aikido and kali

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[aikishrine]

hi i have been training in aikido for several years and i have also dabled in many other martial arts, i have found most to be fun but none that hold my interest like aikido does, however i have recently found kali or escrima, stick fighting to be very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else has done likewise and what they feel about combing the two arts?

[Jorge Garcia]

hi i have been training in aikido for several years and i have also dabled in many other martial arts, i have found most to be fun but none that hold my interest like aikido does, however i have recently found kali or escrima, stick fighting to be very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else has done likewise and what they feel about combing the two arts?

Will you have to walk around in your daily life carrrying two sticks? Apart from that, Aikido is a philosophy as much as it is a martial art so I would choose to combine Kali or Escrima with something else where it won't matter. If carrying sticks is a requirement, I would opt for a small handgun instead.
Jorge

[CNYMike]

hi i have been training in aikido for several years and i have also dabled in many other martial arts, i have found most to be fun but none that hold my interest like aikido does, however i have recently found kali or escrima, stick fighting to be very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else has done likewise and what they feel about combing the two arts?

Hi, Brian! I see you're very close to me, in Syracuse. Where are you getting your Kali? If it's through Guro Kevin Seaman or Sifu Eric Winfree's school (apologies if I misspelled Sifu Eric's last name), then I can comment on it, because I have done Lacoste Inosanto Kali under Guro Kevin and Guro Andy Astle since 1997 (although I "breaked" from classes during the winter of 1997-8, so whether it's nine or ten years depends on where you start counting from).

Kali is a vast system. It begins with the stick(s), but includes many types of weapons and has a huge empty hand section embracing all the ranges of combat: Kicking, punching, trapping, and grappling. In the last section you will find pretty much all the Aikido locks represented, just done slighlty differently and from different references points, ususally Panantukan (Filipino boxing) entries from a jab or a jab-cross. WRT weapons, training is oriented around the angles of attack and the numbering systems they used, although these can apply to anything, IOW anything coming you at a certain agnle, like angle 1, is treated the sameway, regardless of whether it is a forehand or backhand or even with a kick. I think of the system as being "general," laying out the ranges of combat and the do's and don't's for each area, and althoug there is a unique Filipino cultural slant, the ideas it lays out is universal. Most of the time I have done single stick, double stick, single dagger and espada y daga, although other things like flexible weapons, staffs, and "sword and shield" (done with a stick in one hand and a Thai pad on the other arm) came up. It depends on the school's resources, really.

In this context, Aikido's techniques have a niche within the areas descrbed in Kali. Aikido is more specific and specialized, focusing on certain areas and certain techniques and working on them exclusively. No, you do not cover as much ground as you might in Kali, but on the other hand, you cover it more thuroughly. Conversely, Kali being as expansive at is, there are some things you won't get to cycle back to for months at a time, whereas in Aikido, there are many things that you will cycle back to, like shiho-nage, in almost every class.

So one way of looking at it is that Lacoste Inosanto Kali, in all its glory, describes the "big picture" of armed and unarmed martial arts techniques, whereas Aikido zeros in on certain parts of the picture. This is not to say, by any means, that one is good or one is bad, they are just different in focus and the "flavor" of the techniques. When comparing Aikido and Kali, it's less apples and organge and more like a basket of apples compared to an apple orchard.

As long as your Aikido and Kali instructors don't have a problem with training in the others' art(s), I think you will enjoy your training. Good luck!

[CNYMike]

Will you have to walk around in your daily life carrrying two sticks? Apart from that, Aikido is a philosophy as much as it is a martial art so I would choose to combine Kali or Escrima with something else where it won't matter. If carrying sticks is a requirement, I would opt for a small handgun instead.
Jorge

Actually, many FMA systems also inlude firearms. IIRC, they would be grouped with projectile weapons. :p

[George S. Ledyard]

hi i have been training in aikido for several years and i have also dabled in many other martial arts, i have found most to be fun but none that hold my interest like aikido does, however i have recently found kali or escrima, stick fighting to be very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else has done likewise and what they feel about combing the two arts?
Check out Doces Pares Escrima. Grandmaster Canete combined Aikido with his traditional escrima background to create what he called "Escrido". I trained briefly with his senior American student, Chris Petrilli.
http://www.fmaa.net/
Also, Chris's videos are available at BudoVideos.com
http://www.budovideos.com/shop/customer/search.php?substring=petrilli
I would highly recommend checking these guys out...
- George

[crbateman]

You might also check out the hanbo work of John Goss Sensei. He had seamlessly integrated this stick work with his Aikido. He has a book entitled Hanbo: The Aiki Way.

