Larense Garrote Venezuelan Martial Art

[thekuntawman]

two years ago i was approached by this guy, who is a advance student of garrote venzuela stick fighting. he had this long list of styles he did, but he wanted to learn the combative part of stickfighting, to make his "garrote" more complete. he spent such a long time telling me how different the art is from the philippine styles, but when i got to meet him, guess what, all i saw is seminar FMA.

here is something i copied from a site, which also spent a lot of time telling us, "this aint FMA"

"Garrote is trained in a similar manner as Kali. It uses two-man drills primarily.

The list of drills is long but they consist of give-and-take drills. (From what I have seen and learned.)

Below is a partial list of the drills:

Franco Drill
Reverse Drill
Puyah Drill
Barrikampo Drill
Atravesado Drill
Pezcuesero-Puescueso Drill

To give an example: See Movie to left.


A. Strikes in a downward manner to B's head. (Franco Strike)


B does a Turning Step with open hand parry to avoid (putting him to the outside of the attackers arm) and then delivers his own Franco Strike.


This continues until you get tired or dizzy
This should be performed on a Cross Pattern."

hmmm, sounds like seminar FMA to me....

anyway, here is the site i saw, decide for yourself http://rajasterlak.silat.4mg.com/garrote/garrote.html

its not the site of the guy who came to sac, but i know its the same style. now, is the master from venezuela a student of FMA, maybe not. but i know that there is a lot of people using philippine techniques in these "exotic art". last week one of my students went to a new school 10 minutes from me, who teaches "korean stick fighting". its not dan bong, it was seminar FMA in disguise. and you know what, he spent all his time telling him how different they are from arnis, but do sinawali. when somebody likes to talk down a style so much but everything they do looks like that style (hoch vs FMA, etc) it makes me go hmmmm...especially when they come to fma people to say it, especially when they study FMA.

by the way i did not take the garrote student.

fyi, many filipinos call there art and sticks, garrote.

 

[Silat Junkie]

theKuntawman;

I'm not sure why I am wasting my breath on you, but for everyone else's benefit...

First off, there are probably less than 50 people in the U.S. who actively train in Garrote.
1. Myself (a few of my students)
2. Bob Orlando (and some of his students)
3. Richard Merritt (and a few of his students)
4. Whoever Bruno teaches when he is in Miami

So, there are no advanced students in the U.S. Period.

Second, Garrote is very combative once you get past the basic Cuadro drills and start doing drills such as Vista, Mezquino, and Free Garrote. I have never seen the Jugadores use any type of safety equipment even at full speed.

Third, that site you quoted is mine and the very first line you quoted states that they are trained in a similar manner as Kali. Additionally, I wrote this as well on the same site:

"Garrote Larense is relatively unknown worldwide. It is a stick/knife fighting art. More correctly a Machete/knife art. While it is closely related to Kali of the Phillipines it is very distinct in its style and methods."

and again,

"Garrote Larense does not use angles as do the Filipino styles. Rather, they use specific strikes and defenses for them. Although the strikes are specific attacks, they are indirectly related to and similar to the angle systems of Arnis or Escrima."

However, I have come to conclude that it is more similar than I once believed, which I stated in my very first posting. (The website you chose to quote is nearly 5 years old and hasn't been updated for nearly 4 years I would imagine.)

and lastly,

"Garrote's primary principle is to avoid. It seeks to evade attacks via footwork and parries, rather than block them with the stick/machete.

This is extremely different from the Kali that I have studied which seems to rely on a combination which favors the stick as the tool for blocking."

This is still accurate and probably one of the main differences between the FMA that I have studied and Garrote, additionally, the training of the footwork differs quite a bit too IMO. I realize that there are Palis-palis drills in FMA, but you must understand, that the majority of training in Garrote is done this way and only occasionally is blocking used.

Additionally, I have never "spoken down about the FMA", quite to the contrary, however, you have repeatedly "spoken down" about Garrote, which you have never studied and apparantly not even seen. The worst you can say is that I have compared the two, but NEVER have I "spoken down about the FMA" nor have I ever "spoken down" about your teacher or lineage.

FYI, Garrote is the Spanish word for stick, a language spoken in Venezuela... Hmmmmm, maybe FMA came from Garrote? (To use your "logic".)

