FMAT: Introducing Stick Fighter Journey

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Introducing Stick Fighter Journey
By Perry Gamsby - Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:58:24 GMT
Originally Posted at: FMATalk

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In 2006 I decided to get back into teaching and training but I felt to offer Corral Arnis again would not be appropriate as my own style had moved on considerably from what I was taught by Sam Corral. He had said all along that I didn;t teach Corral Arnis anyway as I wasn't Sam Corral! I taught the Perry Gamsby interpretation of Sam Corral's Arnis and he was, of course, quite correct.

I had been thinking about what felt was good in FMA and what I believed was not as efficient or effective. After living in the Philippines for several years and having witnessed a fair amount of confict there at KTV bars, cockfights and so on I had my own ideas of what works and what doesn't. I put that together with my own experience over 30 years in the military, LEO and private secrutity industries and developed SFJ.

SFJ is Stick Fighter Journey. It reflects the fact life is a journey and that stick fighting is one of the vehicles I use to get from A to B. SFJ has two main streams; the martial art, historical, sporting and fun stream and the street effective, weapon biased self protection stream.

I make a clear distinction between stick fencing and stick fighting. One has both fighters using identical weapons, the other has whoever is involved using whatever is at hand, which could be multiple opponents and uneven weaponry (real life in other words)

I had thought hard about htings over the years and I now teach the three step core movement pattern of FMA, the Brush-Hold-Strike or Parry-Pat-Hit or Right-Left-Right Left-Right-Left (siniwalli). Everything comes from this core flow pattern. So rather than start students off with grips, stances and number systems, I start them off with Redonda Siniwalli. The record so far is 24 people all doing the drill in 15 minutes! Of course it then takes a while to realy own the movement but they get the core pattern into their muscle motor memory quickly.

Then we show the the same patter with two sticks, one stick, empty hand against a sick, empty handed, knife on knife, stick on knife and so on. We use a modified Hubud Drill for empty hand, knife and stick to teach flow and interruptions and entries and locks and take ddowns and so on, but it is the same basic drill. We also keep a box drill I learnt off Richard Bustillo and a disarm drill I learnt off Dieter Knuttel and thats it for drills.

We have a V pattern for the feet, stepping back or forward and very basic. We have basic strikes, blocks and disarms and then we build up full force, full speed and only use what we can use under sparring conditions ala Dog Brothers (minimal gear)

We also teach Vigny la canne for the lighter walking cane from instruction off Craig Gemeiner and the Fairbairn Stick Method as well as my own pocket stick and C.O.S.H. (Close Order SHort Stick) and the Gamsby Walking Stick Method (heavy, straight stick). As well we reasearch the Shillelagh, "Perfect Length", Baton, Staff, Sibat and other, longer stick weapons.

We also have a syllabus of empty hand skills at all ranges using all tools based on a military H2H style of combative. I have developed an edged weapon syllabus we call the Heaven Six Method which included the StreetShield tactic and other concepts. We no longer teach any offensive use of the knife as personal experience and detailed research has shown that 99% of all edged weapon attacks are not carried out by trained martial artists using skilled techniques so our time is better spent dealing with how people are actually attacked with edged weapons and effective counters.

Feel free to discuss, debate and question any of this. Look forward to the chat. Perry


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