Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Some online articles

I just found three short articles from two instructors in Cebu that are worth taking a few minutes to read. The first two discuss the relationship between stick training and empty hands and how this is misunderstood by most martial artists, including many in the FMA.

The last article is about how Tagalog terms have become intertwined with systems from regions of the Philippines other than Luzon. The authors rightly (in my opinion) point out that this is a form of cultural cleansing not so different than under Spanish occupation, imposed by the cultural elite of Manila, and that slowly there is a return to recognizing the diversity of expression that exists in the Philippines.

This is not unlike the underlying premises in the book "Cebuano Eskrima", which attempts to correct cultural myths not just about the FMA but also how those pertain in certain ways to the broader political culture of the country.

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