Sticks and phones will break your bones

Whether you’re looking for thrills or a serious method of self-defense, it’s worth considering Filipino martial arts called arnis.

By CARL HOFFMAN
arnis martial arts_521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
arnis martial arts_521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Jon Escudero is one of those people whose body and personality don’t seem to go together. Heavily muscled, with a shaven head and deep-set eyes often hidden by sleek, dark sunglasses, the 35-year-old native of the Philippines looks somewhat like a villain in a Jackie Chan movie.
He is also, however, university educated, wellread, intellectual and highly articulate, with a soft placid voice and a face that smiles easily.
As contradictory as these two impressions may seem, they come together effectively every evening when this gentle man goes to work.
Escudero is a teacher of arnis, a particularly deadly form of martial arts, in which he has attained the rank of Master. For the past two years, he and his Israeli life-partner Neta Shermister, 31, have been teaching arnis to students ranging from thrill-seeking teenagers to very serious security professionals.
What is arnis? Known also as eskrima and kali, arnis is a class of native Filipino martial arts that emphasize weapon-based fighting with sticks, knives and a wide array of improvised weapons. From Day One, training begins with weapons – usually rattan sticks – then advances to knives and other hand-held weapons, and finally to empty hand fighting.
Body parts are seen as weapons, and weapons are deemed to be extensions of the body. “Whatever I do with a stick, I do with my hands. There’s a translation that goes on in the mind,” Escudero says. “Training in arnis puts your mind in a weapon mode, where you think as though you have a weapon in your hand.
“We learn to recognize everything as a weapon – the hand, the elbow, the shoulder, the head. It also helps us to become aware of our immediate environment, to see what else can be used as a weapon: keys, an umbrella, even a cell phone. We learn to use these things with the same movements that we would do with a stick.”
Shermister adds, “When I go walking around at night, I’ve got keys in my hand, plus my phone and a bag. Once you understand how to use a hand-held weapon, like a stick, to defend yourself, almost anything can be used as a weapon.”
Indigenous to the Philippines, arnis can be traced back to the modes of fighting used in intertribal warfare, endemic in the islands before the arrival of the Spanish colonizers in the 16th century.
“It developed from one tribe attacking another for scarce resources. It made no sense to try to defend yourself empty-handed. You picked up your knife, your bolo [machete] or your spear, and went to fight,” Escudero explains.
EARLY EYEWITNESS accounts of arnis were provided by Spanish conquistadors, who found themselves being driven back to their ships by native tribesmen wielding sticks and knives. Some practitioners of arnis today claim that when Ferdinand Magellan was killed on the island of Cebu in 1521, it was in a sword fight with the local chief.
It was sticks, not swords, that over time became the primary weapon of arnis. Escudero explains: “The whole stick fighting phenomenon comes from the need to hide the martial art in plain sight during the period of Spain’s occupation of the Philippines. When we talk about Spain colonizing the Philippines, we imagine the presence of large numbers of Spanish people. But there weren’t really that many there. There was a small Spanish population surrounded by a much, much larger indigenous population that the Spanish did not want to see armed. They didn’t want the colonized ‘indios’ walking around with their big sharp bolo knives. Blades were banned, so stick fighting developed.”
Interestingly enough, virtually no one was teaching formalized arnis prior to the 1970s.
“It was all backyard, or you had to go far up into the mountains and pay your teacher with a chicken,” Escudero says.
As part of the growing nationalism that swept the Philippines in the 1970s and ’80s, young Filipinos, many studying in universities, began to rediscover indigenous Filipino culture and traditions. Groups like Asin began to champion native folk music, instruments, traditions and themes. Young Filipino artists began to draw on long-forgotten traditions to create a distinctly Filipino idiom.
Even Filipino food, long disregarded as peasant fare, began to be featured as haute cuisine in local high-end restaurants. In such an environment, it wasn’t long before arnis came to be recognized and valued as a part of the Philippines’ rich cultural heritage.
How did Escudero find his way to Filipino martial arts?
“It’s my dad’s fault. My dad was a government inspector. He would take me along on his field inspections, and somewhere along the way, he would say, ‘Let’s go to a movie.’ We would go to Manila’s old downtown section where all the old movie theaters had double programs. Most of the movies were martial arts films starring Jackie Chan – ‘Ninja this’ and ‘Shaolin Temple that’ – and my dad and I would spend the late afternoon together watching them. That’s how my dad and I bonded.”
Recognized as gifted and hyperactive, Escudero started school at age three. His family expected him to follow a career in either law or medicine, and planned his education accordingly.
“Every parent dreams of having their son become a doctor or lawyer, so everything in my education, from elementary school through high school, was geared to that. But when I got to college, it was a whole different story.”
Upon arrival at the University of the Philippines, Escudero found himself bedazzled by the wide array of subjects offered and the different options for study. “So many choices,” he recalls. He eventually chose industrial design and plunged headlong into an extracurricular activity regimen of martial arts.
