A few years ago, I posted “Three Reasons Why Filipino Martial Arts Suck.” I decided to update this post to include an additional reason and tweaked some sections in the original post.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Those uninformed about Filipino Martial Arts often say the following:

(1) “All they do is twirl their canes.”

(2) “You’re not always going to have your cane with you. What happens when a fight breaks out?”

(3) “Your empty hands suck.”

And recently, I have heard this criticism of the prevalence of flow drills in FMAs:

(4) “The flow drills are completely useless.”

Let’s take each of them in turn.

(1) “All they do is twirl their canes.”

In stating this, the critics are thinking of examples like Professor Remy Presas in the below video, taken in 1975.

I once heard the above quote from a martial arts friend of mine: “They’re good at twirling, and that’s about it.” He did not know that I practice and teach Modern Arnis and have trained in other FMAs. Upon hearing this, I said to myself, “Oh, man, he has no idea.”

He was so certain in his opinion that I decided I wouldn’t waste my energy trying to change his mind. His opinion implied that Filipino Martial Arts are generally useless.

“Just take their sticks away, and they have nothing!”

Right. He didn’t know any better.

Type in “machete attacks” on YouTube. Heck, there was a machete attack in Oshawa a few years ago on the corner of Taunton and Harmony, just minutes from my old house!  

Below is a video of a machete attack in Kenya. Look at the attacker on the right. Most FMA players would recognize that he is preparing to launch an angle #1 attack.

Yes, most FMA systems include twirling as part of their solo training and techniques. For example, the “double zero” strike, while a cool-looking move, is a deadly technique. Go back to the video of Professor Presas, and you’ll see that he executes the double zero several times. 

Naturally, those who focus on twirling overlook what training in FMA offers. 

One of the greatest values in learning Filipino Martial Arts is learning the angles of attack and corresponding defences against each angle.

As stated above, many FMA practitioners would instinctively identify the attack in the Kenya video as a #1 angle attack and react accordingly. In short, FMAs are a hell of a lot more than just twirling. Fundamentally, FMAs are premised on dealing with angles of attack regardless of the method of attack.

Does knowing angles of attack guarantee success? Of course, there is no guarantee regarding martial arts and self-defence. However, training in FMAs gives the student a better chance, provided he/she has a good instructor and has trained diligently.

The bottom line is that Filipino martial arts are much more than just twirling. Angles of attack are the foundation of FMAs.

(2) “You’re not always going to have your stick or bolo with you. What happens when a fight breaks out?”

Well duh.

The implication is that FMA players cannot defend themselves without their weapons.

Au contraire, mon frere.

Of course, you won’t carry your rattan cane or bolo when out in public. 

I often tell potential students they will likely not carry a bolo onto the Go Train from Oshawa to downtown Toronto. That often gets a chuckle or two. Then, I explain the practicality of FMAs to them.

I tell them that those who train in Filipino Martial Arts are adept at recognizing angles of attack and utilizing weapons of opportunity. 

For example, if needed, I can easily use a tote umbrella, a rolled-up newspaper, or a magazine. Additionally, a knife or a travel wrench (courtesy of Datu Kelly Worden) can come into play as well.

Through training in FMAs, you should be adept at using weapons of opportunity and defend accordingly.

In addition, there are the empty hand translations of weapons movement. It’s somewhat controversial among some who do not believe in the empty-hand translations of FMA. I think that it’s pretty self-evident that FMA techniques translate readily to empty hands. For example, there are many applications for weapons training exercises, such as the single sinawali, double sinawali, heaven sinawali, reverse sinawali, gunting, punyo strikes, and much more. See the video below for an example.

The late Professor Remy A. Presas was adept at translating the stick movements to empty hand movements and insisted that we learn how to translate the stick into empty hand self-defence. This philosophy was central to the Professor’s beloved art of Modern Arnis.

(3) “Your empty hands suck.”

Ahem.

Again, the theme is “You are completely useless without weapons.”

Training with swords and sticks helps improve reaction time tremendously. Being able to move defensively against weapons moving at a high speed and countering immeasurably improves reaction speed. Some say that punches look slower compared to stick movements.

In addition, training with weighted objects such as sticks or swords improves your hand speed immensely.

Black Belt Magazine interviewed Paul Vunak in April 2008 on “Defanging the Snake.” This article was done in an interview format, and one section piqued my interest:

BB: Why should martial artists in the 21st century incorporate stick fighting into their training ?

PV: To answer that properly, I have to go back to Bruce Lee and Dan Inosanto in the 1960’s. Bruce was obviously an amazing person, an amazing martial artist, and an amazing athlete. For many years, he was the only person at that level Dan had ever seen. After meeting Bruce, Dan was introduced to some Filipino masters by Ed Parker. He noticed that these masters had the same attributes as Bruce: similar speed, similar sensitivity, similar body mechanics. Dan had been probably in 20 martial arts before, he’d never seen anyone move like Bruce and these guys were in their 60s. Those masters were able to move that way because of the weapons. When you move with weapons in your hand, it expedites the development of your natural attributes. Whether you’re talking about speed, power, coordination, timing, spatial relationships or footwork, you can quadruple it by working with weapons.

BB: How does weapons training increase your speed?

PV: When you swing a stick, the tip of it moves about 150 miles per hour. No punch moves that fast. So when you’re used to seeing a stick swing that fast, punches seem like they are coming at you in slow motion. There are so many different angles and so many different weapons that when you make the transition to empty hand, it’s really easy.

(Italics added)

Professor Remy A. Presas had phenomenal hand speed. The same goes for someone like Professor Chuck Gauss, my teacher.

This is the result of years of training with sticks. I can tell you that I have benefitted tremendously in the same way. My speed, timing, rhythm, and reaction, offensively and defensively, result from training with sticks.

The bottom line is that training with sticks develops tremendous hand speed.

(4) “The flow drills are completely useless.”

Many FMA systems teach flow drills as a way of imparting the knowledge base. Many drills are cool and contain lots of tricks. Those sitting in the peanut gallery will point out that flow drills depend on compliant partners. True! Critics of FMAs will point out many flow drills teach “choreographed flow” and not true flow. ALSO TRUE!

What they don’t realize is that many FMAs use flow drills as a base to teach the fundamentals. Once the students have a solid grasp of the fundamentals, the instructor can mix and match elements from different flow drills. At this point, we are transitioning from predictable to random training. A good instructor will feed “puzzles” to their students to insert some randomness. As the students’ skill level increases, so does the randomness of the training.

For example, in the below video, I showed Alex how to counter my clear and punyo feed.

I was instructing him to use the “sinawali boxing” concept. In wing chun terms, this would be the “pak sao” followed by a punch.

Later in that training session, his sinawali boxing counter to my punyo feed improved considerably. This is one example of using any element of any flow drill to defend against me. To accelerate the student’s learning process, I often narrow the parameters of their responses. “Counter with sinawali boxing or the gunting any time during this sequence.”

Unfortunately, some of these common knocks against Filipino Martial Arts persist.

Those stating these misperceptions often have little to no FMA experience and are looking in from the outside. On the other hand, there is increasing recognition of the practicality of Filipino martial arts and what they have to offer in terms of self-defense.

Filipino martial arts are beautiful, practical, and effective, and they can take one on an amazing martial journey filled with possibilities.

The bottom line is Filipino Martial Arts do not suck. 🙂

I believe that every art, whether it be judo, karate, jiu jitsu, wrestling and other arts, has something to offer. There’s nothing to gain by putting down another art, provided that it’s well taught, functional, and solid body mechanics.

Over to you, what other criticisms of Filipino Martial Arts have you heard over the years? Let’s hear them!

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