?Why do Filipinos prefer foreign martial arts?

In reply to The Silentblade

Ah, yeah. I see your point. I guess our FMA is traditional in the real sense of the word, that is, not in lots of "budo" protocol but talagang training for the practical purpose of physical conflict. Which all MA should not forget.

Kaya, yun, wala lang, I just find it sad that FMA is stereotyped, misunderstood, or is just plain unknown. I admit that sometimes I wish that FMA would get a little of some deserved glory, sumikat naman tayo kahit kaunti. It's like this one time I was watching another kendo bout and I was saying to myself Grabe, an Escrimador could cream them, and still not break the rules!

Like another time when some people were remarking on the "impossible" skill of the Hitokiri Battousai, that is, his being able to hit with full power at different angles in fast succession; then my brother took me aside and said he saw some Lightning Arnis dudes hit a tire with the same amount of power but much faster. Nobody else knows this, sir, so they would rather take up Kung fu, or Kenjutsu, or Weapons Karate or BJJ rather than FMA with over a hundred style to choose from.

I do see your point, sir. But I feel more frustrated all of a sudden.

Thanks, p're; really appreciate it. Pero okey na ang manigurado; baka k'se may mapikon.

 

Yeah. Martial Arts were born because of war, resistance, etc. In order for these martial arts to live, they are also taught during peace time. Some of them evolved and turned into sports.

Same here. I can't believe that FMA is so popular abroad, while Filipinos don't know sh*t about it.

Ganyan talaga buhay eh. I really don't want FMA to become popular in a way that it will just be a trend o fad that will die after a couple of years. I want Filipinos to know that FMA exist, that it has a worldwide recognition of its effective and deadly nature.

 

very nice responses from you guys. point well taken. as for my point of view, if i want FMA to be known, not to mention making filipinos pay for any FMA seminar... climb into the ring or go inside the fence and show fighting stuff and techniques that FMA is truly something that martial artists and MMA spectators should really look forward to. For one thing, the MMA circuit is where the LIGHT shines and the PUBLICITY is good and has a bigger chance of advertising it's superiority.

now, lets put the issue of military/law enforcement aside. it is a gig for the FMA alone and that is a given and a heaven sent break that made my heart glad it was accepted. But making FMA well known to the filipinos in this kind of gig is not easy. These system is practiced inside the camps and away from the viewers eyes.

next we have the dumog,boltong,buno,sikaran,mano-mano and these are real deal arts that are STILL not familiar to many filipinos.

and one thing is making me wonder though... how can FMAers practice full contact ALL THE TIME with no rules? Invite me to that gym, I will show up together with my fellow FMA practitioners and I want to see what you mean by full contact.

C'mon bros... we're all FMAers here, we all believe that our system is superior in its own way. But i will not pull someones leg as to how close we are to "DEADLY TRAINING" just to make it appear that we are indeed superior.

Remember that Fighters, Teachers, Guros, Senseis, etc... are viewing our discussions and anything that is too good to be true is a LAUGHING MATTER.

Yes, we are designed to fight with "no rules". But it doesn't mean that MMA fighters cannot fight us back. I've been in the MMA and raised a few eyebrows. i have done my damage and i'm still very glad to be in the FMA family.

And guess what? people need to see and feel and hear and smell what FMA is all about before they learn to appreciate it. One of my mentor, Dan Webre, is not a pure FMA, but he made a name because he was able to put his "no rules" fighting system under the spot light and many fighters whom he trained, showed it under the MMA circuit.

I hope you're viewing this Chris CLugston. I need your expert view man, thanks!

 

*sigh* Right now, what apparently seems to be the only ethical and practical way to let Pinoys know about FMA is to make a thoughtful and thought-provoking, well-researched and well-written, well-casted movie about any of our FMA.

Pero, asa pa. The money is in the skin-flicks or in those horrible dramas with all characters gathered in one room yelling at the top of their lungs. Roy Vinzon could have been great (though his MA is Aikido not FMA) but our filmakers would rather cast him as a bad guy.

