Stick and Knife Fighting Philippines

Deadly effective and until recently highly secretive, Modern Arnis, or stick and Knife fighing has recently become the official national sport of the Philippines.

On this 2 week crash course, you will train with the top grandmasters learning the history, techniques and experiencing the cultural aspects of Modern Arnis. We will take you to Marikina City, where you will train with grand master Bambit Dulay as well as other grand masters representing different fightig styles. The second week you will spend on one of the Philippines unrivaled beach settings, where you will continue to learn and train in stick and knife fighting.

History of Arnis

Easy to learn difficult to master

As a fighting style Arnis was developed to be taught quickly, and to use every day "weapons" in the training. Subsequently, most Arnis styles focus on Sticks, Knives and "empty hand"  un armed combat. Unarmed combat is always the last element to be taught, as an armed warrior was considered to be more effective than an unarmed one.

A secretive martial art

Many of the weapons used in Arnis were banned by the spanish, as was learning the techniques and there fore means to rise up against them. Filipinos develped away of disgusing their training with the use of dance, much in the same way that African slaves developed Capoeira as a martial art hidden from the slavers.

Until recently, Many older grandmasters were not prepared to teach Arnis to outsiders, many with the mindset that they were still at war! It is only recently with the establishment of the INMAF (the modern Arnis federation) that the sport has been taken mainstream and open up to foreigners wishing to learn.

Safe and hugely popular

Stick and Knife fighting has a strong following in the Philippines. tens of thousands of people practice the martial art, many start from the age of 6! Whilest it was traditionally a very dangerous practice, where people would often loose fingers,  it has been adpted with the use of body armour, padded sticks and blunt or woden practice knives. Today Arnis is a very safe sport steeped in tradition and Filipino Culture.

Different Styles

There are too many styles to learn in 2 weeks, over 100+ have been recorded, many styles make use of Sticks, Knives and unarmed combat. During your training you can expext to learn how to attack and defend with one stick, two sticks, Stick and Dagger combos and empty hand.

You will also learn about long, medium and short range styles and how to disarm a potential attacker.

Helping the sport grow

This is a very interesting time for the sport, having only recently been nominated as the national sport it is still in its infantcy on the international martial arts scene, however those who know about Arnis, really appreciate its capability as an effective self defense martial art. The US Marines, international police forces and the Filipino army all learn Arnis on a regular basis as part of their combat training.

Fight Quest Philippines

During the fight quest TV series aired on the discovery channel, Jimmy Smith and Doug Richards came to the Philippines and trained with the same masters you will be learning with on the Xtreme Gap programme. You can see the episodes in the Videos section above.