Albo Kali Silat

[Please visit our sponsor:]

[KaliGman]

A few persons on this board have expressed an interest in seeing some information on Albo Kali Silat. One particular area of inquiry was about the knife and empty hand against the knife.

I have, mostly, refrained from commenting on videos and discussions on this board in regard to defending against the knife. The inquiries that I have had and the discussions that I have seen here have been of value to me, as they have given me an idea for the next couple of videos to be posted on my website. I will do some demonstrations and discuss and show training and combat methodologies and defenses against the blade. I realized, after some posts here, that I really had nothing on the website to effectively show some basic principles and concepts in regard to working against the knife to those who do not have training in knife arts like kali or silat. I further realized that, with only the written word, I was going to be posting Tolstoy or Dickens length "books" here to explain my points, and I probably still could not present the information that I wished to convey as clearly as I could by doing a couple of videos. Please note that, due to work issues (I was on a temporary duty assignment along the SouthWest Border of the U.S.), personal issues (a family emergency requiring travel to another state, surgery to correct nasal and sinus issues aggravated by four broken noses in the last 30 years of training--one in wrestling, one in jujitsu, one in karate, and one in kali), I have been out of circulation for a few weeks and am swamped at work, at my martial arts academy, and at home. It will be a few weeks before I get the video filmed, edited, and posted on the website.

In the interim, I will start off a bit of a discussion regarding counter blade training methods. The main problem that I see with training conducted by many people who have not trained and sparred blade against blade is that unrealistic "dojo attacks" are conducted. Even when "attacks" are launched at a modicum of speed, they are SDA (Single Direct Attack) methodology. The attacker launches a single attack, and the defender then defends against this attack. ABC (Attack By Combination) is a much more likely scenario. Two of the most frequently seen methods among the "street knifers" who I have encountered are the multiple, fast low-line thrust attacks while explosively entering against the victim (the blitzing "shank attack") and the forehand and backhand slashing "sideways figure eight" methodology. In either situation, once the attack is launched, attacks are continuous and the knife always keeps moving.

The situation against a well trained knife fighter is, of course, even worse. In kali, the knife is alive. I often say that the knife is a bird, because it is always in motion and can flit from place to place, attack to defense, and line and angle to alternate line and angle, effortlessly. A static knife hand in kali is defined as a target, and one that will be engaged and destroyed immediately. If several fingers are severed on your hand and you drop your knife or, in an empty hand against the blade encounter, your wrist is broken and your elbow dislocated, suddenly this is no longer a weapon based encounter for you, as you are unarmed. Perhaps the encounter is now over without anything lethal having to be pursued. Please note that, in kali, multiple cuts and thrusts per second to various targets and on various lines and angles will be conducted. With a small or medium sized blade of decent balance, four to six attacks per second, while conducting footwork and deflecting the opponent's limbs using your "live" of non-weapon hand, are easily launched by a moderately skilled practitioner.

The following videos may be of interest to some of you, though I expect the "Unarmed Against the Knife" videos I plan to do will be a bit more interesting to the (probably few) people here who are interested in working with and against the knife (or listening to anything that this "barbarian" has to say:p ). Two of these videos are "knife demonstration videos." Both of the knives in question were produced by Spyderco and were designed by a friend of mine (custom knife maker, forger of beautiful damascus and other steels, and skilled cutting competition participant, etc., etc.) Ed Schempp. Ed's knives are always interesting and, when I end up doing a review of his work, it is usually to show the quality of the knife and to illustrate various martial uses of the blade. In this first video, I was seeking not only to review Ed's blade, but to demonstrate some work with a larger fixed blade knife. In the kali and knife community, I am known mostly for work with smaller blades, folding knives, and the karambit, rather than larger fixed blades. The Ed Schempp Rock Salt has a 7 inch blade, so it is a relatively large knife by contemporary American standards. Please note that this is a razor sharp blade which literally shaved hair off of my arm when I removed it from its shipping container and tested the edge. Of interest is the speed with which the knife is manipulated. A simple "catch the arm" or "deflection and irime entry" is not going to happen at this speed and against this weapon without a lot of icky blood being spilled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usCgwme_q9k
start at about 1:50 if you get bored with a discussion of the knife
http://www.albokalisilat.org/rock_salt.html
the same video for those of you who would prefer to see it on my website, in QuickTime format, and with an accompanying text write up regarding the video

This is another video of a Schempp knife, in this case a very small folding knife called the Spyderco Balance. This video is of interest because I show the relationship of empty hand to blade methodology, and show some quick close quarters work with the blade. Some demonstration cutting is performed on a cutting target, and some of the short-range footwork, body movements, and some limited power generation and balance disruption work is shown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GjbEsbcPZ0
http://www.albokalisilat.org/balance.html
the same video for those of you who would prefer to see it on my website, in QuickTime format, and with an accompanying text write up regarding the video

[KaliGman]

For those interested, here is a video depicting a little empty hand close-range sparring (it was "anything goes" but no throws resulted, though balance disruption occurred on multiple occasions):

http://www.albokalisilat.org/sparring.html

Here is a bit of low level work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=expOwVB8A8Yhttp://www.albokalisilat.org/low_level_series.html
http://www.albokalisilat.org/low_level_series.html
the same video but from my website, in QuickTime format, and with a write up to go along with the video

[Janet Rosen]

Thank you for posting - I know I won't have time to watch the videos for a few days but wanted to let you know there us some interest here, even if no discussion yet

[dps]

I have bookmarked your webpage and subscribed to your Youtube channel.

Looking forward to more videos.

dps

[KaliGman]

Thank you for posting - I know I won't have time to watch the videos for a few days but wanted to let you know there us some interest here, even if no discussion yet

Thanks for the interest. Once you watch the videos, post questions and/or comments. I'll try to address any questions anyone has.

[KaliGman]

I have bookmarked your webpage and subscribed to your Youtube channel.

Looking forward to more videos.

dps

I am glad the videos interested you. There are a lot of videos on the website that were never posted on YouTube. There are also some photos and PDFs of a couple of magazine articles I wrote (they are in Russian--translated from English by Russian magazine author Dmitry Samoylev of Prorez magazine).

[KaliGman]

Below is a link to a video on the Albo Kali Silat website. The video is quite long, running about 20 minutes. The reason for the length is that it covers and explains quite a number of basic topics involved in working unarmed versus a knife wielding attacker, including movement, bridging, trapping, sensitivity drills, and how the knife moves. This is very basic material that I realized I had never committed to video. Hopefully some here will find this of use or interest:

http://www.albokalisilat.org/unarmed_against_knife.html

[Demetrio Cereijo]

I liked it.

Thanks.

[KaliGman]

I liked it.

Thanks.

Thank you for the feedback. Of course, based on your posts here, martial background, etc., I thought you might enjoy some of the Albo Kali Silat methodology.