After studying Chinese martial arts like kung-fu and even starting a kung-fu student club at the university, Escudero discovered arnis.
“What got me to focus on Filipino martial arts was seeing a really good team demonstrate at the university,” he recalls. “They were magnificent, and I was wowed.”
He began to watch the group as they trained, and slowly found himself being drawn away from kungfu and toward arnis. After three months of watching the group, he joined them and devoted himself to studying the art.
Although there are many different styles, Escudero says they can be classed according to three basic genres.
“There’s classical arnis, and then there’s the more modern approach; and then there’s the more tactical or street-fighting approach.”
Within those genres there are many specific styles, each developed by a different grand master.
“The style that I practice and teach is called ‘lightening scientific arnis,’” says Escudero, who holds a Master’s rank, awarded by the style’s Grand Master, after 10 years of study. Five years of teaching after that, both in the Philippines and here in Israel, brings him to a total of 15 years in arnis.
Since 2008, he and Shermister have been conducting formal instruction in arnis in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petah Tikva.
Slender, toned and athletic, Shermister explains how an Israeli woman with a business degree in marketing and work experience as a brand manager for a cosmetics company became attracted to a little- known martial art from a country she knew nothing about.
“When I was 25, I was looking for a martial art. I wanted to learn to fight with swords. A lot of people find that strange. I don’t know why. It’s perfect-ly normal to me,” she says, with laughter. “Arnis was the only martial art that was practiced with weapons.”
How was she aware of martial arts, here in Israel?
“I asked in the Israeli Martial Arts Forum where I could fight with weapons. I was told about arnis, and that when you study arnis you start with weapons on Day One. I found a group in Israel, taught by two Israelis, and studied with them for two years.”
A mammoth arnis festival in the Philippines in 2006 brought eight members of the group, including Shermister, to the island nation. “I quit my job and went to the Philippines,” she says.
As with so many visitors who preceded her to the land known as the “Pearl of the Orient,” Shermister soon discovered that once in the Philippines, it’s often hard to leave.
“I got there and decided that I needed to take a break, clear my mind and calm down from all the stress of my previous job. I thought, ‘Why not just stay over here for a while and study arnis?’ I thought I would find myself a teacher and stay for maybe a month.
“I looked around the festival for a teacher – there were a lot of teachers there – and I saw Jon demonstrating, and was amazed. So I approached him and, being a very direct Israeli, I asked him to teach me. Most Filipinos would love that opportunity. It’s very prestigious for them to have foreign students.
“But Jon told me, ‘I don’t know if I’ll have the time.’ I was pretty shocked, but I just made up my mind. I’m a determined Israeli, and I won’t take no for an answer. I sort of tricked him by saying that I’d just join the classes he was already teaching and not impose on his time. So I wrote down his teaching schedule and followed him around wherever he taught.”
After four intensive months of training, Shermister returned to Israel. We perhaps needn’t ask which she began to miss more, her “lightningstyle arnis” classes or her “lightning-style arnis” teacher.
“After a while, Jon came here; I went back to the Philippines, and we decided that we wanted to stay together. So we lived a year in the Philippines, and then came to Israel together in 2008.”
The couple now operate Lightning Scientific Arnis Israel, one of only two schools for arnis in all of Israel, and the only one taught in English. They presently teach classes in both classical arnis, for those who want to study and appreciate the art, and tactical arnis, for those interested primarily in self-defense.
THE FORMER focuses almost exclusively on fighting with sticks; the latter involves a wider range of weapons, including knives.
What kind of people walk through the door?
“Many kinds. A huge spectrum – everything from live action fantasy role-playing types to military and security people,” Escudero says. “Some are fascinated by the street fighting aspects, others want to learn self-defense. It’s a huge range.
“We get teenagers who see arnis as a sport, and older people who see it as something that might one day save their lives. It’s an interesting mix of people.”
Shermister adds, “We have people ranging in age from eight to 60. We have slim people, fat people, short people, tall people. Anyone can do arnis. I used to be really bad in sports. Really. So I’m an example of being able to do this.”
The night Metro visits, the class is comprised of a variety of people, with diverse interests and motives for studying arnis.
“It’s fun. A lot of fun,” declares somewhat overweight, not particularly athletic-looking Lior Moskovitch, 26, from Petah Tikva. “I come from a background of ‘LARP’ – live action role playing. I use a lot of swords and stuff like that. So arnis comes naturally to me.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s a martial art that does not include a lot of moving with your legs. So it’s good. It’s the only sport I do weekly.”
Alexandra Atlivanik, a 26-year-old accountant from Rishon Lezion, says, “I came to learn self-defense. I saw the fighting with the sticks, and I liked it. So I’m here.”
Atlivanik practices her stick thrusts near two men, one in his 20s and the other around 60. They tell Metro politely but firmly that they belong to Israeli security services, and cannot be interviewed.
Moving right along, then, we meet Dan Barmatz, 24, from Ramat Hasharon, who has just begun studies in physics and economics at Tel Aviv University.
