Useful Notes / Eskrima

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Eskrima or escrima, also known as arnis and kali depending on the place, is an indigenous martial art from the Philippines. It is mainly an armed fighting style, characterized by the usage of weapons in both hands and an emphasis on dynamic, aggressive attacks, although it also has a minor unarmed variation (called suntukan or mano-mano, both terms translating as "fistfight" and being also used in other Southern Asian styles)^note Mano-Mano comes from Spanish mano a mano, which literally translates as "hand-to-hand" but means something more in the line of "duel" or "physical fight". similar to the Silat found in other countries of Southeast Asia. The martial art is most often known as arnis or eskrima within the Philippines itself, while kali is more often used in Western countries, being something of a misnomer and a creation of marketing as it looks more "native" or "exotic" than the other clearly Spanish-influenced terms, despite being a post-World War II coinage.

The origin of eskrima is complicated, as the strategic position of the Philippines means a lot of martial cultures converged over here, including Indian, Chinese, Arab and Malayan, as well as the systems of weapons brought by the Spanish Empire after their conquest of the Philippines. The first Spaniards to arrive in the islands already observed the natives were unusually good weaponmasters, to the point they supposedly claimed that only firearms were consistently able to overpower them. The local fighting arts were often based on bladed weapons, but after Spaniards banned civilians from carrying full-sized swords in peacetime to prevent conflicts, this expanded to the usage of fighting sticks and smaller blades to help keep their customs alive. The presence of Spanish fencing culture, with elements such as their famed Verdadera Destreza and their specialty on simultaneous espada y daga, would only help the art evolve and achieve systematization over time.

The indigenous martial arts that would become eskrima also featured a fair share of exposure against many foreign fighting styles. Sources record the presence of pre-Hispanic Filipino mercenaries in many conflicts around the Pacific, from Malaysia to Japan, and the Spaniards themselves would soon fill up their local armies with native militiamen, as it was their custom. Only in the first century of the Hispanic period, the average Filipino blademaster in the King of Spain's service could be expected to have battle experience against Chinese pirates, Japanese Rōnin, Islamic warriors of various lands, and also fellow islanders — and most often winning, if only with a little help of Iberian pike and shot.

The Spanish Empire was put out of its last century's misery a long time ago, but even with the art's obvious indigenous input, some have argued that eskrima still contains the biggest alive remnants of historical Spanish martial arts we can find today. It's hard to delimit how much exactly were Filipino martial arts influenced by Spain, especially given that their various regional styles would have featured different levels of exposure (nationalism also factors into this, with historians and practitioners often claiming either zero western influence or its complete opposite), but traits like the dual usage of unequal weapons and the emphasis on knife-fighting make it resemble strongly the moveset of the Hispanic swordsmen, soldiers and navajeros of yore. Eskrima also uses predominantly Spanish or pseudo-Spanish terminology for its concepts and elements along with indigenous terms. It comes to the point that, with polearms and blades long vanished from European warfare, both Spanish and Filipino experts joke that, "if you are looking for how Spaniards used to fight, look in the Philippines." UNESCO is currently pondering about declaring eskrima intangible cultural heritage.

The highly traditional, unwritten character of eskrima means it doesn't have a clear history of lineages, although in modern times, grandmasters like Antonio "Tatang" Ilustrísimo, Teodor "Doring" Saavedra, brothers Eulogio and Cacoy Cañete and Balbino Tortal spearheaded the expansion of the art after World War II. It was taught first in countries like Hawaii, Australia and United States, with Bruce Lee and his contemporaries learning it, before gaining more international recognition. In fact, Lee himself learned his signature way of wielding nunchaku from his Filipino-American friend Dan Inosanto, an eskrima virtuoso whose moves you can watch in the surviving scene of Game of Death. The general crowd is unknowingly very familiar already with eskrima moves, as the art managed to quickly sneak its way into the choreographies of western martial arts films due to its weapon brilliance and flashy style; every time some action star wields two sticks or twin weapons onscreen, you can bet safely that there is some kali work behind, likely performed by someone from the Inosanto Academy, even if the art is not explicitly referenced in the film.

The art features a long list of weapons, including bastón (staff or rod, of variable length but generally shorter than a quarterstaff), sibat (spear), daga or baraw (several types of daggers and knives), bolo (machete), kalis (wavy-bladed sword, known as "kris" in English),^note there are straight-blade versions, as the distinctive hilt design is actually what makes a kris a kris, not the blade karambit (the small, curved knife used in pencak silat), tabak-toyok (a weapon similar to the nunchaku), látigo (whip) and much more, as well as improvised weapons.

Eskrima originally lacked a grading system, but some schools adopted colored belts taken from Japanese martial arts like Judo and Karate. Practitioners are sometimes called eskrimadores and arnisadores, although this is not unanimous. Speaking of which, the names of the art have all interesting etymologies: eskrima comes from esgrima (Spanish for "fencing"), while arnis comes from arnés (literally Spanish for "harness", in reference to a long-abandoned meaning of the word that translates as "arms and armor"), and kali is a hyper-corrected variation - the spelling with an S being assumed to be a Spanish rendering when it isn't - of kalis (a pre-Hispanic, Filipino word translatable as "blade" or "sword" and by extension "fencing", cognate to if not derived from Indonesian and Malay keris, hence the dagger or sword known as kris in English which is found in all three countries). So kali should really be called kalis if you want to be pedantic. Very early Spanish colonial sources recorded the term as calis, but it (in the sense of fencing or blade martial arts, not the kris sword) fell out of use in favor of the terms arnis and escrima until its use was revived in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly outside the Philippines and missing the S.