With all of this said, I have never claimed that I have studied ALL FMA and I say that directly on the site. I therefore, cannot say that Garrote differs from ALL FMA, but it does differ from the FMA that I have studied which is exactly what I have said. However, since you have never trained in Garrote or apparantly even seen it, how is it that you feel you can speak with authority about what it is or isn't?

Please, I am begging you, speak less and think more!

 

[moromoro]

with the growing popularity of garrote larense, there could today or in the near future be phonies popping up with no real backgroud in GL (but are rejects in the FMA) who may claim to be masters of GL.

i think this is possible in the near future, look at all the karate, taekwondo guys who wore a black uniform in the 80's and claimed they where ninja!!!!

might be possible, something which the real practitioners might have to watch out for...


terry

 

[haumana2000]

yo Silat Junkie, Juego de pau
estilo canario... Canary Island Stickfighting eh???

Canary islands, n. atlantic.

Ding, ding, ding, what do we have for him johnny!!!!

do I get $200 and get to pass go?

LOL! just sittin eating popocorn, enjoying the show. this forum has really been on the explosive end lately.

 

[Mark Lynn]

Originally posted by moromoro
with the growing popularity of garrote larense, there could today or in the near future be phonies popping up with no real backgroud in GL (but are rejects in the FMA) who may claim to be masters of GL.

i think this is possible in the near future, look at all the karate, taekwondo guys who wore a black uniform in the 80's and claimed they where ninja!!!!

might be possible, something which the real practitioners might have to watch out for...


terry

Terry

Have you seen a growing popularity of Garrote Larense in your part of the world? Cause frankly other than the article I saw in JAMA and this forum I haven't seen anything about it here in the states.

Along with this Mike in his first post on this thread said he had seen this art in a short demo by possibly the instructor who brought the art here to the states. And Sean did create a website that was/is several years old that features GL. But it doesn't seem like this is a lot of exposure or a big surge of popularity in the system.

Mark

 

[Silat Junkie]

Hello Terry and Mark;

THough you didn't actually write your question to me, I thought I would also tell you that in August of '97 I think it was featured in IKF Magazine by Bruno as well. I believe I still have the article, but I'm not exactly sure if it was '97...

Just FYI.

I would also say, that it's popularity in Venezuela is o.k. (meaning it doesn't have a huge following) but outside of Venezuela it's little known.

Sean

 

[Mark Lynn]

This is one question that upon looking/reading the article and noticing the similarity/commonality between Garrote Larense and the FMA I began to think about.

1) Did the Spanish have more of an influence on the FMA than we give them credit for?

We will debate on this forum the meaning of Datu, rank, Kali is it the mother art or not, etc. etc. etc. which are all more or less meaningfull to X amount of people. We speak of learning the history of the FMA and the culture of the Philippines etc. etc. etc. so I ask (respectfully) Terry, Kuntawman, and anyone else, did the Spanish have a large influence on the FMA?

Because here we have two arts that are seperated by a wide body of water across the globe and we all can see the similarity between the FMA and GL. In fact people on this thread have even implied that GL looks like seminar FMA, or that the master of the system had probably learned some other asian martial art (from an asian master). Don't get me wrong but this appears to be the opinon/attitude/or thought that only in the Philippines could we have stick fighters, or that only asians could develop MAs.

With respect
Mark

 

[Mark Lynn]

Sean

Man that was quick, I posted my last question and you had already responded to my previous post. Anyway thanks for the information on the article, I'll look and see if I have that one or if sometime I can get it.

Mark

 

[Mark Lynn]

Sean

One question from the pictures of the article, it appears the practioners start in a pretty close range. Does Garrote Larense have a long distance fighting techniques (such as in largo mano in the FMA), or is it a realitivly close/medium range art?

This might sound wierd but the movement of the head then body then feet, I can see what you mean by moving in that order when you are close in. But in trying to picture it I keep seeing the head movement such as Chris Rock has in one of the scenes where he is showing Jackie Chan his moves in the car or something. Is this close, the idea, or concept?

Thanks for your responses (I chose to hang back a while while the other discussions were going on).

Mark

 

[Cruentus]

When two cultures are in the same place for an extended period of time, they will merge together to a degree. It is inevitable. So, I believe that the probability that spanish fencing and filipino tribal arts mixed together a bit is very high. There was probably developement just from eskrimadors having to learn how to defend the spanish, and vice versa. I think that eskrima would look very different today if it didn't have spanish influence.

