Which FMA style has about an equal number of hand to hand combat moves and weapons fighting?

[Flyingknee]

And preferably one that uses moves derived from Muay Thai and western martial arts in particular.

(I've managed to come across one so far but I won't name it so I don't influence the answers on here ).

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Are you asking about traditional FMA, or a modern hybrid? There are many modern/hybrid styles, but my experience is that they are sorely lacking in the weapon aspect of FMAs. If you're looking for a traditional one, most do have their own hand to hand combat moves, but by nature they are different than western martial arts. They are (generally) done with the idea of getting to a weapon quickly, or getting away before your opponent gets to their weapon, which means taking a step back, putting up a high guard and throwing out jabs won't exactly be in the playbook.

 

[Flyingknee]

Are you asking about traditional FMA, or a modern hybrid? There are many modern/hybrid styles, but my experience is that they are sorely lacking in the weapon aspect of FMAs. If you're looking for a traditional one, most do have their own hand to hand combat moves, but by nature they are different than western martial arts. They are (generally) done with the idea of getting to a weapon quickly, or getting away before your opponent gets to their weapon, which means taking a step back, putting up a high guard and throwing out jabs won't exactly be in the playbook.

Oh would you say all modern/hybrid styles are sorely lacking in the weapons aspect of FMA? And in what way/how come?

Also, see the new title to the thread pls.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Oh would you say all modern/hybrid styles are sorely lacking in the weapons aspect of FMA? And in what way/how come?

Also, see the new title to the thread pls.

I won't say all, but of the ones that I've experienced, yes.

For the most part, it's similar to the anti-grappling sentiment of the 90's - people know that it's trending, so they need to find a way to include it in their own system/school. But they don't want to spend the time to actually learn it fully. So what you end up with is

A) people who know the general movements, but haven't spent the time to understand why/how they work, and they get bastardized and ineffective the longer it's been since they've learned it, and the farther away from the source, and

B) people don't spar as much as they should, because they've got other focuses, and they never really learned how to spar safely/monitor other's sparring safely. So what you end up with is people doing the drills but not pressure testing (which leads to not doing/teaching them correctly), and/or people learning them, but never trying to apply what they're learning in sparring and you end up with the stick version of crappy kickboxing you'll see in some tma schools.

The only time I've seen it well done is people who are primarily fma, and have separately learned striking and learned how to incorporate them together. But that's few and far between. The combat tactical system comes to mind, despite the cheesy name.

 

[Flyingknee]

I won't say all, but of the ones that I've experienced, yes.

For the most part, it's similar to the anti-grappling sentiment of the 90's - people know that it's trending, so they need to find a way to include it in their own system/school. But they don't want to spend the time to actually learn it fully. So what you end up with is

A) people who know the general movements, but haven't spent the time to understand why/how they work, and they get bastardized and ineffective the longer it's been since they've learned it, and the farther away from the source, and

B) people don't spar as much as they should, because they've got other focuses, and they never really learned how to spar safely/monitor other's sparring safely. So what you end up with is people doing the drills but not pressure testing (which leads to not doing/teaching them correctly), and/or people learning them, but never trying to apply what they're learning in sparring and you end up with the stick version of crappy kickboxing you'll see in some tma schools.

The only time I've seen it well done is people who are primarily fma, and have separately learned striking and learned how to incorporate them together. But that's few and far between. The combat tactical system comes to mind, despite the cheesy name.

So which of these have you experienced then, just so I know what to steer away from?

 

[geezer]

And preferably one that uses moves derived from Muay Thai and western martial arts in particular.
(I've managed to come across one so far but I won't name it so I don't influence the answers on here ).

Responding to your original post, I found Latosa Escrima to be a really effective way to bridge weapons and empty hands. This is because way back in the 80s, Rene Latosa moved away from teaching a lot of complex traditional sequences and toward teaching fighting concepts which transfer from weapons to empty hands.

In his later years, he primarily gave workshops to clubs that did a lot of stuff like boxing and MMA. He drew on his Western boxing and also Filipino Cadena de Mano learned from Maximo Sarmiento. Latosa had a strong inclination toward the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) mind set and rejected anything flashy like flourishes and disarms. His fighting was strong, aggressive, and functional.

Rene passed on a couple of years back (RIP) and I don't know if any of his top guys are still teaching publicly. The guy to track down would be Cedric Concon somewhere around Sacramento...

Emin Boztepe used to teach a version of Latosa Escrima Concepts, but, oddly coming at it from a Wing Chun perspective. I don't know what's become of him or his EBMAS group. There is also a club up in Seattle run by Andrew Somlyo. Here in the Greater Phoenix metro area there was a really tough and talented coach, Martin Torres who had an MMA/Escrima Gym called Torres DTE, but last I heard he had shut down and only taught privately.

I still do a little stuff but I'm turning 69 this week and even when I was younger, I was more of a fan than a fighter, but at least I was smart enough to recognize the difference

 

[Flyingknee]

Responding to your original post, I found Latosa Escrima to be a really effective way to bridge weapons and empty hands. This is because way back in the 80s, Rene Latosa moved away from teaching a lot of complex traditional sequences and toward teaching fighting concepts which transfer from weapons to empty hands.

