FMA Festival in Gemany

[Dieter]

Hello everybody,

I just want to inform you, that my student Alfred Plath and I am organizing the 1st (and sure for long time only) Filipino Martial Arts Festival in Europe.
Even though it is a long way from the US, it will be a real event.

It will take place at the 23rd and 24th of February 2002 in Mönchengladbach /Germany.
This is near Düsseldorf and not too far from Cologne.
I was inspired from the way people from different styles treat each other in the Eskrima digest, which I think is almost always with respect to the other style.
So I suggested that we should organize a festival, where many FMA stlyes meet and this way
the respect and acceptance from one style to the other is getting higher.
Then Alfred took off and started to organize the Festival and now it will take place and it will be THE event for FMA in Europe.
About 20 instructors from all different FMA styles come together and teach their art. I will teach too of course.
Don´t miss it!
Check the details. Just go to

http://www.quick-stick.de/anglo/fest.htm

where you find all necessary infomations in english.
Today I have heared, that even 5 people from INDIA want to come and participate.
It would be nice to see some americans there too!


Best regards from Germany


Datu Dieter Knüttel

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Good luck with your event. I wish I could go, but finances won't permit it. Would be nice though...I've wanted to visit Germany for over 20 year.

:asian:

 

[Dieter]

Hi,

even though most of you are in the US and far away, here just a few more short informations about the upcoming FMA-Festival in Gemrany. We will have 18 instructors of different FMA styles teaching, always 6 styles simultaneously so you can choose always, with whom you would like to train.
You can check under

http://www.quick-stick.de/anglo/fest.htm

for the details. There are still some free places, so think about it. It will be THE FMA event in Europe and one of the largest purely FMA seminars even worldwide.
At the moment we have about 250 registered paricipants for the seminar and the participants are coming from he following countries:

Germany
France
Italy
Holland
Belgium
Luxemburg
Switzerland
Austria
England
Norway
Sweden
USA
and the Philippines.

Don´t miss it if you have the chance to come too.

Best regards from Germany



Dieter Knüttel
Datu of Modern Arnis
ABANICO Video Productions
http://www.abanico.de
http://www.modern-arnis.de

 

[Dieter]

Hi to everybody,

I would like to give you a quick review about the FMA Festival we had here in Germany.
It was THE FMA event 2002 and a huge success!
Everything turned out the way we planned and hoped. Indeed, we not only had the pplanned 250 participants, but 450 !!! FMA enthusiasts came to practice and have fun. It was a terrific crowd coming from the following countries: Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Austria, England, Sweden, USA and the Philippines.
Only one instructor of Pekiti Tirsia did not come due to sickness but whe had another instructor from Sweden to compensate. So we had the planned 18 actually even 19 instructors from all different styles, who presented themselves as one group - most of the best FMA-instructors in Europe (here in alphabetical order without the titles):

Joe Balinado, Escrima
Bob Dubljanin, Kali/Silat
Jeff Espinous, Kali/Sikaran
Tom Esser, Lontayao Kali
Julio Felices, Felices Family System
Thomas Fischer, Tacosa Serrada
Raoul Gianuzzi, Lapunti Arnis de Abanico
Krishna Godhania, Warrior Escrima
Emanuel Hart, Inayan Eskrima
Dieter Knüttel, Modern Arnis
Wolfgang Müller, Lameco Escrima
Udo Müller, Inosanto Kali
Percival Pableo, Doce Pares
Bernd Schubert, ETF Escrima
Johan Skalberg, Suntukan
Frans Stroevens, Doce Pares Escrima
Stefan Tebbe, EWTO Esktima
Jörn Tietge, Talking Sticks Escima
Toni Veeck, Balintawak Eskrima

There was a big feeling of unity between all of us and there were NO problems at all between the instuctors or the students of the different styles. Everybody presented his techniques in the best positive manner, still knowing it is a part of the whole, the FMA, not putting down another style. This was our intention too, to cerate unity, fellowship and respect between the styles and instructors.

On saturday night we had a FMA Gala, where the participants watched 2 1/2 hours of demonstrations of different styles, but also a show of "The defeat of Magellan" and a tribute to the Gandmasters: Remy A. Presas, Mike Inay and Edgar Sulite, who all died in the last years.

A representative of the Philippine consul of the Philippine embassy, Mr. Auxillio, congratulated us for our effort in spreading the FMA in Europe and extended the greetings from the consul.
I try to add 2 pictures of the event , one of the instructors and one of the paticipants. I hope it will work out.

It is always hard to write about oneself or an event organized by oneself, therfore I would like to ask Bill Lowry to step in here. He attended too and it was the first time we met, so I am sure he can give a very objective picture of the festival.
I any other member if the list had attended the Festival, I would appreciate a comment about your expericences.

Anyway, so much for now as a quick review. If there are any more questions about this event, I will be more than happy to answer them.

Best regards from Germany

Datu Dieter Knüttel

 

[Dieter]

Hi

I saw only the picture with the instructors went through, so here is the one of the paricipants. You can not see them all, because we had 5 lines of people standing behind the one you can see and we did not have a cane to take the picture...

Datu Dieter Knüttel

 

[Dieter]

we did not have a cane to take the picture

I of course ment we did not have a "crane" to take the pictures.

always these typos ...


Datu Dieter Knüttel

 

[arnisador]

Thanks for the review! What an incredible assortment of FMAs!

What were your favorite segments, if you can pick just a few?

 

[Dieter]

What were your favorite segments, if you can pick just a few?

Well, if I pick a few here, that my be not fair to others. Because we had 64 different FMS lessons on this weekend, and I have seen only a few, because I also taught and I had a sales stand from Abanico, I co-organized the festival and I had a little exhibition at the gala at saturday night. As you can imagine, that does not leave too much time to look around.

Like and dislike is always very individual too. What some people like, some others don´t.

But as far as I have heared from the participants, non of the instructors was bad, thay all had something to offer and represented their style well.

Sorry to be so unspecific, it would be better to hear opinions of people, who were there just as practitioners.


Best regards from Germany

Datu Dieter Knüttel
Modern Arnis Germany
http://www.abanico.de

 

[LabanB]

Hi Dieter,

What can I say? The event was extremely professional in its organisation, the value for money - buffet, demonstrations, and more instructors than you could shake a stick at!! (sorry, couldn't resist that one) - was unbelievable, the feeling of unity, family, trust and a positive desire to learn made the weekend a thorough pleasure.

Whether it was meeting old friends, catching up with previous instructors, making new friends or putting faces to email names (Hello Dieter, Alfred, Frank - I bloody well don't snore!, and Tim, it was good to meet all of you), there was an overall feeling of community which makes for a great experience.

The downside? It was not possible to train with all of the instructors (three days next time?), also the realisation half way through day one that the instructors were teaching different elements of their systems at each of their sessions. This meant that decisions had to be made as to which instructor you trained with at which session!

And that was it as far as the negative element is concerned - simply not enough time.

Two thoughts sprang to most minds by the end of the weekend - 1) Alfred and Dieter will have to stage the event again; 2) As there were representatives of 12 different countries, it may be possible to stage the event in a different country each year/time it happens.

To those of you who missed it, it was superb. To those of you who got there, I'll see you at the next one!

Bill Lowery

 

[Dieter]

Hi

if you go to

http://www.quick-stick.de/fest.htm

you can find pictures from the 1st FMA-Festival in Europe!


Best regards from Germany

Datu Dieter Knüttel