Interesting EMA vs WMA encounter

[JeanryChandler]

I had an interesting encounter recently.

I have an old freind from my old 'slum-fu' group who long ago split off from us, and has been off pursuing a successful Art career which lately has culiminated in designingin motorcycles. In recent years he's been studying various EMA including Philipino escrima (sp?), and he'd gotten quite a rep on the street.

We'd run into each other downtown a few times in the last two years and many taunts and boasts had been exchanged. We tried to set up sparring sessions a couple of times but it always fell through. Finally last week we had a chance to meet at the garage of the motorcylce company where he works, and do some sparring.

As there was a certain amount of fairly serious rivalry involved here, especially initially, this was one of the most intense sparring sessions I've been involved in for something like 3 years. It was a lot like a real street fight in it's intensity, though we did stop each round after a 'killing blow'. By the end (after almost 45 minutes of continuous hard core sparring) I think we had both won a lot more respect for each other. I'm hoping he'll become a regular sparring partnern now because he's better than anyone else I've sparred with lately.

As for the match itself, from earlier encounters with EMA people I figured the shield would be a big advantage, as few EMA disciplines seem to deal with shields at all. So I started out using a shield, and he tried his sticks. In this clip he's using one escrima stick against me with a short (cinqueda type) sword and a large buckler.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/henry1.mpg

His technique was very mobile and fluid, more than I'm used to, but they don't have too many different guards, and parrying was a little weaker. Offensively he was very flexible, at one point he managed to thrust into my face with a dagger lunge from like ten feet away, before I could react.

In general though the reach of the WMA weapons, especially the single swords and the larger greatswords, as well as their overall flexibility in attack, were more than Henry could deal with. I have some other clips but mostly poor quality, which I'll try to clean up and maybe post later. Eventually he gave up on his sticks and switched to using my padded weapons for the rest of the match.

I'm also hoping to soon get a match with one of his teachers, which should be interesting. If I get footage I'll post it. On this occasion we were supposed to get some better clips but the photopgrapher couldn't find the place (a motorcycle Garage not too far from the gallery where Southern Knights will be held)

Any comments are welcome.

JR
One other note,

Interestingly, I found that his wooden escrima sticks, which were unpadded rataan, weren't much harder and actually hit a lot lighter than the correctly weighted padded sparring weapons I normally use. I had knee pads, gauntlets and a lacrosse helmet. He was using a special escrima helmet.

[Matt Shields]

Very nice work Jeanry. I have to say, I'm interested in the rest of the clips.
If I may add; I think a longer sword may have given you more of an advantage against the escrima sticks. You could have had control of the range with the blade, and once that range control was broken, still have had time to defend with the buckler. Speed and mobility seemed to be the basis of his offense, so controlling the range could have kept that minimal. It also seems quite often that in Eastern Martial Arts (I'm not sure about Philipino) they pay little attention to range in their solo practice.
But then again, if he gave up with the sticks I'm sure you had the match under control.

And you said he was using unpadded rattan, how painful were the strikes with it? You must have taken a couple hits to the arm or chest.

[Guest]

It maybe just from the clips but i noticed that your friend adopted what we call a "caveman structure." It is basically a roof block followed by a diagonal forehand. I also saw a complete lack of feints from his side. These two things combined with the technological advantage of having a buckler and a longer weapon definitely add up to you having the advantage. People who are exclusively stick fighters also have the tendency to forget a sense of point, that is thrusting.

As to the weight of a weapon. You can find denser rattan and at longer lengths. Kombat Instruments Limited has a great selection. My sticks from them and they are 36inches long and an inch and a quarter thick. I like to use rattan because of the longer life of the stick. Oak can be really hard but it is brittle and can snap during practice but since rattan is a vine and very fiberous it shreds over time rather than snaps.

[JeanryChandler]

Very nice work Jeanry. I have to say, I'm interested in the rest of the clips.

Thank you. I uploaded a few more, I'll be looking forward to reading your analysis of them.

If I may add; I think a longer sword may have given you more of an advantage against the escrima sticks.

That is absolutely the case. I was using the short sword basically as a handicap, since I did have the advantage of the shield. The escrima sticks he was using were only something like 30" long.

