There is some good news coming out of the Modern Arnis Family Reunion Camp that was held last weekend in West Seneca, New York. By all posted accounts that I could find on martial-talk.com, the camp was an artistic success. That really pleases me because all of the posts that I read as of yesterday, Sunday, July 24, 2011, actually validated and enhanced the significance of the 2003 Modern Arnis Symposium.
The Symposium was the very first open and all inclusive Modern Arnis training event that followed the death of the late Professor Remy A. Presas, who was the founder/GM of the art. By "open and all inclusive" I am referring to the fact that anyone associated with Modeern Arnis, regardless of any group membership was invited to participate in the Symposium. There were no prefered status situations.
This would be a good place to introduce a bit of perspective that can only come from looking back on the past events in order to better understand the most recent things that have happened in 2011.
There had been a good deal of pre-Symposium carping, bitching and moaning about what a bad idea holding the Symposium was, the wrong person was organizing/hosting the camp and it was coming too soon after the death of Professor Remy Presas, the founder and GM of Modern Arnis. The negative comments that were posted on martial-talk.com after the Synmpoium had been held included the notion that the Symposium was not "really a Modern Arnis" camp because several of the instructors taught Balintawak Eskrima. Others had taught Sayoc Kali Knife Drills, Eskrima Serrada
and Ryukyu Kempo Tuite. There was also the complaint that a couple of the instructors were 2nd generation Modern Arnis players. It was also noted that there was one fellow who had never studied directly under the late GM Presas.
These critics were insistant that in their views in spite of the evidence to the contrary. Please consider the fact that Balintawak is one of three arts that form the foundation of Modern Arnis. Teaching Balintawak at a Modern Arnis Camp is very appropriate. The Eskrima Serrada presentation made a lot of sense because it is compatable to and compliments the close quarters art of Balintwak. Part of the Symposium mission statement was to compare and contrast approaches to Modern Arnis. If we do not have 2nd and 3rd generation students how is the art of Modern Arnis going to survive into the future? In time, there will be an entire generation of Modern Arnis instructors who never met or trained with the founder/GM! I seriously question the notion that unless you had hands on training with GM Presas, you can not be an excellent instructor or fully understand the foundations of Modern Arnis. BTW, most of my black belt students, attended camps and seminars with GM Presas and earned their black belt certificates under his testing format.
Of particular interest to me were the negative post-Symposium comments of Bob Hubbard and Sal Todaro. Both men railed against the Symposium, yet neither of them attended the event! Nor did either man take their mutual friend, mentor and system leader, Tim Hartman, to task for being one of the people who 'defiled' the Symposium because he taught Balintawak Eskrima, along with Paul Janulis, a fellow World Modern Arnis Alliance member.
In fairness and under the full disclosure principle, I have to state that I knew in advance that both men were going to teach Balintawak, from the perspective of Ted Buot, a student of the Balintawak chief instructor Venancio "Ancong" Bacon. I approved of their plans and encouraged them to teach the system.
My purpose in connecting the Symposium and Reunion together is to demonstrate how a few years between events can be instrumental in viewing outcomes. For instance, in the run-up to the 2011 Modern Arnis Family Reunion there were no negatives publicly expressed in opposition to the camp. Any persons who were so inclined kept their comments to themselves or among close friends. Therefore the people who were inclined toward attending the Reunion did not have to wade through a sea of negative yelping and sniping. That was a good thing and I was very pleased to see that the nay-sayers never found their way to their keyboards, as had people such as "bloodwood", "arnis princess" and "red blade" in 2003.
It was very intersting and revealing to read that GM Max Pallen (Senkos Teros) and GM Ron Van Browning (Grappling) were welcomed and warmly received as special guest instructors at the 2011 reunion gig, in spite of the fact that neither man had ever beeen a long term student the late Professor Presas. This is a most welcomed change to what occured back in 2003. What a difference 8 years can make in the thinking and perceptions of some Modern Arnis people.
As I read through the various reviews posted on mtc, I noticed that an often stated concept of the late Professor Presas, "Make it for yourself" was whole heartedly endorsed by a number of the posters. This has long been a staple of my teaching philosophy and a position that I have advocated for years before and since the Symposium. It was one of the cardinal features of the Symposium. For those readers who are not familiar with Professor Presas, he quite frequently told his students at seminars and camps that "You must make it for yourself". In the 25 years that he taught Modern Arnis in the United States, Canada and Europe, that phrase was always being used to encourage people to think and move in a way that was consistant with their own comfort levels. It was his invitation to his students to observe, learn and grow within the art. In numerous conversations that I had with Professor Presas from 1981 through 1994 that theme of 'making it for myself' was always present.