So the likelyhood that there would have been some spanish sailors who knew some hybrid form of eskrima, and then brought what they knew to South America where it further developed into its own unique system seems very likely and logical to me. Perhaps it just "stuck" in Venezuela more so then the other south american countries.

How about other blade related systems in South America? Anybody here about those?

 

[Silat Junkie]

Hello Mark,

Largely what I have seen has been Medio and Cerca ranges. Essentially, with arm extended the tip of the stick striking the adversary. Sometimes a bit closer, sometimes a bit farther. They also utilize empty hand strikes within the use of the stick so largely it may fall into what most people call Cerca (though as a silat and kuntao player predominately, close range to me is pretty close).

The head movement is similar to that, though there is no return movement and the body immediately follows it.

In response to Paul's post, it certainly could have happened that a Spanish sailor may have brought Kali to Venezuela,

*or it could have been a completely independant development,
*or it could have been influenced by the natives of Venezuela who utilize sticks, clubs, and machete as well as a method of combat,
*or it could have been influenced by African Slave stick fighting as many believe.
*or it could have been created out of Spanish swordfighting without any influences at all
*or it could have been any combination of these or ALL.

Contrary to how most people seem to think, I don't believe for one minute that any one culture has a hold on martial arts movements or principles. For sure a culture defines how these elements are developed and trained but it seems conceivable to me that similar arts could develop independantly just by having a similar influence - simply out of necessity, since "necessity is the mother of invention."

Just my thoughts on the subject and I don't necessarily expect people to agree.

Sean

 

[Mark Lynn]

Sean Paul

Thanks for the input.

Sean
I agree with your post that it could have been any number of things that influenced the creation of the stick fighting systems of GL.

There are many different stick fighting systems in the world and they all to some extent use the same techniques, there is a commonality between them, is what I'm trying to say. However the stickfighting systems of the Irish (from what little I've read about and it is just a little) or the use of the Hanbo in the JMA systems, doesn't have the same look or feel to them as in the way the similarities between GL and the FMA.

(In response to Paul)
I don't agree with the idea that Spanish sailors who knew Kali might have brought the system to Venezula, rather I think you might have had two similar cultures who due to being occupied by the same country/culture created a similar (yet different) martial system to defend themselves against an common enemy.

Mark

 

[moromoro]

hi mark

sorry for the late reply

so I ask (respectfully) Terry, Kuntawman, and anyone else, did the Spanish have a large influence on the FMA?

to answer your question, this is my view it is primarily on a different school of thought.

Culturally the spanish influence on the philippines was huge, no one can dispute this. in the martial arts however we have many people saying no it was minimal, they say this with out much evidence. i truly believe the arts from mindanao and in particular the sulu archipelago are the closest we have that have no influence from the spanish.

However Eskrima i believe has more influence from the spanish (europe) than anything. an example i can talk about is the Navarro system GM Carlos Navarro's grand father Mariano was portugese he may have come to cebu at a young age, his system of staff fighting he named De lyabe has many similarities to the portuguese stick fighting, this is what i have found.
this is only one subsystem of one art however.

Have you seen a growing popularity of Garrote Larense in your part of the world? Cause frankly other than the article I saw in JAMA and this forum I haven't seen anything about it here in the states.

i mean with all due respect i believe it will grow in popularity, also people will scam to make a quick buck, who is stopping them from saying that they are true masters of GL when they have never learnt it and they know FMA. this is why i mean real practitioners and potential students may have to wacth out for phonies.


thanks

terry

 

[pesilat]

Originally posted by The Boar Man
(In response to Paul)
I don't agree with the idea that Spanish sailors who knew Kali might have brought the system to Venezula, rather I think you might have had two similar cultures who due to being occupied by the same country/culture created a similar (yet different) martial system to defend themselves against an common enemy.

While I, too, am inclined to agree with the simultaneous development theory, I'd like to point out that if there was any FMA influence, it probably didn't come from Spaniards, but rather from Pilipinos who were crew on the Spanish ships (from what I understand, the Spanish used a lot of Pilipino slave labor and mercenaries to crew their ships).

