Mga Mutya, Anting-Anting, Habak, Orasyon, and Other Things I Don't Know About

I have never come across an eskrimador who practices the mystical aspects of traditional eskrima.  Or if I have they never admitted it to me.  My teacher says that he never learned it and that neither did his teacher.  And, personally, I have no interest in those, because from what I've heard, these are not without a corresponding obligation, burden, vow, or condition that one must fulfill for the protection to be effective.

In this, the traditional eskrima that I practice is limited, but it is enough for me that I am learning and practicing only the fighting skills.  I have no desire to be among those who publicly exhibit claims of mystical protection by performing such stunts as firewalking, bending or breaking spears, or having someone hack away at their bodies with swords.

Also it is said that it is forbidden for someone who has a true anting-anting or other analogous thing to talk about its nature to other people.  If he does, he will lose its protection.

My take on the anting-anting, mutya, habak, and orasyon and why legends and belief in them persist to this day is that in "less enlightened times" it was easier for an eskrimador to put on the impression that he was under the protection of a supernatural spirit or power than it was to rely solely on his own skill and training, especially if he had to guard perpetually against jealous rivals or mere novices eager to establish a reputation by taking him out.

One would be less likely to tempt one's fate by setting to ambush or attack an eskrimador, no matter how distracted or unconscious he might seem, who may just have the unnatural invincibility of a crocodile, the strength of an agta (I would translate this as a "night ogre"), or the speed of a lightning bolt.  Only an equally confident or a truly bold eskrimador would attempt to challenge another eskrimador with such a reputation.

As to their effect, a mutya, anting-anting, habak, or orasyon may, in the first instance, have a placebo effect of psychologically boosting one's confidence in his own skill and power or of demoralizing the opponent, while others, especially concoctions which are applied to the body or drunk, may have the effect of performance-enhancing drugs.

So far, that's all I can say about them.

The Logo and the Slogan

What you see here is the logo which I made to remind me of my ideas about traditional eskrima.

The three sticks of different colors represent three popular kinds of sticks used in eskrima.  The White is Uway.  Black is Bahi.  And Red is Kamagong.

The colors and their position in the triangle also carry their own meanings, apart from representing the aforesaid three kinds of wood.

White, as a color, also represents the apparent opening of an eskrimador's fighting guard.  It is an opening which seems to invite attack, but which should ideally be impenetrable because of the eskrimador's skill and quickness.

Black here also represents the near-certainty of defense and powerful strikes from one's strong side, which is that of the dominant hand.  On this side, the eskrimador should establish security.

Red represents how an eskrimador should be most watchful of his back and should be able to defend it.  It requires a constant awareness of one's surroundings, because an unseen strike could be fatal and then blood would flow.

The triangle itself represents the lessons I have learned from triangle stepping.

The gaps between the sticks mean that no matter how good an eskrimador is, there is always the likelihood that the opponent can find a way in to dismantle one's defense.  However, the gaps may also be openings, traps that the eskrimador may put in play to draw an opponent in.

Beneath the logo is the name of this blog and my idealized slogan as an eskrimador, written in my modified baybayin script:  Bunal Bol-anon, and below it, Bahala'g Maigo Ko, Basta Mamatay Ka.  For those who don't speak Visayan, this roughly translates into "I don't care if you hit me, so long as you die."

Fighting words, yes.  And somewhat inconsistent with my having said that not all fights have to happen and that it is a far greater skill not to have to fight because you've already won the fight before it is fought.

I take these words as a personal reminder, because, in truth, I am too much of a pacifist that I sometimes need to remind myself that there are times when one must fight and also that, should there be a need to fight, it must be all or nothing.

The Lesson of the Triangle

In other eskrima styles, they talk about the male or female triangle, drawing it on the ground or on the floor or using sticks to outline it and employing the footwork in drills and other modes of training.

For me, however, there was no one to teach me that way and I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be taught so, given my bias for traditional modes of instruction.  The triangle stepping I have been practicing is not distinguished as to male or female and is mastered by making a triangle of three halves of coconut husks or shells and playing eskrima upon it, or just stepping around without looking at your feet for possibly hours on end.

The husks would be placed on equidistant points, spaced at a pace apart.  Years before I met my teacher, I would do this for several hours at any one session that I did decide to practice, which was not often.  I did this because this was what elders told me was one of the ways of traditional eskrima.  And because I wanted to learn through the old ways.

I had not yet met my teacher then, but I had already learned some eskrima and I would say at that time that I was better than some practitioners and thought myself adequately skilled.  An opinion of myself which I now no longer hold.

What did I learn from working on the triangle?  I learned about balance and my own proportions.  But what I consider the most important lesson from triangle stepping is that there is always a third point.