There are eskrima competitions, with two main governing bodies with their own rulesets.

• WEKAF (World Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation): this ruleset sees fighters wearing body armor and working to score ten points with stick strikes. This is the most popular and widely practised, yet a controversial one among the most martial-minded people, as it emphasizes offensive moves yet also penalizes repeating attacks, which carries the perception that its fighters become more skilled at spamming blows than fighting for real.
• ARPI (Arnis Philippines): this version uses padded sticks aside from more extensive body armors, and resembles traditional fencing in that fighters are separated every time a blow is scored according to visual judges. Its target areas are wider than those of WEAKF and also allows disarming the opponent if done quickly, which is an instant win. Some hope this style will be an Olympic sports some day, while others pray so it will never be.

Tropes Associated With Eskrima

• Combat Pragmatist: Very much what all the different schools aim to turn practitioners into.
  • Kinamutay (commonly but incorrectly spelt as kino mutai) is a very rare sub-set of techniques used by some schools, emphasizes "dirty" fighting techniques like pinching, ripping, eye-gouging, and is known especially for it biting techniques. One key principle of the "style" is the concept of uninterrupted biting; where one places oneself in a position that can hold a bite as long as one wants, disabling the opponent from escaping and more importantly preventing opponents from counter attacking using grappling techniques and manipulation of nerve and pressure points. The biting aspect of kinamutay concerns itself with where to bite, how much to bite at a time, and the angle and movement of the bite. Favored targets include sensitive and easily accessible areas such as the face, neck, ears, groin, nipples, and parts of the arms, these targets are also chosen over others because of the difficulty countering a kinamutay practitioner biting them, ensuring an uninterrupted bite can take place to inflict pain and can be used to cut arteries which can cause severe bleeding.
• Dual Wielding: Many schools teach users how to fight with a variety of two-weapon combinations, including twin sticks, stick and dagger, whip and dagger, and twin knives. In all combinations, however, both weapons are used to attack. Another variant is the use of a "live hand", wherein a fighter applies dual-wielding techniques to the combination of a weapon and a bare hand.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Inverted. Unarmed techniques are the last thing taught to students in most styles.
• Improvised Weapon: While the style has a wide selection of weaponry associated with the style, quite a few schools teach how to basically turn anything practitioners can get their hands on it this trope.
• Martial Arts Staff: One of the most commonly associated weapons with the style as a whole is the use of short sticks/rods, which they call bastón or yantok, although it also occasionally employs full length staves also called bastones.^note Bastón only means "cane" or "staff" in Spanish, without making reference to its length. In order to differentiate it, the full-length staff is sometimes called largo mano and bangkaw, although those are actually words for a kind of long range and "spear" respectively. Non-practitioners usually just call them "arnis/escrima/kali sticks".
• Meaningful Name: Aside from family named systems, most schools have their names taken from an element that refers to their foundation and/or philosophy.
  • Pekiti-Tirsia roughly translates as "to cut into small pieces, up close", indicating the style's preference for close combat.
  • Doce Pares takes its name from the Spanish translation of the Twelve Peers or Paladins of Emperor Charlemagne, as the school had twelve founding masters.
  • Balintawak is named after the small street in Cebu where its first club was founded.
  • Garimot means "absorber", which was the fighting nickname of Abon Baet's father Felipe that he wanted to honor and also alludes to the many minor "styles" that his ancestors picked up that make up the system as it currently is.

In Media

• The Book of Eli: Much of the complex fight scenes saw Eskrima as the main basis, while Denzel Washington's character Eli uses a stylized Bolo blade as his main self-defense weapon.
• The Bourne Series: Eskrima is the primary foundation for Jason Bourne's combat style in the series, with hints of Boxing and Jeet Kune Do throughout; Matt Damon did indeed train for three months to perform much of the fight scenes himself, while the first film's director Doug Liman stated that the principles of minimal involvement influenced the character of Bourne.
• Dune (2021): Eskrima is the main fighting style in the film because, according to director Denis Villeneuve, the usage of personal force fields necessitated a return to knife fighting; only slow moving objects may penetrate said shielding.
  • Dune: Part Two sees the climactic battle between Paul and Feyd-Rautha utilize Eskrima techniques, with Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler having trained separately with a Kali instructor in preparation.
• John Wick: During production of the first film, Keanu Reeves trained in Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Kali to develop his primary hand-to-hand fighting style. Meanwhile, the second film sees these Arnis skills put to use during his fight against Cassian.
• Kick-Ass (2010): Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) uses Arnis sticks as his main weapons when fighting criminals while Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) uses Balisong Knives, a signature weapon of Eskrima, at one point.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Eskrima is used as one of the fighting styles utilized by Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Bucky Barnes.
• The Old Guard: A behind-the-scenes video sees Charlize Theron and her co-stars train in Kali, Judo, Taekwondo, and Silat in preparation for their fight scenes.

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