Professor Presas said, “Do not get hypnotized by the stick.”

He meant that people would get too caught up using their canes and forget about their empty hand. Sometimes, it is called the “alive” hand as it keeps you alive.

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It is imperative in corto range fighting systems like Modern Arnis.

The sensitivity of the check hand is crucial to effective responses and counters to any attack launched by an opponent.

Examples include checking an opponent’s attack, holding his arm, deflecting, punching, and baiting. It also includes feeling your opponent’s movement, disarms, lifting and clearing, grabbing, pulling, off-balancing, joint locking, and stealing the lead.

While learning the various striking, thrusting, and butting techniques with your stick, you must also learn to develop your checking hand. In other words, you must develop BOTH the weapon hand and the empty hand. They work in concert; otherwise, one will not become adept at self-defence/fighting.

An example is how Professor Presas taught the Six Count Drill. He always emphasized the use of the check hand in this drill. At the most basic level, you’re learning to insert your empty/check hand as you execute your stick technique during this drill. As one will learn very quickly, if you don’t use your check hand with proper footwork, you will suffer the consequences!

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Additional Reading