Kali/ Escrima?

Quote :

Hi Richie,

great site!!! it is one of the best i have ever visited so far. I am a practitioner of a modernized filipino martial art. the chief instructor had been a bouncer for several years in hamburg and tries to give you some real impressions of real streetfights, no forms, no nonsense. i have been doing fma for 5 years now. if you wanna take a look at it there is a video on youtube. it is a guy from berlin called michel ruge. if you wanna watch the video put combat escrima or bernd schubert into the search field. or visit the homepage www.etf-escrima.de .
keep up with the great work and just a question is it possible to become an instructor?

Take care,
Philipp

I just got this nice email, does anyone here practice escrima? Ive been looking at some kali clips recently and it reminds me a lot of some of the silat principles I was shown by Chris Parker

yes mate, Dean comes from a Latosa Escrima back ground and it was a fundamental part of my early training.

We have limited time now with the core skills and the Beta-8 but we still get the sticks out from time to time.

I feel it definitely had an impact on my fighting style. my boxing stance is squarer than usual, I'm quite comfortable southpaw and orthodox and my 'live hand' is an ever present automatic response. A lot of the paterns, blocks, counters and disarms were unrealistically complicated but they were designed to encourage a particular style and flow that escrimadors have.

You'll find tying up with a decent escrima practitioner a very uncomfortable experience. They move in an odd way that's very difficult to deal with. Escrima is not just about stick obviously. there's empty hand, knife, improvise weapons (newspapers, unbrellas, etc)

I've been doing some ad-hoc training for a few years now with a very good friend of mine (who's an instructor under the excellent Jay Dobrin).

I found that it did a great deal of good for my footwork and aggressive forward movement. Also my hand-eye coordination has improved and i can also hit things harder with a stick now

There is a kali sikaran club in my vincinity. Maybe it would be worth paying them a visit.

yes, and i find it important to learn fight and feel comfortable with different kind of weapons.. Much more chanche you survive an attack. and dont damage your body.
pocket stick fighting is also an aspect of my training, and its usefull.

Im doing a bit at the moment with one of Krishna Godihania's Warrior Eskrima classes its a completely different avenue for me really but it's not completely what im looking for but this points me on to my next question ?

Can anyone recommend any schools or instructors using reality based systems in the Birmingham / West Midlands area.

I have spoken to Bob Spour on various occassions and try to use some stuff I learnt off the SFS dvds which does work when it comes street defense.

Im really looking for something that is realistic instead of useless scenarios that only happen in Steven Seagal movies. Ive looked into Krav Maga , Keysi etc some good stuff after watching the SFS dvds you can relate to situations and want something which has been pressure tested and works. My back ground is mainly grappling (BJJ / Judo ) have done very basic boxing so looking to get into a system that is a good training basis but also works.

I took up kali as it was only over the road from where i live and saw some guys at Seni and thought mad feckers with sticks but would love to have a go.

Anyway Ive warbled on long enough any info would be gratefully appreciated

really really nice eskrima.. wish it was in holland this way

check
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6EZE_rmsQs