TODAY

TODAY, I am still engage in martial arts and is still teaching young kids in various martial arts sports. Our group Conceptual Martial Arts Society is very instrumental in bringing to the forefront the unsung heroes of stickfighting called arnis/baston/escrima. These masters were never known outside their community. Thanks to the efforst of our group we managed to let the world know them.
TODAY, I have attended seminars and studied different martials arts and sports of various kind.
After I resigned from old dojo, I practiced Aikido with the Manila based group and was instrumental in bringing Aikido here with a different flavor from the traditional ones. We brought Aikido Nishio Style here in Bacolod. Although it was short lived because our Sensei told us that "seek in your own backyard. There are so many arts in your backyard waiting for you and for free." With this advise, my friends and I sought these masters in our own backyard and this was the beginning of our continuing search for the ultimate truth in martial arts. And this was the start of our Conceptual Martial Arts Society.
Aside from Aikido, I was associated with a Tang Soo Do teacher, who is very generous in imparting to us his wisdom in the field of martial arts.
But before this acquaintance I and my friends were instrumental in systematizing and old arnis school. This is where we learn the basic of 7 strikes. 7 panagang sa baston, 7 pang agaw sang baston and knife, knife defence, and knife, strangulation.
While learning these arts, one of our member and also my former student, who spend his college life in cebu was a practitioner of kungfu, balintawak arnis and grappling. My grappling art was from Judo. My knowledge in kunfgu and grappling was enhanced and developed by my acquaintance with my former student and is still an inspiration in our group.
I and my group would not stop seeking the truth in arnis and we found an old man in the hinterland of Bacolod who practices what was called Yaming Arts. This is an arnis art. It was not really the original name because the old man has many styles and I think which falls under espada y daga. Anyway he taught us a lot of things and he even gave us the name of his techniques.
While we are engaging in finding the old masters, we also have contact with modern martial arts sports. For example, Pencak Silat and Wushu Sanshou. We attended the first Wushu Sanshou seminar brought about by the Wushu Federation of the Philippines and we were instrumental in staging tournaments here. At the same time, a director of the regional Pencak Silat federation picked our group to be the representative of Bacolod And Negros. This is where we studied the art of Pencak Silant. Aside from these, we also studied the basic throws of Wushu Sanshou. I for one passed on to my students whatever I got from these trainings and it resulted great honor for the players by winning tournaments.
In seeking the old masters of arnis, we acquainted ourselves with the Togle's Modern Arnis, Guarra Modern Arnis, Oido de Caburata Jose Agular Style, Oido de caburata arnis of the Gubaton Brothers, Filipino Tang Soo Do forms and lastly the Original Filipino Tapado of Taloc, Bago City, Negros Occidental.
PRESENTLY, with this knowledge of the various filipino martial arts, and in particular Negrense martial arts, my outlook in life changed and how to respect life is more important than curtailing it. All these things have their common factor.
In the preceding articles I will post these various Negrense martial arts or Negrense Kinadman sa Pangamut (Negrense skills in in hand to hand combat). Let me remind the reader that there is no perfect English translation in this Negrense/Ilonggo terms. They stand as it is. Sorry if you are not an Ilonggo, you will not understand this.