The lesson of the triangle is that the feet are two points and the third point is that one step forward, backward, or sideward which I take to regain balance, to gain leverage, to evade or redirect an attack, or to close distance.  Whatever the position, that third point is always there and one should never think that he is out of options.

How is this of use to the eskrimador?  Let’s state it this way: Footwork should be second nature to an eskrimador.  It should be something that moves by itself, not something that one has to think actively about while engaged in a fight.  It should not be a reaction through perception, but a reaction through sensation, in much the same way that doing chi sao teaches speed and sensitivity in wing chun.

In eskrima, triangle stepping is the way to mastering footwork.

In Defense of Myself or Reconciling Ironies: How a Bruce Lee Fan Can Be a Traditional Martial Artist

I know what you're thinking.  You're wondering just how a Bruce Lee fan can practice as a traditional martial artist.  And that saying so would make me a walking oxymoron.

If you met me a little over a decade ago and expressed a less than favorable opinion of Bruce Lee or his skills as a martial artist or fighter I would be among the first to jump on your throat and beat you into fanatic reverence for the man, the myth, and the legend.  Attacking Bruce Lee then would have been the same as attacking the memory of my father.

What has changed since then?  You may say that I have mellowed and, though still a fan, I'm no longer as rabid as I was then.

I am a fan in that I admire his achievements and am impressed by his abilities.  I will always hold Bruce Lee in high esteem as the compleat martial artist.  But what I am not is a follower.  I have my own way to follow.  It is not better than Bruce Lee's, it is just my own.

I have no intention in being a martial artist of becoming the best fighter there is.  I have had injuries which have become physical limitations to achieving such an ambition.  And although I understand the reasoning of Bruce Lee's martial arts philosophy and agree with the bulk if not all of it, my reason in practicing eskrima is now more for reasons of cultural preservation than of athletic preparation.

Of course, I took up eskrima to become an able fighter, to learn how to defend myself.  But in the ensuing years it has become apparent to me that almost everyone else is coming up with newer, more modern ways of practicing the art.  For those interested in these styles, they can go to the clubs teaching such styles.

At one point, I realized that if most everyone else was going this way, there should be someone who can show a way back for those who might want to study the art's past.  (Except perhaps for the mystical.  Knowing nothing about it, I cannot discuss that aspect of traditional eskrima which delves into oracions, mutyas, and anting-antings.  This is something my teacher says he never learned, or even his teacher before him.  But, in Bohol, I have heard that there are still some who do and, as with all that is mystical, one is forbidden to openly talk about it or even describe the rituals.)

In his later years, Bruce Lee would come to say that he no longer believed in styles and that even his own Jeet Kune Do could not be said to be the best martial art.  He went on to say that structurally most of us are the same, having two hands and two feet, knees and elbows, and what other tools one may have.  Taken far enough by their practitioners, all martial arts will eventually resemble each other, because there's only so much that one can do with the human body.  I believe this is the reason why you would see many cognate techniques even in martial arts that developed independent of each other.

Ultimately, Lee said, it comes down to honestly expressing oneself.  This is what I'm trying to do through traditional eskrima.

My teacher only taught me through sinawali, and though there were several stick and pinute disarms, he only taught me two knife disarms, which when used up or down, right or left might almost seem like a new technique but is in fact only applications of the two.  One will also realize that these two disarms are just variations of one knife disarm.  So there was not a lot of technique to learn, but I trusted in what I learned to be effective.  I might never have been in a real fight, make that a real street fight, especially with knives, but my teacher had, on more than one occasion, and he made sure I learned how to deal with knives in a way that I can use it so.  Old-school, so to say.

I must admit that through books and Youtube videos and with the help of training partners I have learned more than what my teacher taught me.  What I have learned is not purely traditional, but his teachings and his method, or lack of it, will remain to be the core of my practice of eskrima.  And his approach will always be my standard for training.

I cannot say that my eskrima is the best or that it teaches everything there is to know, but what I have done is teach it the way I was taught and train in some of the traditional ways that some elders, only a couple of whom were eskrimadors, have described to me.

These days, however, one sees a lot of modification with most eskrima/arnis/FMA schools, especially those that are most popular.  People are coming up with new drills, adding techniques and a multitude of disarms.  Some of these styles or systems may be doing a lot of the same things as the traditional, but they've also been doing a lot of things their own way.  This is understandable, because even in the traditional stuff I learned there was always the improvisation of the individual practitioner.  But with a few of them, sometimes what is new obscures the old.

I feel that should there be a need for the modern-day eskrimador to find his way back, we must also know and be able to show the way.

I have my own path as a martial artist and the only honest way I can express myself in this is through traditional eskrima.  This is what I do because, for all the value of vicarious learning, I am most bound to that which I have learned from my own experience.  Of this, at least, I think Bruce Lee would approve.

And, come to think of it, traditional eskrima is itself without system and without method.