Originally posted by krys
Hello pesilat.
I once read a book about your kuntao silat style .
There was nothing on footwork or weapons in it...
How are footwork and weapons trained in your system ?
I understand that you learn some foot-trapping drills, I appreciate this a lot, is there a tape with these drills around?
Thanks,
Christian.
mabuhay ang filipino Silat at Arnis.
There is actually quite a lot of emphasis on footwork and quite a bit of weapon work. As Uncle Bill says, "There is no Silat without the blade." But the weapon work (whether stick, knife, sword, staff, etc.) isn't often taught out at seminars (where most people have been exposed to Uncle and his art).
The footwork is primarily developed in the forms. There are some drills that I've done for footwork and, specifically, for tracking. But I got these drills from his seniors and/or their students so I don't know if these were drills that Uncle taught or if his senior students put the elements together as drills.
The way Uncle Bill teaches is basically this:
He'll show you something (a form, technique, or, more often, a handful of techniques) and then he'll say, "OK. You try." He doesn't use a specific training progression, per se. His seniors have put together their own progressions to teach the material to their students.
But the bulk of the footwork is developed in the forms. Uncle draws from a lot of different sources when he's teaching but he spends a lot of time in Pakua mode. And a lot of the footwork he teaches incorporates Pakqua leg traps.
The forms are (in my experience) never taught statically. They're taught hand-in-hand with applications. And the student is encouraged to experiment and find his/her own applications in the forms. In this way, the student is never very far from the application mindset. And all the Kuntao Silat de Thouars players that I know are more than willing to mix it up. We all enjoy "playing." So there's a lot of attribute development going on in the "playing" as well.
If you're unfamiliar with what I mean by the term "playing", check out the article I wrote about it on my website. The article is called "The Play is the Thing" at
http://impactacademy.cim/articles
Mike
