Bram Frank Seminar in Buffalo: Presas Family Combat Bolo - July 17, 2011

Hello to All,

I would like to announce that GM Bram Frank is going to conduct a Presas Family Combat Bolo Seminar in the Buffalo, NY area on Sunday, July 17, from 9am to 4pm. The seminar site will be at the Kempo Martial Arts Academy, 455 Olean Road, East Aurora, NY, which is located SE of Buffalo and about a 30 minute drive from downtown.

The training sessions will run from 9am to Noon and 1pm to 4 pm. Participants can sign up for the full day session or a half-day session. The admission price is $110 for a full day and $75 for either of the half day sessions. A certificate of instructional completion will be issued at the end of the day.

For more information, you can contact me via e-mail at:
<escrima_kenpo@hotmail.com>

Over the years there have been numerous people who decried the idea that Modern Arnis was a bladed art.  Some went so far as to declare that Modern Arnis didn't even haave it's origins within the bladed arts of the Philippines.  Ask almost any
Filipino student of the late Professor Remy Presas, who trained in the Philippines in the 1960's and 70's and they will tell you that Professor most certinly did teach the use of the bolo - the fighting or combat bolo - as part of his Modern Arnis curriculum.

I'm not sure exactly were these Anerican "experts" got their information from regarding Modern Arnis having "always been" a stick oriented art.  In several conversations that I had in the late 1980's and early 1990's, with Professor, he talked about "...the blade machete..." and the bolo.  In his 1974 book on Modern Arnis, published in the Philippines he stated that the rattan stick was a training tool because it was less lethal than the bladed weapon.  That particualr book is available in a U.S. edition and his statements regarding the blade are in that edition as well.  Some people refer to the U.S. edition as the "pink book" due to its cover color and to differentiate it from the 1983 Ohara Publication also entitled "Modern Arnis".

GM Bram Frank and Datu Kelly Wordern are the acknowledged blade orientation students of Professor's in the USA.  I
think that more people within the Modern Arnis world ought to pay more attention to these guys.  They know a thing or two about the blade orientatiuon and utilization within Modern Arnis, because Professor taught it to them.  Both men also had training and discussion time with the late Roland Dantes and Datu Shishir Inocalla.  Those two fellows knew about Modern Arnis blade as did a number of other Filipinos who GM Braam and Datu Kelly met over the years.

In my own curriculum that I taught outside of the Erie Community College program that I taught, I followed up on my conversations with Professor and researched the use of the blade in FMA.  By 1988, I had added the Negrito Bolo replica to my program.  That particular bolo had a double meaning in my curriculum.  First it represented the island of Professor's birth and secondly, it represented the original people who inhabited the island, the Negritos or Aeta. 

From a more pragmatic educational perspective, the replica bolo, got my students feet moving and their bodies shifting more effectively thatn anything else I had come across prior to adding the blade.  It seems to motivate my students to move, become 'unrooted' from a particular spot on the training floor when they are facing that 'blade'!.  Even though the replica Negrito Bolo is very clearly a wooden training tool and everyone understands that it is totally incapable of cutting anything, the shape and design just seems to over-ride common sense knowledge - my students move both faster and with much more precision when they are "confronted" by the bladed-bolo. 

Over the years in numerous conversations with Bram Frank, I have found myself becoming more and more convienced that Modern Arnis, as taught by Professor in the USA, Canada and Europe was greatly modified by eliminating the bladed aspects of the art, so as to make Modern Arnis an acceptable recreational martial arts in the same vein as karate and kung fu.
Having a chance to host a bolo seminar is something that i've wanted to do for quite some time.  I am looking forward to this training sequece.  It will add to my own knowledge of  Modern Arnis in general and the blade utization in particular.
It will also give my students an opportunity to compare and contrast my instuction with the ideas of a very highly regarded master teacher of blades instruments.  It is a comparison that I welcome and encourage.

Sincerely,

Jerome Barber, Ed. D.Director, Independent Escrima-Kenpo-Arnis Associates