What differentiates MA-80 from...?

[Guro Harold]

I wanted to start a new thread because my intent is not to be antagonistic.

What differentiates MA-80 as compared to:

a) WMAA

b) IMAF, INC

c) MARRPIO

d) WMAC

What, in terms of style, does MA-80 have that the other organizations do not have?

In what ways does this style expand the borders of knowledge for FMA and Modern Arnis?

I am not questioning the skill, character, nor contribution of Mr. Anderson, but I am curious as to the differences that I mentioned for me to get a clearer understanding.

I am also only speaking for myself and I do not represent anyone's organization or agenda in this thread.

Congratulations and best of fortune to you Tuhon Anderson,

Harold

 

[Dan Anderson]

Hi Harold,

How the heck are you? I totally duplicate the intention behind your questions. This is what I talked about with Paul Janulis today, posted up on the CSSD/SC forum today and it answers your queston as well.

"A brief description of Modern Arnis 80 (MA 80) would be as follows. This is my personal presentation of Modern Arnis, the art founded by Prof. Remy Presas. It is a style or system unto itself. The key focus of MA 80 is this: It is a way of understanding Modern Arnis so that others can attain the same skills and understanding as the founder. How? If you understand the principles Remy Presas was operating on, you can duplicate them and in time, achieve the same skill he had. That is my firm belief. My style, then, consists of the finding, formulation and explanation of the principles which made the founder as skilled as he was and then stating them in such a manner so that broad duplication is possible. This is different than having a "technique base."

Much of what you see me do in MA 80 looks no different than most other Modern Arnis players. It's how I approach the understanding of what I do is what makes MA 80 distinct. A good reference would be the upcoming DVD set of the 2003 Modern Arnis International Symposium. In it I teach two types of actions, disarm reversals and throwing, in a totally different manner than Remy Presas did. If you get the set, you'll see what I mean. The purpose of MA 80 is to aid ANY Modern Arnis (or FMA) player reach the highest skills attainable through understanding the principles which underly the technical applications."

Compared to WMAC, WMAA, IMAF, INC., MARPPIO - hey, I don't know. I do know no one has ever explained any of the underlying fundamental principles to me - ever. Not even Prof. Presas went into any detail. I had to figure them out for myself. One thing I do know and that is this - if Remy Presas could be that skilled, we can be that skilled. We'll have to understand it the way HE understood it but it can be done.

It would not surprise me one bit if Kelly's, Tim's, Dr. Shea's and Remy Jr.'s students became as good as the founder, himself.
MA 80 isn't the only way but it is Dan's way. I hope that gives an insight and answers your questions.

By the way, thank you for the congratulations.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[Dan Anderson]

Harold,

A good analogy came to mind this morning. If you look at Japanese karate, you'll find that a number of different styles and sub-systems came out of the lineage of Gichin Funakoshi.

A good example would be the JKA with Masatoshi Nakayama at the helm and Wadoryu founded by Hironori Otsuka. Both individuals learned from Funakoshi sensei. Both styles essentially use the same kata. The kata have minor variations in their execution and emphasis points. I'm not sure of the prior training of Nakayama but Otsuka had jujutsu training prior to his training with Funakoshi. They had the same karate instructor and are both Japanese karate, nonetheless.

People forget that I began karate in 1966 and was promoted to first degree black belt in 1970. I was a regional and later a national champion prior to meeting Remy Presas at a tournament in 1979. That's a fair amount of experience under my belt to add to the teaching of my instructor. My outlook will differ than someone who was a gym rat, a wrestler, in a different weapons field, a street fighter, a boxer, an internal stylist and so on.

Now, as to movement, here's another analogy using comparison to karate stylists. I am not going to look that much different than most other Modern Arnis players in terms of execution of technique. You could compare that to the visual difference between a JKA member and one of Kanazawa's Shotokan Karate International's members. Now the visual difference between myself and let's say, a Kalis Illustrisimo player might be more evident. You could equate that to the difference between a kenpo karate man and an american karate player. We'll look different in how we respectively move.