Or the Ricketts brothers.

Mga kababayan ko, hanggang pangarap lang ba tayo?
(Countrymen, must we always merely hope?)

 

This has gone in a very interesting direction. I cannot speak for other FMA's, but I feel that it would be very hard for arnis to be adapted for MMA. One reason is that size does not really matter to a man with a weapon (look at those MMA guys!). The second is that if the arnis-man goes unarmed, he would have to resort to techniques that are often illegal to come out top.

The best striking techniques to defeat a grappler are illegal in most sports, and an arnis practitioner may be taught to grapple but ultimately will have to finish with a strike.

I think the best way to promote FMA's is to do what Thailand did with its indigenous art.

 

i'm really not updated to this! what did thailand do?

good day!

 

My idea of a FMA-MMA match:

Two guys armed with sticks in Ring/Octagon> Match starts> They crash to each other with ones and twos> Throw away the sticks > Goes corto> Removes Headgear> Clinch> Proceeds to grappling>

There are stickfighters who can handle stickgrapplers by maintaining range and hit them with the stick where it hurts. Alot of people abuse the headgear too, then proceeds crashing to grappling range.

Using live blades is a different story of course.

"Hey, that's illegal! Ref! He bit my nuts!"

Yeah. Imo, MMA is a grapplers game. I bet a Muay Thai fighter can do more damage if they' don't have restrictions when it comes to striking vital parts of their opponents body.

I want FMA to grow by itself without the help of other foreign arts. I really don't want to hear stuff from other people like "MMA is the reason why FMA is so popular right now" or "Without the help of MMA, FMA is nothing" or "FMA grew because of Karate". No offense but my Filipino blood boils with national pride. I used to be a fan of foreign arts before, but when I got into FMA it brought out the real Filipino in me. Pinoy pride.

 

fma in mma has been done.

hybrid yaw- yan, buno, dumog, and boltong as well as the traditional yaw yan have already made an impact in the local mma scene.

you can look it up at pinoymma.com or fearless mma or urcc

 

It’s all tied into some of the worse traits of Philippine society, neo-feudal class-consciousness, lack of patriotism, colonial mentality and ignorance of Filipino culture.

Philippine culture is quite class and status conscious. The Filipino upper class generally don’t do anything that reeks of “lower class”, whether it be sports, entertainment, music or anything else. The same goes for Filipino Martial Arts. FMA is a working class MA, practiced by farmers, country folks and the “lower class”.

In Philippine history, it’s always been like that. National heroes like Jose Rizal and Juan Luna were intellectuals and relatively well off and they studied western fencing. It’s the regular rebel troops who studied FMA and people like Andres Bonifacio who used FMA or at least preferred bolos over sabers. They did the dirty work of actually killing on the battlefield and they appreciated the deadly effectiveness of FMA. Only recently is there a revival of interest in FMA, among the military and some MA circles, but this is hardly the firestorm of interest that FMA needs.

Other MAs are more popular among the upper and middle class and have this favorable image as being from abroad and “better”. Most Filipino don’t know much about FMA and if they do, it tainted by very substandard classes they took in college, taught by PE teachers who barely knew what they were teaching. So FMA is seen as “baduy” (tacky), something a lot of upper class folks don’t care to study. FMA is something that their hired help do; they would rather to brazilian jujitsu, capoeira, kendo, aikido, boxing, karate, TKD, judo and what else is hip at the moment. FMA is way down on the list of MAs. Filipino love stuff from abroad, and FMA being “local”, that’s just another reason to shun it. Since few people want to study it, even fewer will be teaching it and it starts a vicious cycle of disinterest and disregard.

This question really ****es me off since it brings to mind a lot of what I hate about Filipino culture and society. The lack of interest in FMA is just another symptom of the disregard of Filipinos for their heritage and history. The supreme irony is foreigners who were often on the receiving end of FMA are now the ones who are more interested in studying and preserving FMA.

