Hey Doc,
I have been following a thread on mtc that was created from one sentence in your recent blog post under the "My Comments" regarding the Atillo list of disciples and successors. The posters on mtc are making big deal out of the fact that you stated that several organizations were not recognizing the rank and rank certificates of people who had earned their statuses from the late GM/Professor Remy Presas. You did send a private e-mail to one guy and he mentioned that fact in his post on the thread.
You were talking about some exchanges that you had with the new leadership of the IMAF/MoTTs back in 2001/2002. Several of your critics are saying that the current leadership never mentioned that they would not honor or recognize rank certificates given by the late GM Presas. I think that they have missed the point of your comments to the one gentleman, who I am assuming posted the correct information about exactly who had been mentioned to him.
Here's my take on the entire matter. Back in 2001/2002, when Jeff Delaney and Randy Schea were the co-leaders of the IMAF?MoTTs group of Modern Arnis, they were requiring everyone with rank given by the then recently deceased GM/Founder of Modern Arnis, to re-test with the new leadership.
That was (and still is) a bogus requirement in my opinion. Neither of the two people mentioned above have or ever had the stature and reputation of Professor Remy Presas. They were way out of bounds in making that sort of requirement of anyone who already had a rank certificate from the system founder. They should have acknowledged and accepted the rank already earned and then they
could have required new tests for continuing advancements in the IMAF.
However if they followed that line of logic and showed deference to and respect for their deceased GM, it would have cost them some money (testing fees). Since the departure of the 2 people mentioned above, their successors may not be following the examples cited by you as reported to the mtc by one of the posters. That makes since to me. New leadership brings out some new approaches to the way an organization is run.
My impression is that some of the posters were not reacting to the information presented as much as they were reacting to the fact that you were the person who made the initial comment and subsequent clarifying private e-mail to one person. Once some of those folks found out that Dr. Jerome Barber was the source of the information, it was time to honker down and get defensive. That's really too bad but I understand why you didn't want to post on the thread itself.
BTW, I agree with your idea that the GM Atillo list is news and should be given wide distribution.
By making his list of successors public, prior to his passing away, GM Atillo has taken all of the steam out of a possible succession fight of the type that we have witnessed so often in the past and in so many systems when the GM passed on. I believe that he done has a great thing for the students and followers of his Atillo-Saavedra Balintawak Eskrima System and I hope that other GMs will look at this as a precedent setting way to do business in the future.
Of course these are all my own opinions and hopefully people will read it as simply one man's thoughts about some public discussions. There is no need for folks to their knickers all knotted up over my opinions, they are free to have their own opinions and disagree with me ;-)
Adam Toussaint