It's the teaching and emphasis points that make styles different. As I have with American Freestyle Karate, there two different MA 80's. There is the in-house style, the step by step method of teaching it with it's own belt system and so forth. Then there's the public MA 80 which is presented in seminars and for the time being, books. The Symposium DVD set will have a good example of the public MA 80. My teaching method follows my viewpoint strongly regarding instruction by principle rather than technique emphasis.

When we meet someday, I'll talk your ear off about the subject if you're willing to sit still and take it (ask Rich Parsons about me going on and on). This should suffice for the time being.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[Dan Anderson]

I was lurking and reviewing various posts (mostly out of boredom) and came upon this thread of long ago. Well, years have gone by and I have a different answer to Harold's question. I speak for no one but MA-80 but...

MA-80 began as 'Dan's method of teachng and explaining Remy Presas' Modern Arnis'. That's where it started. It has progressed to where it is now 'Dan's art' as opposed to 'Dan teaching Remy's art'. In the intervening years between the death of RP and now I have studied with Manong Ted Buot (ever so briefly but with a huge impact), gone to the Philippines to teach and train and most recently hooked up and exchanged ideas with Mark Wiley (of 'Filipino Martial Culture' fame), worked a lot of blade work with Bram Frank. All my experiences have changed how I view the art.

In this wise there are actually two views of MA-80 - Modern Arnis 80 is the formal curriculum I teach at my school. Masid Arnis is what I do. Masid means observation or study of.

My art is far more principle based than how RP taught. I have to. It is in my nature plus I'm nowhere as strong as he was. Monitoring, timing, distancing, leveraging, structure - these all play a huge part in what I teach. I no longer teach the 8 empty hand anyos. I have replaced them with the tactical forms as they get to the point much faster for empty hand training.

MA-80 is its own entity and recognized by the International Modern Arnis Federation Philippines as such. I'm in a good place with it. All for now.

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[DragonMind]

If I may offer another viewpoint as someone who has been along for the ride. I have been a student of MA-80 for almost six years now and have seen first-hand the transition that Dan speaks about.

When I started with Dan I already had a bit over 3 years of Modern Arnis that was strictly "here is what Remy taught". My first session with Dan at his Portland school was him sizing me up and identifying exactly what "era" of Remy I was from based on specific ways I moved. He showed me several places I could fine tune the techniques based on very sound principles of movement. Being an old Hapkido guy, I could easily see the benefit of what he was saying. He always joked that these were Dan-isms, i.e. his take on what Remy taught analyzed from the point of view of a smaller person. That last bit is central to how and why MA-80 came into being. Dan has the mindset of a small person and never tries to rely on strength or power to make a technique work. To use a different analogy, Dan thinks like a surgeon not a butcher - the scalpel rather than the cleaver.

Because I am a long distance student we have had to talk, write and exchange videos in addition to getting together about once a year (Florida and Oregon aren't even in the same country almost ). Consequently, Dan has been "forced" to go into much greater detail explaining things than in a class where he can easily demonstrate and students can figure out the details on their own with him fine tuning. As time has progressed I have found much less of "here's how Remy did it" and more of "here's how I do it" because Dan has deepened his analysis into the core principles that lay behind what Remy did. As he has fleshed out each principle, Tom Corsin got to be the development guinea pig back in Oregon. Tom is a big, strong guy who moves well so he is a perfect test of the soundness of the principles. I envy Tom. I'm fortunate to be one of the tests of how easily these principles can be taught. Dan explains it to me and then I have to teach it to my students. I video them and send it back to Dan to complete the circle and he can see first hand how well the concepts were transmitted.