“I’d been doing martial arts a long time before I started arnis. I found about this on the Martial Arts Forum. I came by to check on the class and fell in love with it,” he says.
“What I like about arnis is the way it’s delivered to you. The group is like your family, and the teacher is like your older brother. The relationships are very close, and you feel like you’re a part of something.”
Escudero agrees. “All in all, we try to keep it fun. That’s the difference between Filipino martial arts and other martial arts – the fun aspect, and the family aspect too. There’s not the same kind of distance you see in Japanese martial arts, where you have to bow to the teacher, the assistant teacher, the assistant to the assistant teacher and go through all kinds of ritual movements before you begin. We salute each other at the start of class, and then once again when we close. We keep it light, like a big family.”
They also all train together, teacher and students.
“I don’t have my students do anything that I’m not also doing right along with them,” Escudero says.
“On the night of our visit, this included a 10- minute opening warm-up drill that consisted of circular running, with short bursts of high-intensity legwork, followed by several more minutes of very rigorous floor drills that left everyone panting and sweating – students and teacher alike.
Noting another difference between arnis and other forms of martial arts, Barmatz says: “In other countries, like Japan and Korea, martial arts were often developed in periods of history where people didn’t really need to use them. They’re not as practical as martial arts that are developed and used because people really need them, like on the streets of Manila and other cities around the world. Arnis is alive.”
Arnis may be alive, but it is not well known. Here in Israel, arnis competes not only with the much better known Chinese, Japanese and Korean martial arts – kung fu, karate, judo, aikido and tae kwon do – but also with krav maga, the local Israeli martial art.
“I am really swimming upstream,” Escudero acknowledges. “But I try to think ahead three, maybe five years. I see Filipino martial arts making real headway here.
“In the US, we’re already seeing Filipino martial arts in military and police training, and in movies like The Bourne Identity, 300, and The Book of Eli.
“I believe that Filipino martial art will stand alone, on its own merits. I expect that arnis will be a lot better known here in five years, and even become more mainstream, like Brazilian capoeira has in the last few years.”
For Shermister, enhancing the reputation of arnis in Israel has become nothing less than a calling, and about more than just arnis.
“Israelis are not yet aware that there are Filipino martial arts. That’s why we really have a big task ahead of us,” she says.
Says the former business and marketing student, “We need to educate the market. We want to explain the culture as well, not just the martial art. We would like to promote Filipino culture in Israel. We want to change the usual perception of the Filipino here, as part of the foreign worker class, which is usually looked down on.
“A lot of Israelis aren’t aware of how rich the Philippines is in culture and history. A lot also don’t realize that the Philippines provided a haven for Jews during the Holocaust, or that it was the only Asian country to vote for the creation of Israel in the UN.
“They hear ‘Philippines’ and all they think of is ‘caregiver.’ I’m happy that our students’ attitudes towards Filipinos have really changed since they started studying with us, and I’m really proud of that.”
Escudero adds, “We also invite our students to come along with us when we go once a year to the Philippines. They get to know the people, the places, the food, and they really love it there.”
One such student is Barmatz, who recalls, “My initial intention was to meet Jon and Neta and some other guy from the group in the Philippines, and stay one or two months. I ended up staying six months, and I just got back from my second visit of one month.”
As might be expected, Escudero has had to adapt his style of teaching somewhat to the local Israeli milieu.
“A lot of people here are very open and very direct. That’s not Filipino. In the Philippines, everyone has their own place, their own set role. Here, there’s no distance.
“Teaching arnis in the Philippines was easy. Here, I’ll get a student who will tell me that a particular movement won’t work. I have to prove that it works. The student has to be convinced empirically – actually feel the pain of a counterattack movement – before he will believe me and listen to me. Coming from the Philippines, this is very strange to me,” Escudero says, with a look of bewilderment.
Shermister acknowledges that for this kind of thing, she is Escudero’s teacher.
“A lot of times, when someone comes up with a challenging remark, I just tell Jon, ‘Hurt him. That’s how he’ll figure it out.’ Then the guy feels the pain, and tells us, ‘That’s good! It works!’
“Everyone thinks that they’re in charge. A lot of people talk back to Jon in a way that he’s not used to. In the Philippines, no one would ever talk back to a teacher. I studied in the Philippines for a year, and I was surprised by how everyone treated their teacher.” Escudero takes it in stride, however.
“I’ve had to become a little more aggressive here. But at the end of the day, all a teacher really needs to do to succeed here is be consistent. If you know what you’re doing, your students will stick by you.” The couple plan to make their arnis school bigger and more diverse, offering in addition to classical and tactical arnis, arnis classes for children. These are slated to begin this month.
As for their future personal plans, Shermister says, “Eventually, we’ll get married.”
For further information, including a complete schedule of classes in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petah Tikva, visit the Lightning Scientific Arnis Israel website at www.lsai.co.il, or phone 052-224-9313.