Cool old clip of Brady Brazil

[geezer]

Here's a cool old video demo of sword vs. sword, sword vs. doble baston, etc. from back in the early 90s. Notice the historic mullets! Anyway the shorter guy with the sword is Brady Brazil. He was one of the top guys associated with GM Rene Latosa and also influenced Master Martin Torres of DTE when he was starting out.

 

[Argus]

That's pretty neat. I've never seen the sword and shield in FMA, despite all of the references to it being common place historically.

 

[geezer]

Yeah, sword, club, or axe and shield are a pretty universal combination. In the following picture you can see other Filipino shields of various configurations ranging from the well known upright rectangle with two vertical notches or openings, to round shields, and smaller round shields roughly equivalent to the European buckler:

http://www.vikingsword.com/rila/k01.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2a/16/7f/2a167f21760a9986e55bb9ac0ab9200e.jpg

And here's a photo of some other FMA guys training with similar weaponry:

https://lakasfilipinomartialarts.fi...879027_128181700593001_578809_492018856_n.jpg

BTW I have not had the opportunity to work with Brady since the late 1980s. I know that in addition to being a fantastic martial artist, he had a deep interest in Filipino history and had a business selling antique Filipino weapons. A couple of friends of mine maintained contact with him for a while and own some beautiful weapons they got from him.

 

[geezer]

Interestingly, Brady's associate and mentor, Rene Latosa is one of the people that is credited for introducing and building interest in the FMA in Europe back in the 70s. For many years GM Rene was closely associated with Bill Newman in England. GM Newman was also deeply involved in practical application of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA). From what I've seen online, this has been integrated into the Escrima he teaches, including sword and buckler:

http://www.newman-escrima.com/berichte/vod2003/p5.jpg
http://www.wing-tsun-bremen.de/Escrima7.jpg

Or check out this Youtube clip:

I have never had the pleasure of meeting GM Newman, but all who have, have described him as humorous, very knowledgeable, and tough as nails.

As far as mixing HEMA and Escrima goes, it seems natural to me. Although some prefer to stress specifically Filipino ... or more accurately, a specific subset of what we know as FMA, the Escrima/Eskrima tradition I train was always as mixed up as adobo, a blend of Filipino, Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese and European martial arts. It's a martial art for everybody. If someone wants to add a little more Chinese, European, or other flavor to suit their personal taste, I'm cool with that.

Check this out:

Philippine adobo - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Hmmm. Now I'm hungry! I Think I'll break for lunch.