Kenjutsu - sword

We'll develop sword sets later but for now we'll just setup a curricululm from the varius ryu.

Suburi
Sets you practice on your own.

Kumi Tachi - sword practice with a partner.

Kihon - the basic targets:
Men - head
Do -body
Kote - hand
Tsuki - thrust

Kirikaeshi - 5 step sword drill
Taiatari - a "chi ken" drill, like an NRG drill

5 sets where you attack
5 sets counterattack

mutodori -unarmed sword evasion

ken dori - unarmed sword taking

That should be enough to be going along with.

We also adapt certain largo and serrada drills for sword play.

Stix

Also a lot of unarmed concepts are learnt from stick and transferred across.

Drilling stick improves your reflexes and timing to such a degree that your unarmed combat improves exponentially as a result.

Karate has weapons.
Muay Thai has Krabi.
FMA from Kali and Eskrima develop panatukan boxing and sikaran kickboxing.

FMA - Filipino Martial Arts

At STMA we tap the FMA for the core of our wepons training. These systems have unarmed combat that is drawn directly from the weapons training, which makes them unique in MA.



Kali-Eskrima

The core art. Kali is a blade art while Eskrima is a stick art. As we train with stix, there is not much obvious difference between Kali and Eskrima at the lower levels.

K-E is seperated into sub-systems.

Sinawalli - fighting with two sticks. This is done at the long or largo range.

Serrada - close range single stick art that moves through the ranges of largo, medio and corto.

Largo Mano - long range stick. Often done with the longer 3 foot stick. Builds to longer weapons including sword, staff and spear.

Kadena de mano - knife and hand art - drills include knife to knife, knife to hand, and hand to hand. The hand to hand combat develops from the knife drilling.

Pekiti tersia
One of the Filipino knife systems I trained in extensively which has some great drills relative to kadena de mano and knife training and defence.


Unarmed combat systems:

Panatukan
Filipino boxing, developed from kadena de mano. Has much more use of trapping and destruction than Western boxing. Fills the ground between boxing and Wing Chun. If you are having trouble making your traps work in boxing phase, panatukan has the answers. The knife defence training makes the boxing much more sensitive and effective.

Sikaran
Filipino kickboxing, similar to Muay Thai but much more evasive and sneaky.

Pananjakman
The art of low line kicking, similar to kempo, atemijutsu or koshijutsu. A training phase, becomes an art in it's own right at a higher level.


I don't want to overload you by thinking there are lots of different arts to learn. Quite the opposite - we may well only use 10% of an art like panatukan at a certain level, but we will use it to bridge the gap between boxing and Wing chun and knife to empty hand.

Weapons systems and how they fit together at STMA

Our core weapons system is Kali/Esrkima. This involves training in the single and double sticks.

For double stick we move into the drills from Krabi Krabong, the weapons art of Thailand, and the concepts from nitto kenjutsu, the Japanese art of fighting with two swords.

For single stick we use largo and serrada drills from two ranges, as well as cover corto drills for hubud and lox, as well as how to use grappling range and go to ground range.

We also cover Okinawan kobudo weapons of nuncha and tonfa at serrada range and move largo range into longer weapons bokken, hanbo, jo, bo and spear.

STMA is not one style, it is a system of many styles, and we use a core art to develop skills and drills from other methods.

Weapons sparring

We have now started regular single stick and double stick sparring using the semi free format which exends from the give and take largo drill.

Sparring, once regular, will extend to nunchaku, then sword, and staff, for those who have those weapons.

STMA sessions

Weapons on Wednesdays:

Sticks single and double
Largo stick
Bokken
Hanbo
Jo
Bo
Nuncha
Tonfa


Impact on Thursdays:

Boxing on focus pads
Karate sets on focus pads
Kicks on shield
Thai sets on Thai pads


Sparring:

Boxing
Kickboxing
Thai
Points karate
Freestyle karate
Chi sao
Stick
Nuncha

The 3 phases of weapons training

As I said in class there are 3 phases to weapons training, as there are for kb:

Suburi - solo drills
Kumi - partner drills
Sparring

Obviously sparring brings it all out in real time and it is important to have the proper PPE so as not to hurt each other while "keeping it real".

There will be much more weapons development on Wed sessions.

Rapid Assault Tactics

This is a Feng Wei module that functionalises Applied Fighting Arts for the Street.

The Fence and KO punch

Interception set

Jab loop drill as an Entry

Jik Chun Choy straight blast

Basic traps with lop sao and pak sao

HKE - Head, knee, elbow

Shime - shokes with gi and "hadaka" no gi

This is use of boxing, Wing Chun, Kali, Thai, and Jujutsu in an uninterrupted "auto transmission" (no "gear changes") flow.

When you first start applying different arts it's like changing gear on a car. Dump the clutch, put the vehicle in "boxing" and that's what you're in. You need to change gear to "Wing Chun" and then to "Jujutsu".

The training we do in the flow makes it an automatic transmission - you change "gears" automatically beneath the surface without conscious direct effort.

kit order

All members are required to have the basic kit for training, which means the starter pack of gloves and stix.

If you already have your own gloves, you still need stix.

Also consider the recommended list for things you don't have but might want to get into.

Do you have the "uniform" of boxing boots and and gi pants?
Or are you still making do with trainers and track pants?

Do you have a judo gi for grappling work?

Do you want to get into more sparring with shinguards and a groinguard?

Do you want harder contact sparring so will want boxing gloves, gumshield and headgear?
Perhaps you like the grill headgear that Ren and I use?

Do you want more weapons? Sword, jo, bo? Nuncha, tonfa? Shinai? And are your stix coming up for replacement yet?

We recommend everybody gets their own focus pads. Do you have yours?
Do you want your own kick shield and/or Thai pads?

Get your orders in and make sure you ae fully equipped!

Interception

This is done against any kind of attack at the Entry phase.

STOP HIT
Against a wide hook punch we intercept with a STOP HIT to the face.
This can be a Choy blast, power jab, or eye jab

KEN KUDAKI
Against a closed line punch, such as jab or cross, we INTECEPT the punch allowing it to run into the elbow, breaking the attacker's hand.

KICKS
Against an attacker who steps forward, we kick the shin of the lead leg as soon as it comes into range - longest weapon to closest target.
This can be a boot cap or side of shoe to the shin or knee, or a round kick to yako or fukato point on the leg.

Against a wide round kick we can intercept by kicking the groin or supporting leg.

Against a puncher we just drift back to kick range, out of range of his punch, and kick the lead leg or groin.

WE do NOT do these moves in sparring, these are Street Combat moves.

Interception in sparring is done with straight lead punch or kick to the body, and done safely.

Sparring at STMA

We now regularly cover:

With PPE:
Kickboxing
Boxing
Thai boxing
Freestyle karate

No pads:
Traditional points karate
Wing Chun Chi sao

weapons kumite:
single stick
double sticks
nunchaku

special sessions:
Grappling
Vale Tudo

Sparring at STMA

We now regularly cover:

Kickboxing
Boxing
Thai boxing
Freestyle karate
Chi sao

less regular:

Grappling
Vale Tudo

we are bringing in:
karate kumite
weapons kumite starting with single stick

Weapons sparring

Following the demo that Tork and I gave at the end 2009 session, we will be starting regular stick sparring starting this week.

As usual, the seniors will spar first with myself, then each other, and we'll filter it down through the grades.

We are basing this on largo give and take drill into semi free to free sparring. Later we'l bring in the use of serrada drills and work on closing down the ranges.