And you said he was using unpadded rattan, how painful were the strikes with it? You must have taken a couple hits to the arm or chest.

Yes I took a couple of knocks, and incidentally he did thrust. My Lacrosse helmet protected my head pretty well but I did get one good crack on a collar bone and I still have a lump on my right forearm where I took a hit. Overall though it wasn't as bad as I'd thought. I've gone up against SCA people with their rataan sticks in an even more intense kind of situation, (practically a riot) so I kind of knew what to expect, though that was a long time ago. Overall, they were harder but very light, much lighter than my weighted padded weapons, and my "martial arts" quality weapons are also fairly tight anyway so there wasn't that much difference in hardness. In fact for headshots I think the padded ones were worse. He said he had a couple of hard knocks on his head, shoulders, legs and abdomen.

Here are the new clips, also from that same day. In these he was using my padded weapons as he had given up on the sticks.

In this one we were fighting with single swords. I'm not even sure who finally won the exchange at the end, I think I got him but it might have been a "mutual death" thing.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/henry3b2-single.mpg

Here we are fighting with single sword (viking type broad bladed cutting swords) and daggers. This is probably my strongest weapon combination so I was able to deal pretty well with his rush.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/henry4A1.mpg

In this one I was using an axe and he was using a latex viking sword. I actually broke the axe on the heavy iron grill of his escrima helmet in the last exchange.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/henry3C- Axe.mpg

In this one I was using a very large and heavy greatsword (58" and nearly 4 lbs) against his Sword and buckler. He's using the latex viking sword I had posted a link about (which incidentally held up surprisingly well in this intense 45 minute match). I think in this one he gets me a couple of times, once with a thrust to the face and once 'post mortem' after I had struck him in the leg. We usually go by the rule that if someone can hit you within a second or so of having been "killed" then it's a 'mutual death' result which is not a victory. This encourages you to always be ready to fend off those 'post mortem' blows even after you get a killing blow in, which I think is important.

By the end of this my shoe had completely fallen apart, the sole completely came off. I continued to fight a few rounds in my socks but finaly we called it a day a little while after that.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/e/deodand23/henry6-Long-Shoe.mpg

In my defense for some of the bad form I no doubt show here, when most of these clips had been shot we'd already been fighting for about 20 minutes continuously, and I was pretty winded. I was sore for like three days after this little match.

JR

[JeanryChandler]

It maybe just from the clips but i noticed that your friend adopted what we call a "caveman structure." It is basically a roof block followed by a diagonal forehand.

I like that term, "caveman structure", that seems to be what most untrained people do in a streetfight when they have a stick or a bat or a pipe to fight with. Although he did seem to stay in that guard or something like a middle guard almost all the time, Henry did have a few more approaches up his leather sleeves, which you can perhaps see in some of the other clips. He was surprisingly good at parrying from those guards, even when I aimed at his legs, and he definately did parry, as I mention below. In general, between his good sense of reach and range, his excellent mobility, and his good parrying, I had to use the same kind of tricks to land strikes on him that I use on moderately experienced WMA fighters, especially feints, crosses, and combinations.

People who are exclusively stick fighters also have the tendency to forget a sense of point, that is thrusting.

This is another problem he did not seem to have. You can see I think in a couple of the other clips where he thrust in my face several times. In one fight he managed to thrust into my face with his dagger. I agree with you though that many self taught stick fighters don't think of the point, I know I didn't for many years.

JR

[Guest]

It's always exciting(and scary) to go up against an eastern martial artist with weapons. Many of the martial artists I know focus mainly on unarmed techniques, and so have significantly less experience with a weapon. However, their styles are often unfamiliar territory, which is the dangerous part. I usually don't know what to expect from an eastern martial artist, and the only thing that I'm truly sure of is that I don't want to get caught up close where they far excel in unarmed combat(that's me personally, I don't mean european martial arts are inferior).

I recently began taking Kenpo Karate classes, in which the teacher incorporates Wing Chun and Arnis/Kali/Escrima techniques. At this point, my knowledge of arnis is very, very basic, considering that we've only focused on it a little so far, but I look forward to my experience with european and eastern styles complimenting each other. That's half the reason I'm taking the class.