In his 1983 Ohara Publication, "Modern Arnis: The Filipino Art of Stick Fighting", it should be noted that in the 'History' section on page 5, Professor Presas was depicted as holding the following sentiment about the art of arnis and the individual students:
"Professor does not merely combine techniques - he encourages the individual studentto adapt arnis principles to his own feel for each technique. The method should suit the person and not the other way around. This is known simply as using the "flow." The flow is Presas' universal term for defining the comfortable place where the movementsof arnis and the individual human body meet for maximum effectiveness; body and weapon blend to achieve the most natural fighting style based on an individual's needs and attitudes."
That statement says it all! What we did at the Symposium and what the instructors demonstrated at the Reunion was a basic and highly important tenent of Professor Presas' Modern Arnis philosophy
which he constantly encouraged his students to engage in for themselves. I was very pleased to read the 2011 reviews that expoused the idea of making it for ones self. Some things have changed for the better since 2003.
Reading through the 2011 reviews I was quite pleased to see a general acceptence of the 'make it for yourself' concept; this aceptence fully validated and vindicated the events and practices that occured in 2003 at the Symposium, even if the posters had not intended their comments to do so. The 2011 Reunion reviews show us that the Symposium opened the door to more objective thinking and a wider acceptence of diversity among some Modern Arnis players. Of course there are still differences of opinion within Modern Arnis and that is to be expected, even cherished, because it allows for greater creativity among the various individuals who practice and teach the art.
The 2003 Symposium and the 2011 Reunion are closedly connected because in both cases, people were able to come together at the same camp, reach across group lines/identies to find some common grounds for agreement as they trained, cross-trained and discussed their individual approaches to Modern Arnis. The Reunion actually fed off of the artistic successes of the Symposium and that of a lesser known or seldom discussed camp that was held in Brevard, NC under Dan Anderson. I fully understand that there will be some people who disagree with my assessment, however, they are going to have to explain away the striking similarities between the two camps that I have noted above in this essay.
I am quite pleased to see that the people reviewing the Reunion, stayed on task and discussed the actual camp happenings, which they viewed as a success. That in turn opens a lot more opportunities for Modern Arnis people to step up and work outside of their own particular group associations, to embrace a broader cross-section of Modern Arnis players at a single event. It really is time for people
to enbrace the various groups, independents, and renegades of Modern Arnis. The more time people spend talking to one another, working together within and across group lines, training and cross-training within the art, the better for all concerned.
Now that the Reunion is past and the reviews have been published there are still a couple of important questions to be asked and answered. First, who will step up and organize the next open and all inclusive Modern Arnis Camp? Since Dan Anderson, Tim Hartman and myself have already done it, all we can do is repeat ourselves, so who is up to the task? Since the nay-sayers have exited the field and it would be in extremely poor taste for such activities to return, the next organizer has an even better chance for success that any of us who have already stepped up and delievered.
The second question is even more critical. When will a number of established Modern Arnis players
get together in person or via internet conferencing and discuss the codification of a standard set of Modern Arnis techniques and principles? It is one thing for people to "make the art for themselves,
but the critical question is, what componenets actually make up the Modern Arnis System? Simply
throwing something together and calling it Modern Arnis does not actually make what the person is doing... Modern Arnis! We can't go around claiming to know Modern Arnis when we see it! What are the objectively codified and generally accepted components of Modern Arnis? One thing that is generally agreed upon in Modern Arnis circles is that Professor Presas DID NOT produce a written curriculum for the system! Once again the participants have be objective, open to the ideas of one another and not slavishly attached to any single group orientation. Getting the Modern Arnis independents and renegades involved would help matters.
I have a written curriculum that was approved by Professor Presas back in 1989. I produced that curriculum for the self defense program that I taught at Erie Community College, in Orchard Park,
NY. My SD program has run for the past 25 years and it is the ONLY Modern Arnis program outside of the Philippines that has been taught for college credit toward graduation! HOWEVER, let me be the first person to say that the ECC curriculum IS NOT a one size fits all document.
There are any number of possibilities for a genuine and honest Modern Arnis curriculum that would be different from mine. In fact I would love to work with people on the development of their own curriculia. Why? Because it is part of the 'make it for yourself' edit of Professor Presas. It is in the spirit and philosophy of Professor Presas that the art be constructed in a manner that it fits the individual. But we should have some common and agreed upon componenets that everyone includes in their curriculia, or we run the risk of seeing anyone and everyone claiming that they are merely doing their own thing under the name of Modern Arnis. If anyone wants to accept my offer of currulum help, just email me at escrima_kenpo@hotmail.com.
So in summery let me say again, that I am pleased that the 2011 Reunion went well because it validated both of the earlier attempts by Dan Anderson and myself to bring some Modern Arnis people together in an open and inclusive manner to train as well as cross-train in the art that we learned from Professor Remy A. Presas. Back in 2003 and 2005, we made it for ourselves as well.
Sincerely,
Jerome Barber, Ed. D.
Mataw Guro and Grand Master
Independent Escrima-Kenpo-Arnis Associates
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