What I just wrote is the unvarnished truth and I’m sure very few Filipino in MAP will disagree with me. There are rotten parts of our current culture and society and understanding it should make Filipinos take action. On the bright side, the underground nature of FMA limits its study to only the dedicated. The dilettantes are better off doing other things and giving the true FMA students more time and space to train. It makes for great student / teacher ratios and assure the student of quality time and training.

I would hate to think that the future and popularity of FMA will rely on some Hollywood movie showcasing the style, but considering the more negative aspects of the Filipino psyche, it really does matter.

 

nicely put.

but just to correct a little known historical fact. dr. jose p. rizal did study escrima and panuntukan. he did western boxing and fencing as well. he was also a marksman and weight lifter. he practiced as often as he can. by some accounts, dr. rizal played some escrima back in laguna. he won some of those.

 

Being part filipino I think of FMA(Arnis,Kali,Escrima) as a weapon defense and it seems very interesting.

 

Thanks Shootodog...

I stand corrected.

 

I was talking about the FMA-Arnis/Kali/Escrima.

 

One can see some of Dr. Rizal's swords in the museum inside fort Santiago.
I didn't know Panantukan is that old.... actually most pinoy fmartists I talked to never heard about it and some sugested that Mr. Yuli Romo invented it....

True, fmas are rarely practiced by upper class filipinos (seem to prefer korean arts) but they are only a minority and are not representative of the general population.... In Thailand Muay Thai is only done by D-E classes but is still famous.

 

This was probly aided by the kickboxer films

Since i've started fma's i have come to belive it is the most effective ma in the world, i do 3 ma's and eskrima is by far my favorite.

There are tournaments starting to pop up all around the uk now, hopefully this will encourage more people to start up..although it could re-enforce the idea that it is all stick based which would be bad

I try to convince everyone i meet to come and try fma's. ive had about 6 people from my ju jitsu class start training and a few from my kickboxing, so if they all tell their mates and so on hopefully within a few years it will be quite popular and maybe hollywood will pick up on it and make a kickass fma movie - which of course i will star in

 

Thailand really encouraged the growth of their indigenous MA's. They hold small local tournaments the way small towns here in the Philippines hold boxing tournaments (whenever there is a fiesta or whether a local politician feels like sponsoring one).

As for FMA's in MMA, I'm in agreement with Silentblade.

 

Kainis talaga! This is sadly true. Now, I'm so depressed. Is there any hope anymore at all?

 

This is what I'm talking about! Can't this be done? Or is FMA still too dangerous for tournaments? I don't mean the heavily armored tournaments; I've seen some of those in some SM malls and I wasn't very impressed, typified by posturing then ineffective flailing (someone please tell me that those type of tournaments are not typical).

 

MAA is not a grapplers game! Period!
And most MMAs rules are now modified to fit the strikers. Tapping out is not only for submission holds. A hundred fighters tapped to strikes and worst... the grapplers were not given a chance to tap via KNOCK OUT and REFEREE STOPPAGE.
FMA has a chance in the world of MMA. Talking about fighting it dirty, there are MMA fights that allow dirty fights. And YES... there is a no "rules fight" here in the Philippines. You probably have not heard of "Ubusan" and "Barugang Piitan" or Jailhouse fighting (and it's not done inside the jail), and of course "Boltong".
This is the real PINOY testing ground and this is not hearsay nor made-up stories. Weapons? Oh Yes!!! There is a FULL CONTACT stick fighting too. Blade? Oh definitely!!!
That is why it is very easy to know the "Talkers" from the "Walkers" in this kind of fight.
So it's not quite correct to say that there is no testing ground for FMA. I have heard Reasons Reasons Reasons from those who are saying that they are not made for a tournament (or just plain scared to test their skills), because the ubusan is the door to shut some "talkers' " wide mouth.
PM me if you want to test your skills. There is one studio in your place there in Manila, that arrange this kind of fight.

 

To fma_demon, I have no idea of what Ubusan, Jailhouse fighting is could you give us some details? Boltong is a kind of dumog isn't it?

Thanks.