8 Filipino Martial Arts Principles That ANYONE Can Utilize

My life's passion is learning, teaching, and researching the Filipino martial arts. For these last few years, my biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to apply my Filipino martial arts training to not only physical combat, but to everyday life. In that time, I've come across tactics and methods in the Filipino martial arts that, while historically designed for the rigors of life-and-death combat, also apply to everyday life as well.

1) Awareness, above all, is the greatest weapon you can possess: Most people come to me to learn how to protect themselves using hand-held weaponry. I always say that while the FMAs teach many different forms of weaponry and skill sets, I still feel that awareness is the most valuable tool of all. It's the one weapon that can get you out of most situations because it often prevents you from getting into trouble in the first place. Detecting trouble before it happens beats duking it out any day of the week. It's the one weapon that no one can confiscate from you. You can take it with you everywhere...onto a plane, train, school campus, government building, etc. Awareness throughout one's life, as it does in combat, it allows you to detect problems before they occur. A verbal fight with your significant other, for example, could have been prevented if you aware of their behavior or emotional cues that may have hinted that they are upset or had a bad day. That credit card bill you are late paying for could have been prevented if you kept up to date with your bills. All in all, awareness is key for simply being on top of problems before they have the chance to manifest.

2) Attack First: In the FMAs, the primary means of dealing with an attack is to simply attack the enemy before he can attack you. If the enemy tries to deliver a strike to your head with a machete, step off line and sever his hand off. If the enemy reaches to draw their blade, draw yours first and take them out before they even have a chance of drawing their weapon. Likewise, in life, when you see a problem arise, DEAL WITH IT RIGHT AWAY. Don't avoid it. Don't wait for the problem to disappear. Face the problem and take it out immediately.

3) Remain fluid in combat: Filipino martial arts are all about adapting to the situation and never fighting force against force. FMAs are known for their "flow drills", in which two people exchange pre-arranged strikes back and forth as a means of training repetitions of techniques over and over again in a fluid format. Brute Strength is not a necessary attribute in Kali training. On the contrary, the Filipino arts teach students how to flow from one technique to the next without meeting force on force as much as possible. In life, I feel it's important to be fluid as well. When unideal circumstances are placed before us, we need to move with the nature of the situation as a means to gain control over it. We need to constantly adapt to whatever we may face.

4) Keep Moving: Filipino martial arts focus a lot on footwork to properly control distance between you and your adversary as well as to properly position yourself in an advantageous position to land a clean strike. Your weapon should be in constant motion as a means to set up attacks and even function as a shield against strikes. In life, we can never remain stagnant. It's important keep moving, to keep pressing on towards bigger and better things. Never become comfortable...always seek to move towards success and goals.

5) You are always armed: The FMAs are a weapons-based system of combat. Most people in America assume that if the Filipino Kali fighter is without a stick or blade, then they are helpless. Nothing could be further from the truth. As an FMA practitioner, one must be able to adapt and adopt anything around them as a weapon: a pen can be used for thrusting, a flashlight can be an improvised Batuta (short baton), baseball bats make excellent clubs, and a cup of hot coffee can serve as painful and burning projectile. In life, one is never without resources. Even when it feels like the world is falling down on you, you always have something or someone positive to turn to. When you have a deadline to meet and you are stressing out, or if you are scrambling to pay your bills, you can always find a way to adapt and utilize what is at your disposal to rise above the challenge.

6) Be well-rounded in as many weapons as you can: A lot of FMA systems specialize in one particular form of weaponry, but I have come across others that exclusively dedicate themselves to just one weapon. There is nothing wrong with this, but I feel that if one is to truly be able to adapt to any situation, then they need to have skills with any weapon they can find whether it be a club, knife, machete, spear, bow and arrow, empty hands, and firearms. Likewise, in life, it pays to have a diverse skill set. To focus on just one thing solely and completely may limit your growth in your chosen calling or profession. It's important to learn and develop other skills not as a means of taking away attention from what you set out to accomplish, but to enrich your understanding of whatever it is you seek to focus on as your passion.

7) Break down your enemy when facing them in combat: One of the things I love about Filipino martial arts (especially from my training in Atienza Kali) is that because weapons are involved, one does not necessarily concern themselves with mere size and strength of their adversary. Rather, the adversary is broken down into targets and the attacks are broken down into angles of attack as well as the responses of your enemy. By breaking down the enemy into targets, responses, and angles, one can better defeat them because one is behaving logically. Likewise, I have been realizing recently that when it comes to solving life's problems, it's important to break it down as much as possible. Look at it from every possible angle and assess every point of note. By doing this, life's problems won't seem so big.

8) Walk with humility, but accept any challenge: The Filipino masters of old were known for fighting in challenge matches, in which one individual would openly challenge another individual to test their skills in an actual fight. While many today would discourage such challenge matches today, one must look at what our predecessors did in a different light. Few of the masters would walk around boasting about their skills, but if challenged, they would never turn the fight down. In life, when we are faced with a challenge, it's important to accept it. It's difficult for sure, but challenges are simply another opportunity to learn how to grow. When challenges are placed before us, we need to dig down deep and push through it...to deal with the pain...to deal with the fear and emotion. That is the only way we can truly grow as individuals.

Many people who have read the above eight probably assume that this entry is an exercise with me trying to flex my wisdom to the world. That's hardly the case here. Yes, I have written this for you, Dear Reader, to possibly explore a bit into my world and how my passion for Filipino warrior arts has shaped and defined my life. But, I have written this entry mainly for one person...a person who needs these eight principles...a person who needs to remind themselves of these eight principles time and time again.



That person is me.