Warm Up: Sinawali Double Stick Coordination Drills
– 4-count, 6-count and 8-count
The double stick drills practiced come from Grandmaster (GM) Estalilla’s Kabaroan Eskrima. As I mentioned in class, GM/Minister Estalilla is one of Guro Dan’s influences in the FMA blend that he teaches at his Academy in Los Angeles. Here is a clip of the 6-count (referred to here as Triple Sinawali):
Contradas (Counters) – Largo Mano / Distancia Larga (Long Range)
Inosanto Numbering Syste 1-5 as a base, we practiced our long range counters, sometimes known as “defanging the snake” or as Guro refers to it “meet the force”, or “La Contra”. We used single knife vs. single knife, single stick vs. single stick, and added an environmental component (steps) to simulate a home invasion scenario.
Punyo Sumbrada
We continued our single stick work with a common Inosanto cycling drill known as Punyo Sumbrada. You can see a few seconds of it here, during a demonstration with his wife Simo Paula (at about 0:40):
Lastly we covered basic footwork, Forward/Male Triangle patterns including open advancing (switching leads), open retreating (Retrada/Retirada motions) and closed cycling patterns. Here, Tuhon Felix Cortes of Filipino Combatives demonstrates some of the applications for Triangle Footwork:
LAKAS FILIPINO MARTIAL ARTS 