Video of the Week 5: Modern Arnis Slap-Off/Pull-Off

For this post, I decided to step back from structure-related videos and focus on the Modern Arnis slap-off/pull-off drill. I also delved into the empty-hand equivalent of the drill. As the video notes, pay attention to your center line and footwork when executing this drill.

One core tenet of Modern Arnis is the ability to translate stick techniques to empty hands. It isn’t worth much if you can’t transfer the weapon skill set to empty hands. Otherwise, what’s the point? One should be able to find empty-hand applications of all stick movements, including the Modern Arnis cane anyos. The slap-off/pull-off drill is one example. Those who study Wing Chun would recognize this as pak sao.

While you execute the slap-off or the pull-off, pay attention to your center line and use the appropriate footwork. This will optimize your positioning and power generation. Poor awareness of your center line and footwork will end badly for you. Trust me on this.

To learn how to translate stick to empty hand movement takes time. It’s a process. As I said in an earlier post, I have used a three-step approach to analyzing stick movements. They are:

1. Practice the stick movement;
2. Analyze the stick movement;
3. Replicate the stick movement with the empty hand equivalent.

In the above video, I replicated the stick version of the slap-off/pull-off drill to the empty-hand equivalent. It’s not that hard. But it does take some experience to get to this point. Hopefully, the video will give you some ideas about this process.

Additional Reading:

• Slap off/Pull Off in Filipino Martial Arts
• Horrifying Mall Attack
• Sinawali Applications
• Three Reasons Why Filipino Martial Arts Suck
• Digging Deep into Single Sinawali

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