Espada y Daga by GM Ron Saturno

Espada y daga. There is no way for me to put together the totality of my thoughts 
on this subject. Espada y Daga is a subject that vexes me and keeps me up at night. This is hard on my psyche because I really and truly believe in simplification. If I can't explain something in a few words or less: How in the hell will I be able to perform Espada y Daga under stress with another man who wants to make me even shorter, by lopping my head off. I have already tried to sue the City of Stockton for building its streets too close to my ass. They laugh at me. They talk to me about shoes with heel extensions and finding shorter women to entertain my lonely nights. Most Datu Puti ni anang mo are tall and like to make fun of us short guys. I guess as long as us shorter guys can get our urine in the toilet, we are tall enough, according to the City of Stockton. Espada y Daga is like a fine wine, you must allow your Espada y Daga to develop over time. After many years of practice, it becomes rich and enjoyable, just like a finer wine. But, I am a peasant. I've never cared about the absolute finer tasting liquors. Give me a cheap beer and an even cheaper looking women at my side. If I am playing for keeps I'll truly be loving and faithful to my right type of woman, but just like my Espada y Daga: Please don't make me wait too long to begin enjoying myself. I'll soon try to find other ways to fullfill my needs. So I have looked high and low for the secrets of Espada y Daga. I have found many, but they were secrets revealed after a lot of hard work and pain. Espada y Daga is a part of my art that cannot be revealed to you outside of many sleepless nights, hard work and dedication: Just like everything else truly special. What a good teacher can do is cut a few miles off of your search and be able to show you where you will eventually arrive. There is an eventual destination: You hope to arrive at FMA Mastery. One of the things that I've listened to other Master's say, especially from the Philippines is that Espada y Daga "is" a true sign of Escrima achievement. A good Espada y Daga player can display true beauty, martial achievement, mastery and fighting ability when he shows his Espada y Daga skills. Many may bristle at my always mentioning my Master's skills, but this is out of respect and admiration. Angel Cabales truly displayed wonderful Espada y Daga skills: Skills that I can only hope to duplicate in my lifetime. Having spoken so highly of my Master: Did he impart his unique abilities to his student's? Yes and No. Some may believe that they may have surpassed Angel Cabales, but I have yet to see this with my own eyes. Angel Cabales had one thing that few of any of his student's have acquired: He had superb timing. Timing allows you to be behind your opponent and still beat them. Timing allows you to be slower than your opponent and still be faster. Timing to me has become "the" single most important focus of my martial training and I especially focus upon timing, when focusing upon Espada y Daga. Espada y Daga should be practiced to improve your timing. There it is! This is the secret that Espada y Daga reveals. You can be fast as hell and really accurate, but still be an average Espada y Daga player. It is not about hitting! It is about superlative movement under pressure. No matter what! No matter how they come at you! No matter how hard that they can hit! No matter how fearsome they swing their stick and the things that they say! Espada y Daga is the heart and soul of Filipino martial arts. It is the deep and fearsome fighting spirit of the Filipino people. It is Fuck You with weapons in your hands. The nature of Espada y Daga is to develop fighting spirit. It is about fighting any man, any place and at any time, "No matter what". Give me what you've got, as hard and as fast as you can and I'll defend myself and come for you. If you do not practice Espada y Daga in any other way you are wasting your time. Every Espada y Daga session of training will be different. No blow, stab, twist or strike form an opponent will ever be exactly the same. You must treat every training session as unique and different from the time before. Angel Cabales truly believed that Escrima had a spirit. The spirit would come to you when you were in need. Your heart had to be fearless to be worthy of the Spirit. I can only hope that who ever reads this understands my deep love of Espada y Daga and the wonderful benefits that may come to you with dilligent and faithful practice. I truly believe in Espada y Daga and hope that those who may begin to engage in the practice of Espada y Daga grow to love this beautiful aspect of Filipino Martial Arts as much as I do.

