We had a discussion on FMATalk recently about sinawalis that was interesting. I thought I'd repost the first post from that thread here to try to get more opinions:
As some of you know, I'm spending a year in Albuquerque, NM for work. I'm visiting some martial arts schools to find somepleace for my son and I to practice while we're here. (We also train on our own.) There is some FMA here, though not as much as I'd hoped to find!
We've been visiting a school where during the FMA class we do a lot of sinawalis. Every class seems to have a different one. Sometimes they're so very close to one I know well that it's hard to break out of that old pattern. Other times they're very different. But at each class it seems there's at least one new one.
I've wondered this before: How many sinawalis is enough--or even too many? In Modern Arnis under Prof. Presas we typically did single sinawali (high R forehand, low R backhand, high L forehand, low L backhand, repeat), double sinawali (heaven-and-earth), and reverse sinawali (earth six), and sometimes heaven six (a.k.a. redondo). These are relatively simple sinawalis compared to some of the ten-count, asymmetric routines I've done in other systems.
Part of me says, If it's new to you or hard for you to do then you're learning something; but part of me says, What's the marginal value of learning one more double-stick pattern?
Some of them work in abaniqo strikes, which aren't explicitly in the Modern Arnis sinawalis, and I see some value to that. We did one the other night using a reverse-grip on the stick, which was different. But some others work me into arms-crossed positions that I find awkward! I certainly wouldn't want to be in some of these positions, but one can't always choose where one ends up, I suppose.
Sometimes I've felt that an instructor has found doing many sinawalis a convenient way to pass the class time. Rarely has an instructor whose class I've visited followed up a sinawali by saying "Now here's how you'd use this one... (or why this one is important)" though of course that does sometimes happen. To me the biggest value has always been the ambidexterity it develops, as well as there being some value to having an ingrained double-stick striking pattern to fall back on if need be.
Is there great value in knowing many sinawalis, or is it enough to have a few? Should you be sure to learn a new one every now and again just to shake yourself up? For people who "collect" sinawalis--why?