Ceicei, et al
I don't know how familiar you are with Sayoc Kali. Its purely a blade art that focuses on employment of primarily knives.
Rather than using angles of attack with the weapon, Sayoc employs templates...think of them as striking patterns for insertion of the knife. The most commonly used is "3 of 9", a modified six count version of which can be seen in the movie "The Hunted." "3 of 9" is one of 36 basic templates, but it is the one that people seem to train the most. One can get a lot out of just that pattern.
Last weekend we did variations on "3 of 9", using blades in different hands for both feeder and receiver, reversing the grips, and that sort of thing. Sayoc is a "feeder based" art, in that the person delivering the cut is the one getting the primary training...but the receiver (the one receiving the cut) also gets a bunch of technique honed during the practice. That said, its an aggressive art that teaches one very quickly that its good to be the one with the knife.
The non-linear attacks can best be described as indirect attacks. Twelve were taught. An example: Deliver a high forehand thrust and then snake it down into a low backhand thrust to the torso...the receiver tries to check the first strike and opens himself up to the second.
The Silak that was taught off of Transition Drill One consists of empty hand responses to a pattern of strikes. Think of the Transition Drill being a bit like "set sparring" in Gung Fu. In this drill the feeder attacks with a slash (or whatever) and the receiver blocks and does a limb destruction of disarm. We learned a few variations off of those. Example: In the flow the feeder delivers a forehand slash to the neck, the receiver passes the knife to the right with his left hand, grabbing the hand and driving his right elbow into the fist holding the knife, ostensibly breaking it. I like this technique, and can think of variations to it.
The Seven Count Passing Drill is also a set series of strikes, but seems to be more oriented towards the receiver. Think of a series of locks and strips of the blade, all put into a flowing sequence. The counters to the locks are taught, and we got into the counters to the counters of the locks. Good stuff...stimiulating. It develops spontaneous reaction and gets a person thinking.
What else can I tell you? If you need a more specific breakdown, I can go there. No problem.
Regards.
Steve
P.S.
Ceicei, that article I told you about got accepted FINALLY and is in press. I'll let you know when I get a copy.
