You’ve seen those lists. “The 10 Best Martial Arts For Self Defense,” “The Best Martial Arts Styles for Self Defense,” or “The 10 Most Lethal Martial Arts.” They’re eye-catching and often informative.

I have the utmost respect for the martial arts listed. I believe that most martial arts, provided that it is taught well, utilize sound principles, and have solid body mechanics are good. For the most, I believe that the practitioner makes the art rather than vice versa.  

Here’s a sampling of some of the lists I found after googling “best martial arts” and the below is taken from the first page of the search results. Go through them carefully.

(1) Men’s Fitness: Picking a Fight.

(2) Listverse: Top 10 Martial Arts for Self Defense.

(3) Mantelligence: The Best Martial Arts for Self Defense.

(4) AskMen: Top 10 Martial Arts.

(5) What is the Best Martial for a Street Fight?

Notice what’s missing? 

You guessed right!

Filipino Martial Arts is noticeably absent from many of these lists, except for (5) which briefly mentions “Kali.”

Why is that?

My theory is that this absence has nothing to do with whether Filipino Martial Arts is great and everything to do with branding/marketing issues.

I view these lists, not as evidence that Filipino Martial Arts are not effective for self-defence. On the contrary, I think that FMAs are extremely effective and are among the most practical methods of self-defence that one can find.

I think that these lists indicate one problem. When one steps out of the Filipino Martial Arts bubble, one will find that most people do not know anything about Filipino Martial Arts.

The first scene in “The Bladed Hand” documentary drives home this point. This scene depicted folks in the streets of Quezon City answering the question of whether they knew what kali, eskrima, or arnis was. Nearly all in the scene had no idea.

Why do so few know much about Filipino Martial Arts? I think that, in large part, it’s a failure of marketing and insufficient education of the public.

Karate, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, Judo and Jiu-Jitsu have benefitted from decades of branding. Wing Chun and JKD became popular in the 1970s due to Bruce Lee. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu became widely known after UFC 1 thanks to Royce Gracie. When was that? November 12, 1993. BJJ exploded after that. Muay Thai and Krav Maga have become more popular in the past 20 years or so.

And yet, Filipino Martial Arts, despite its presence in North America for nearly 100 years, the Bourne movies and documentaries such as “Eskrimadors” and “The Bladed Hand” seem to lag, publicity-wise, behind the aforementioned martial arts.

Why? Is it because of:

(1) Lack of branding?

(2) Ineffective marketing?

(3) The splintered nature of Filipino Martial Arts?

(4) or a combination of one or more or all of the above?

What do YOU think? What explains the lack of knowledge about FMAs? 

Let’s hear your comments!

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