[CitoMaramba]

In our system we train in taijutsu, bokken, jo, and sarrukod. Sarrukod is Ilokano (Northern Philippine dialect) for "cane", also known as baston, arnis or yantok if made of rattan. The sarrukod techniques are derived from singkatan, which is an FMA from Northern Philippines

[SeiserL]

i have recently found kali or escrima, stick fighting to be very interesting, and was wondering if anyone else has done likewise and what they feel about combing the two arts?
Welcome to the smell of burning rattan. I trained with the late Ted Lucaylucay over 20 years ago and still try to catch a stick/knife seminar every year. Great stuff.

I am told it often shows in my randori and certaintly in my tanto work.

However, I tend to think and train in them, Aikido and FMA, differently and separately, and let them integrate on their own when appropriate. IMHO, they don't need to be combined.

[JAMJTX]

An excellent combination.

Don't be concerend about not being able to carry stcks around for defense. If you have a good instructor, you will learn how to substitute things for the sticks.

Just as Aikido is based on the sword, you will see that there are empty-handed techniques based on the sticks. We call them "empty hand translations". I have a DVD of an excellent seminar that shows some of these. We learned some really nice empty-hand takedowns.

[aikidoc]

I studied a combination art of kali and Hawaiian bone breaking -Lua-called kali-lua do. My instructor was interested in aikido so we used to play with using the sticks to perform wrist locks and pins. Nikyo with a stick is brutal.

[CNYMike]

..... I tend to think and train in them, Aikido and FMA, differently and separately, and let them integrate on their own when appropriate .....

Exactly! You definitely want to compartmentalize, if only for the purely selfish reason of not having the feeling that your head is going to explode. Sometimes it is easier said than done, and I have trouble with it myself. But that is most definitely what you should do.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I was actually thinking the same thing. They would make a great paring...I think Kali sticks training should be included in Aikido weapons...perhaps a one of those small handbos. Kyudo too, with its zen like focus would make an excellent compliment to Akido methinks. Maybe one day you can incorporate that into your own dojo.

[aikidoc]

Kato sensei at our October seminar had his deshi swing one of my kali sticks at his head to show a defense against it.

[George S. Ledyard]

Frankly, the element of Kali training which I believe most benefits Aikido folks is the use of flow drills in their training. Flow drills pattern movements while there is no tension and the emphasis is on relaxation and developing sensitivity. It is a weapons based system so speed and movement are more important than trying for power which I also thinks helps people's Aikido. Additionally, the drills give one a movement capacity at a range at which most Aikido folks are not very good, our basics are practiced largely at a greater distance and the kali drills make one comfortable being connected at closer range.

It is also very good for Aikido folks to experience how complex lines of attack really are. The ones we use in basic Aikido are too simplistic. One can see this is in kenjutsu as well but there is probably more kali out there for folks to experience than kenjutsu.

[aikishrine]

thank you all for your replys, i have indeed studied witk Kevin Seamen, i have also studied with Dan Donzella here in the CNY region, and i will continue to do so, as far as not being able to carry sticks around all the time, i thank you who corrected the assumption that this art would be impractical, as stated kali is a vast art encompassing many or all aspects of combat, be it long range, medium range, or close quarters. i also want to thank you for introducing me to doce peras, i am enthusiastically looking into this style. so thanks to all

[Ben T]

I'm both late to the party, and I see that George Sensei has already posted about Chris Petrelli and Escrido.

I studied eskrima under Chris' senior student, Guro Sherril Johnson. She emphasized always that the movement we were doing with sticks were the same for knife and empty hand technique. What was important were the lines of attack, and the lines of defense.

What I found beneficial from my time training in eskrima while simultaneously doing aikido was that a lot of the footwork that is implicit in aikido is made explicit in eskrima. Learning the triangle pattern footwork made my aikido sharper, and made it easier for me to grasp techniques - when in doubt, watch the feet.

Also - time on the mat is time on the mat. What my teacher calls "sweat equity." Nothing wrong with that.

[aikishrine]

i really appreciate your thoughts, as in my other thread you have had a breat impact on my thoughts and trainig