In his later years, he primarily gave workshops to clubs that did a lot of stuff like boxing and MMA. He drew on his Western boxing and also Filipino Cadena de Mano learned from Maximo Sarmiento. Latosa had a strong inclination toward the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) mind set and rejected anything flashy like flourishes and disarms. His fighting was strong, aggressive, and functional.

Rene passed on a couple of years back (RIP) and I don't know if any of his top guys are still teaching publicly. The guy to track down would be Cedric Concon somewhere around Sacramento...

Emin Boztepe used to teach a version of Latosa Escrima Concepts, but, oddly coming at it from a Wing Chun perspective. I don't know what's become of him or his EBMAS group. There is also a club up in Seattle run by Andrew Somlyo. Here in the Greater Phoenix metro area there was a really tough and talented coach, Martin Torres who had an MMA/Escrima Gym called Torres DTE, but last I heard he had shut down and only taught privately.

I still do a little stuff but I'm turning 69 this week and even when I was younger, I was more of a fan than a fighter, but at least I was smart enough to recognize the difference

Do you know if that style has a presence in Europe? I couldn't find anything on Google after doing a quick search during my break.

 

[geezer]

Do you know if that style has a presence in Europe? I couldn't find anything on Google after doing a quick search during my break.

Rene Latosa was the first guy to introduce Escrima on any scale into Europe back in the late 70s. He teamed up with a big tough English guy named Bill Newman and they both connected with the EWTO (European Wing Tsun Organization) for a while. Latosa made friends with a guy named Emin Boztepe who broke with the EWTO group that was turning into kind of a cult by the 90s.

Latosa threw in with Boztepe and dumped the EWTO connection, leaving that gig to his old friend Bill Newman. Bill's stuff had more forms and things, and a strong Hema influence. I've only seen it on video, but to me it looks different. BTW, the last time I saw Rene was like 10 years ago. In spite of the split, he didn't have a bad word to say about Bill. He wasn't like that.

If you are in Europe you might check out and see if anyone is teaching Rene's stuff, ...or Bill Newman's. Just watch out for the cults!

 

[geezer]

Do you know if that style has a presence in Europe? I couldn't find anything on Google after doing a quick search during my break.

GM Cedric Concon [email protected]

 

[O'Malley]

Do you know if that style has a presence in Europe? I couldn't find anything on Google after doing a quick search during my break.

Alessandro Fantini is based in Rome and teaches abroad, including at least in France and Germany.

LATOSA® COMBAT ESCRIMA CLUB EUROPA

. Latosa combat escrima Italia è una Associazione dalle molteplici caratteristiche, che la rendono un punto di riferimento nella promozione e nella divulgazione delle Arti Marziali Storiche Filippine in Italia da ormai diversi anni. Sin dalla sua costituzione si impegna ponendosi come...

www.youtube.com

 

[Flyingknee]

And so I don't start a similar thread, which styles include kinamutay?

 

[O'Malley]

And so I don't start a similar thread, which styles include kinamutay?

Had to look that up. According to Wikipedia:

"Formalization of kinamutay as a martial art is a Western tradition not founded in Filipino martial arts or culture, where the term has little difference in meaning from "catfight"."

It's like back flips. You can learn it in a martial arts school but there's not much to it.

 

[drop bear]

It's not like a krabi krabong or something is it?

 

[O'Malley]

It's not like a krabi krabong or something is it?

That's s Thai, not Filipino! It's always like this with you Austrians!

 

[Rich Parsons]

That's s Thai, not Filipino! It's always like this with you Austrians!

I thought he was Australian. Hmmm

 

[drop bear]

I thought he was Australian. Hmmm

Us Nordic types all look alike.

 

[EskrimaFan]

I think you be better off training weapons in FMA and empty hands in Boxing or Kickboxing/Muay Thay.

Because bridging the gap from weapons to empty hands sounds very nice, but isn't always doable without forcing it.

If you look at it, why are boxers so good at empty hands? Because they specialize in it.
Why are BJJ folks so good at grappling? Because they specialize in it.

There doesn't have to be one art has all things, just practice different arts.

 

[Holmejr]

Are you asking about traditional FMA, or a modern hybrid? There are many modern/hybrid styles, but my experience is that they are sorely lacking in the weapon aspect of FMAs. If you're looking for a traditional one, most do have their own hand to hand combat moves, but by nature they are different than western martial arts. They are (generally) done with the idea of getting to a weapon quickly, or getting away before your opponent gets to their weapon, which means taking a step back, putting up a high guard and throwing out jabs won't exactly be in the playbook.

Our teacher is quick to point out when a particular move leaves you open for weapon counter attack. Surprisingly enough, the speed, power and intent used to deal with a knife, crowbar or beer bottle attack works pretty darn well for defending an open hand attack.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

So which of these have you experienced then, just so I know what to steer away from?

Sorry, just realized I never responded. I try not to badmouth organizations on here (and it's partially against our TOS to do so), so unfortunately can't specify which one's I'm referring to. But my general advice would be to go in skeptical to any striking art that adds supplementary weapon training that's not originally part of said art.

 

[EskrimaFan]

So which of these have you experienced then, just so I know what to steer away from?

Just check a couple out, if you think it looks cool and you find it fun and functional for you, then go for it.

We can drag a whole politics speech about how you should steer away from politics, but the mainstream enthousiast isn't bothered with that anyways.

I personally prefer to train specialized arts, so one for sticks and swords, one for knife disarming, and empty hands just kickboxing.