This type of argument is, IMHO, kind of moot, though. The roots predate any sort of written history, right? So it can't be proven at all. It's all conjecture. Was there an indigenous art? Probably. Was it influenced by the Spaniards? Probably. Was there FMA influence? Possibly. Did the Spaniards also take Venezuelans to the Philippines? Probably (to replace crewmembers who died or jumped ship). Did the Venezuelan stuff have any influence on the FMA? Possibly. But none of it is provable.

So, aside from a pointless academic debate, it has no real bearing on the martial art, right?

At least, that's my take on the subject (and other subjects like it that pop up over and over and over again in the MA).

Mike

 

[moromoro]

While I, too, am inclined to agree with the simultaneous development theory, I'd like to point out that if there was any FMA influence, it probably didn't come from Spaniards, but rather from Pilipinos who were crew on the Spanish ships (from what I understand, the Spanish used a lot of Pilipino slave labor and mercenaries to crew their ships).

well could the Pilipino influence (if there is any) be more recent.

i mean how well can the history of GL be traced??????


thanks

terry

 

[pesilat]

Originally posted by moromoro
well could the Pilipino influence (if there is any) be more recent.

i mean how well can the history of GL be traced??????


thanks

terry

Don't know ... have to ask a GL guy how far back they trace their history. But, even still, it's probably an oral tradition and unverifiable. So then it becomes a "he said/she said" situation. And is still, basically, pure conjecture.

Even written history (which was written by the victors and scholars) is often questionable ... but it's the only thing we've got to go from.

Mike

 

[Silat Junkie]

Hello All;

I would suggest (for those who speak and read Spanish fluently) that you could start with Garrote Larense's most notable social influence. La Batalla of El Tamunangue in the celebration of St. Anthony. I would imagine such a festival/celebration, as big as it is, has some place in written history. It may not go back to the start of Garrote, but it's a good starting point and may point to it's inclusion, development, etc.

Sincerely,
Sean

 

[arnisador]

I go with the convergent evolution theory also.

The similarities I suspect reflect the strong Spanish influence on both the FMA and the Venezuelan system.

 

[Mark Lynn]

Originally posted by pesilat
While I, too, am inclined to agree with the simultaneous development theory, I'd like to point out that if there was any FMA influence, it probably didn't come from Spaniards, but rather from Pilipinos who were crew on the Spanish ships (from what I understand, the Spanish used a lot of Pilipino slave labor and mercenaries to crew their ships).

This type of argument is, IMHO, kind of moot, though. The roots predate any sort of written history, right? So it can't be proven at all. It's all conjecture. Was there an indigenous art? Probably. Was it influenced by the Spaniards? Probably. Was there FMA influence? Possibly. Did the Spaniards also take Venezuelans to the Philippines? Probably (to replace crewmembers who died or jumped ship). Did the Venezuelan stuff have any influence on the FMA? Possibly. But none of it is provable.


While I agree it probably isn't provable I was just trying to see what other people think.

So, aside from a pointless academic debate, it has no real bearing on the martial art, right?

At least, that's my take on the subject (and other subjects like it that pop up over and over and over again in the MA).

Mike

I agree this discussion has no real bearing on the systems of either the FMA or GL. On whether or not this is pointless debate I'm sorry if this is pointless to you, I was truly interested in other peoples opinons on the similarities between GL and the FMA and why they may/may not be similar.

I have read these type of discussions on other subjects TKD (for one) and while to me it would be hard to figure out who (chinese, japanese, okinawan, or korean) came up with such and such a kick, or joint lock etc. etc. and these tend to be pointless in my view. To others well, some people really research this out and know when this culture took over this culture and imposed their system of living over it etc.etc. to these individuals it is important to know their arts history to that degree. I was putting forth the question in hopes that maybe someone had some input on this.

Not knowing about Venezula's colonization (when or what conditions existed) I was hoping someone could shed some light on it. Did it occur before, during, or after the Philippine occupation etc. etc.? And maybe draw some conclusions from other people resposnes.

Mark

 

[Mark Lynn]

Sorry the last post I had I really butchered Mike's post which I was quoting.

I tried to do the multiple quote thing like Dr. B and others use so that I wouldn't have a long quote and then reply. Anyway I screwed it up. Being a yellow belt newbie on this board what do you expect.



Mark