm?

regards

Ansgar

 

I'd imagine that if you are in a fight with weapons, where you are able to spend extended time twirling your weapon to the point where your arm gets fatigued then someone, either you or your opponent, aren't doing thing's right.
5 minutes tops and someone should be bleeding on the floor (and often it'll be both people).

 

Do you have the video links in question to post up? 'Twirling" is typically to disguise intent or else to transistion to a better striking position. Very little is - or more accurately very little SHOULD be a wasted motion in any FMA system worth its salt.

Also be aware that some twirling as you call it may just be a movement or application you do not recognise yet.

 

These are a couple of the Bahala Na guys, and there are some larger weapons being used

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=XY75pyq9oAs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=XY75pyq9oAs[/ame]

 

5 minutes?

Unless you're star wars kid or in a movie, I'd say more like 5 seconds tops.

 

Yeah I was being generous. Two skilled guys, bit of to and fro it might go 10 seconds.

 

If you want to avoid fatigue in the lower arm two things must be done.

Don't strangle the stick

And

Do more twirling. The more you do the stronger you get. Look at a lot of top class Eskrimadors they have Popeye forearms.

 

In some ways, twirling is even MORE important with heavier weapons. Because the twirling is often a way to get your weapon back into position to either defend or attack again without trying to reverse the momentum of the weapon along the same line you just swung it. The heavier the weapon, the more effort it takes to reverse its flow. With a knife: Effortless. With dos manos ("two hands"), much tougher.

 

wow!! first of all, thank you so much guys for all your replies.

second, if I have slighted anyone by using the term "twirling" then I do apologize. English is not my mother tongue so I just translated on the fly. It was not my intention to criticize, I was just observing a lot of rotational movement of the wrist that did not appear to be direct attacks.

Now for some feedback on your replies:

PASmith: I thought that must be the case, although "fatigue" can be split up into three regimes: low cycle (1-1000 repeats of high load amplitudes) high cycle (1000-1000000 repeats) and giga cycle fatigue (more than 100000000 repeats) - but this is all terminology so in itself not really applicable here. Like the 5 minute example

Hannibal: I've not bookmarked the clips but they were modern arnis, some competition clips (lot of hitting with full body armor), a little dog brothers stuff and the largo mano clip I was referring to is this one: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFOopehQUCs"]Master Michael Giron - Teaching Larga Mano Escrima - YouTube[/ame] - it seems to be from the same area (not sure about the expression) as the Bahala Na clip you linked. Thanks a bunch!

Pat: appreciate the tip - in your opinion, is there any risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrom from that type of conditioning?

Ap Oweyn: what you are saying makes absolute sense, thanks for your opinion.

I feel I should be a little less enigmatic about what we (my friends and I) do. We practice fighting with viking era weapons, typically 1,5 hand bronze swords and 1,5 hand axes. We also use large round wooden shields modeled after historical dimensions. We use practice weapons made of wood (oak to be more precise) and blunted metal weapons (bronze and cast iron) for "sparring". The motions need to be fluent and rather circular but I would imagine a lot more force go into these movements than into FMA (though I am really guessing here) because of the sheer weight of the weapons. We are a trial and error bunch and we like to look in different directions for influences we also train empty hand although this probably looks more wrestling than anything else.

anyway - thanks again for all your replies - great talking to you guys and have a nice evening!

regards

Ansgar

 

Twirling is generally flash. Really just a exercise.

 

Nope

 

No apology necessary, as far as I'm concerned. "Twirling" is a pretty common descriptor for those motions. I think FMA folks get their hackles up about the implied "just" in there. As in "[just] twirling." Their point being that there are very valid tactical and technical reasons for the twirling. But you already seem to be on that page, so I can't imagine anyone being put off by the term you used.

Does that make sense?

The more technical term used in FMA is "amarra" or "arma-ra." At least, in some forms of FMA. (The terminology of this stuff is legendary in its own right.) As I understand it--and that's an important disclaimer--"ama" or "arma" comes from the Spanish word "arma," meaning "weapon."

 

YEP

Most people look for flash

 

Not value added

 

Have you looked at posts 7 & 8?

Regardless of what the eejits in YouTube land like to do there are valid reasons for these type of actions within actual systems of FMA.

 

Twirling encourages poor "limp" wrist postion.

 

In what way?

 

Overuse of the rotating wrist action could result in training the wrist and forearm to be in a poor biomechanical position when striking , this to me negates any tactical gain which in the reality of a real fight is probably doesn't exit

 

If anyone thinks twirling is only flash I recommend watching the Real Stick fighting videos done by the Dog Brothers.
Eric Knaus "twirls" but that man is anything but flash. He's all business.
He explains much what others have said about diffusing momentum but also how a twirl can pick off a counter shot as the twirling stick comes back into position.
Without the twirl that counter shot would probably land.

 

Seen some of the Dog brothers stuff and it looks pretty intense , any good links that show this would be appreciated