Each time we get together in person, Dan and I go back over the core basics and he shows me how he is teaching it and why. That analysis has greatly enhanced and focused my own practice time. I have also had the privilege of seeing the draft of Dan's new book outlining the core principles upon which MA-80 is based. Dan has paid homage to Remy's art but MA-80 is now Dan's art based on Remy's art. MA-80 is founded on the scientific analysis of the underlying principles behind Remy's art as well as the foundation arts Remy used to build Modern Arnis and the perspectives of other top students of Remy. In that sense, MA-80 is far more evolution than revolution. It doesn't claim to invent new techniques or tactics, nor does it try to add stuff from other arts so the outward appearance of MA-80 is 95% Remy. Its when you start to explore the whys and hows of each technique that you see where MA-80 has gone forward from Remy's art. IMHO Remy would be pleased.

 

[MJS]

I don't own the dvd that was mentioned, but for the sake of discussion....if we were to look at the disarms for example, would there be noticable differences between what you do Dan and what other groups are doing? If so, could you elaborate a bit?

Are there differences in the forms or other drills that are done, as well?

Looking forward to learning more about it.

Mike

 

[Dan Anderson]

Hi Mike,

Let's take a look at how I do disarms. First of all, all my disarms DO NOT rely on strength, speed or pain. They rely on the coordination of three separate actions:

1. putting the cane arm out of alignment with the mainframe of the body structure,
2. reversing the position of the cane in my partner's grip, and
3. isolating the grip so that you are working against the fingers of your partner and nothing else.

A good example is the standard Modern Arnis disarm for strike #2. Without pictures it might be a bit tough getting through it but I'll do my best to break it down.

1. You angle step to your left. You meet his cane arm with your left forearm and pass it through to your other side (swinging it 'under the circle'). Your cane is your secondary defense while your passing arm is your primary. [This reverses their cane position from the tip on your right side to on your left side. It also puts their arm our of alignment with the main frame of their body.]

2. You circle your left to a point over your partner's cane wrist. Your wrist and fingers curl tightly over their wrist.

3. Very key point coming up. Raise your left elbow up so that the tip of your partner's cane is slightly higher than the butt.

4. Lean back slightly stretching their arm out. [This isolates their fingers and put stress on the grip.]

5. Cut with you hand horizontally under their forearm. The cane will pop out of the grip with very little effort.

The reason I don't just circle and push down is because of two guys I met who had 'rubber shoulders'. I'd circle and their shoulder would roll in the sockets and they would not be out of position. yoga guys - it figures.

This is one example. Everything I do deals with structure, alignment and leveraging. My forthcoming book/DVD set (hope to have it actually printed this month) goes over all this in great detail. Any more Q's?

Yours,
Dan Anderson

 

[stickarts]

Hi Mike,

Let's take a look at how I do disarms. First of all, all my disarms DO NOT rely on strength, speed or pain. They rely on the coordination of three separate actions:

1. putting the cane arm out of alignment with the mainframe of the body structure,
2. reversing the position of the cane in my partner's grip, and
3. isolating the grip so that you are working against the fingers of your partner and nothing else.

A good example is the standard Modern Arnis disarm for strike #2. Without pictures it might be a bit tough getting through it but I'll do my best to break it down.

1. You angle step to your left. You meet his cane arm with your left forearm and pass it through to your other side (swinging it 'under the circle'). Your cane is your secondary defense while your passing arm is your primary. [This reverses their cane position from the tip on your right side to on your left side. It also puts their arm our of alignment with the main frame of their body.]

2. You circle your left to a point over your partner's cane wrist. Your wrist and fingers curl tightly over their wrist.

3. Very key point coming up. Raise your left elbow up so that the tip of your partner's cane is slightly higher than the butt.

4. Lean back slightly stretching their arm out. [This isolates their fingers and put stress on the grip.]

5. Cut with you hand horizontally under their forearm. The cane will pop out of the grip with very little effort.

The reason I don't just circle and push down is because of two guys I met who had 'rubber shoulders'. I'd circle and their shoulder would roll in the sockets and they would not be out of position. yoga guys - it figures.

This is one example. Everything I do deals with structure, alignment and leveraging. My forthcoming book/DVD set (hope to have it actually printed this month) goes over all this in great detail. Any more Q's?

Yours,
Dan Anderson

That's how I do it. Oh yeah, you showed it to me! Your use of leverage improved my disarms quite a bit.