The Origin of Balintawak Self-defense

[soncen]

That pretty much sums it up.....

Gm Buot and Professor both use to tel me that the training was much harder back in the day, and challenges were not un-common and they were full contact with no pads at all, but they very very rarely ended up in death, in fact sometimes the defeated Eskrimador would train under the winner.

Rocky

Hello Rocky,

The training during Noy Anciong’s time was so hard that after the training, the student were had some lashes and their shoulders were blue and black while their nose and ears were red. That is their way of teaching to test the student’s courage, resistant to pains and has still the eagerness to learn despite of bruises. Those students that are only had the courage to trained under them will just be the one to succeed and earned the skill. But in Mr. Velez method of teaching, the beginners should not be hurt as much as possible because the common reason for a person why he studied self-defense is to protect himself from harm and according to Mr. Velez if you hit the student intentionally some of them wouldn’t be returning because of fear of hitting again.

In Mr. Velez teaching the teacher would only intentionally hit the student when he already had learn the basic of the defense lessons and already had finished the advance lessons and this time he could very well had be able to defend himself properly and the Instructor would now find some holes on the student’s defense to penetrate his attack and this time again some trash talking, insulting and shouting are to be employed to distract his concentrations for him to get use of the real encounters in the street so he must be conditioned to always be thinking that his enemy is going to kill him and he should stay focused despite of some psychological tactics employed by the instructor to control what they called adrenal rushing or adrenal dumb to a student.

In the Philippines today, challenges were no longer common as our Balintawak arnis was becoming professionalized and the arnis practitioners of today have great respect to one another. Pride was not anymore any longer had a place in every hearts of a Balintawak practitioner.

Respectfully,

Wilson R. Ceniza

 

[Rocky]

Hello everyone,

The story about Noy Anciong’s incarceration was true and the case was murder although it was only an accidental. He had so many death matches before but he never killed anyone because he successfully defeated them all through his excellent skill in arnis fighting and nobody had avenged him because both parties agreed the fight and he was so careful not to severely injure his opponent.

When the verdict was read to him by the court secretary, he cried out and challenged anyone in the courtroom to show if only to convince the judge that he can really defend himself without killing the opponent if only he had just given a chance to be confronted first. He ended accidentally killed the man when he was ambushed from nowhere on the left in a small path way in the coconut plantation. Anciong only had his peripheral vision of the enemy, as it was already dark at about 6:30 to 7:00 PM when a man had just directly thrust a knife pointing on to his belly without even confronting him first and Anciong instinctively drive the knife on the man’s belly without him thinking after blocking, it was his hands only deflecting and redirecting the daggers tip back to the man’s belly.

The man was a watchman/caretaker employed by his employer a military Sergeant in his coconut plantation to watch over the fruit scattered from all over the bushy area from some theft who constantly raids the plantation. One of the suspected theft was Anciong’s son Meliton but they are not so sure because the thief could not be identified in the dark and was so slippery that they could hardly caught him in the act. Anciong then who passes by on his way home had felt stomach pain due to LBM and he needs to discharged it walking about five meters away from the small pathway in squatting position. That was then happening after he was finished and back to the small pathway proceeding home that he was mistakenly identified as the thief because he was just coming out from the bush.

The court did not believed in his own story as he was a well-known arnis practitioner and he could have just defend himself without killing the man if he really wants to, and besides it was during the time of martial law were the military were the most powerful in the country and his lawyer was unable to defend him in court that includes Atty. Villasin one of his students (although only a labor lawyer but he was assisting in the case of his teacher). There were other versions of the story but I think this one is more credible than that of all the others, my cousin-in-law Noy Willy Fernandez one of his students in the 1960’s told to me the story that was also confirmed by some students of Mr. Velez that includes my teacher Teofilo V. Roma.

-Wilson R. Ceniza

Thank You for this info,......good reading



Rocky

 

[thewhitemikevick]

Thanks a lot for all the wonderful info on this thread! It has really enlightened my view towards the entire Balintawak system of self-defense. You all did a truly fantastic job.