Espada y daga. The capstone of Escrima mastery by Ron Saturno

Espada y daga. The capstone of Escrima mastery. Blade and dagger to the less informed. In Serrada Escrima we defend against the blade and dagger with just our sword. If you have never faced an Escrimador with good espada y daga skills, you have no idea what you've missed. You have not been under the pressure of having an almost simultaneous two sided attack. You have not had a pesky dagger cutting your arms and hands while you are dealing with the sword. A hand check is now lethal when they have a dagger in their hand. Blades seem to come at you from out of no where and at the wierdest times and angles. Sometimes you only feel the blade and never know how you got hit. Espada y daga makes you feel like a girl on her first date with a sixteen year old boy. Your are constantly getting touched, because they want you to lay down right away. I am always tickled at the comments that I get by other Escrimador's outside of my system regarding the Espada y daga footwork of Serrada Escrima. They watch our feet and marvel at the switch stepping. They want to know why we do what we do, when we do Espada y Daga. Historically Serrada is an Espada y Daga art. Our system is based upon Espada y Daga. Angel Cabales taught our system as a dueling system. Our system was designed to fight other good Escrimador's. Many Filipino system's were originally 3 or 5 strike systems and that is all that they needed. Our system is a 12 angle of attack system. Angel Cabales prepared us for any attack under the harshest conditions. Espada y daga was the principle way that he prepared us for battle. Serrada Escrima is a complex system and it takes many years to really understand and especially Espada y Daga. It should be taught one on one to a student. My system cannot be taught properly in a group setting. Many people misunderstand my complaints about needing student's. I could give a shit about teaching numbers of student's. I want 2-4 devoted students at all times to really teach the old ways to. Most students cannot survive my teaching methods. I am not harsh or cruel. I simply demand excellence and it is hard to find this type of student. I don't want to hear too many excuses. I only want to help make you the best that you can be. I'll do my damndest to help make you one bad mother fucker. Many people talk the talk, but just can't walk the walk. Pussies need not apply. The whole basic concept of "basic" Serrada Espada y daga is to put you in the lion's den. You square up with your training partner. He has a blade and dagger and you just have a blade. He comes at you from both sides and you must defend against his blows. It requires that you constantly switch your foot work, without changing the distance between you and your deliverer. Keeping the proper distance insures that neither training partner gets hit. It also makes the reciever feel extreme pressure, because he has to remain in front and center of his deliverer. It is a bad place to be. Remaining inside is dangerous when facing a double bladed attack. This is basic Espada y Daga. In real life you want to go outside as soon as possible, but we train our student's to be able to survive front and center long enough to get outside. Espada y Daga can grow from there. Both men holding blade and dagger? A knife against a blade and dagger? Hands alone against blade and dagger? I've done all of it. I must tell you that going against a good blade and dagger man is lunacy with just your hands. I have had really good goose sized eggs put on my skull for trying it. But I am a nut. But, I believe that this type of training can really increase someone's abilities as Escrimador's. Would I try it in real life? In a word "yes", if I had to. I might at least be able to poke your eye out and make you walk around the rest of your life a one eyed cock-sucker. I just wanted to explain the foot work of basic Serrada Espada y Daga. I watch the video of Serrada on Youtube and wondered if most people understood what we were doing. We do not ever see advanced Serrada Escrima Espada y Daga on Youtube. I really don't know why? But, what the hell. I don't put any up myself. Maybe some things should stay in house.

Simplicity Of The Figure 8 By Ron Saturno

The simple figure eight. Escrima's bread and butter attack movement. Thrown with or without a firm grasp upon the stick or blade: The figure eight is and will remain frighteningly effective. Few movements in Escrima offer quite as hard an exasperating riddle to solve. Figure eights come at you in almost one unbroken movement. The first portion of the figure eight can deflect your weapon off line and the next almost seamless strike can be the finishing blow. The figure eight is a one-two and almost evil combination that is an unquestionably very hard riddle to solve in the heat of battle. When the figure eight is thrown at you with weapons that have any reasonable weight: The figure eight conundrum becomes an even harder riddle to solve. Imagine a given distance between yourself and an opponent. Imagine that you are one beat from one another. It will take at least one full beat for you to clear the distance between you and your opponent to deliver a meaningful strike. Your body cannot clear the distance between the both of you faster than your opponent can begin his first revolution. I repeat: You cannot easily clear the distance between you faster than he can deliver his first revolution. All your opponent has to do is wait, twirl his wrists and watch you stress. Your bodies given mass is harder to move around than the lighter mass of his arm. If he can deflect your weapon, hit you, or avoid your first strike: He can possibly finish you with his next revolution, especially if he can get off the line of your attack. One-two and you may be through. Even if the man starts his attack behind your attack and he than comes in behind your first strike with his second blow (especially) off line: He can still beat you to the first hit even tho he started behind you, by connecting with his second hit. Who is faster between two men? The one who hits first! The figure eight is a bread and butter movement that has worked in jungles, in alleys and bars and may have dropped more opponent's than any other Escrima combination because of its utter simplicity and ruthless effectiveness. I have been tagged in my back yard more times than I care to remember by the bread and butter figure eight. No complicated movements and setups have hit me more than the simple figure eight. Let your attention or timing wander just a little bit and the sound you are soon hearing is a stick bouncing off of your body. Angel Cabales loved to attempt a figure eight attack with a beginning back hand and then immediately coming back up with a return blow and repeating the process. He said a good Escrimador should than go to a tighter figure eight as a response to the repeated down and up blows. It works. If you can break your opponent's timing or strike a hand, you should immediately come in with a finishing blow. Unbelievably simple, but effective. I wanted to give my teacher's response to the figure eight attack. I have developed other answers and hope to put up video to explain my reasoning. Seeing is believing. We are not going to the mountains, but are going fishing tomorrow. Maybe, we can shoot some video between fish. Everyone please have a great weekend. By the way my graduate Master has just promoted his first Master in the U.K. Escrima has a newly minted Master. I want to Thank Master Lee Gagnon for his hard work, it is deeply appreciated. Here here!

12 hours ago · Stockton, CA