Thursday, August 11, 2011

Fulcrum Striking

There are a handful of power acceleration methods developed by Sonny that form part of the impact weapon skill set of Visayan Corto Kadena Eskrima.
For a style where mass, in the form of the size of the practitioner (Sonny weighed probably about 110lbs) or the weight of the weapon, is limited, timing and relative (between weapon and target) acceleration are king ... along with deception and evasion of course.
Yesterday I was playing with R in the back yard and we were exchanging what we had been working on. We talked about the parts of the style that personally resonate with us as individuals, and R pointed to the Bogsai. The Bogsai is a hugely versatile weapon and the 'fulcrum striking' power acceleration skills that are part of it's usage are certainly R's forte.
Fulcrums are achieved by pulling, pushing and twisting the hands and body relative to each other along the weapon, and with the correct timing can produce short range, high impact power at the tip with a very fast recycle to the next strike.
We worked on some mirroring + weapon manipulation exercises, worked some quite unusual combinations and angles, looked at still points, high, middle and low strikes, and explored climb ups and disengagements across the center line.
Very cool.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Curiously, how long is a Bogsai?

Maija said...

A Bogsai is basically a cane, though part of the way it is used goes back to how boat paddles are held and used. I guess there was a bunch of fighting in boats that used to go on and some of that methodology has gone into what we do now.
Pure cane style a.k.a. Old Man style or Panungkod is a largo or long style with more often than not just one hand used on the weapon.
Bogsai has this element but then a great deal of 2 handed stuff at Medio and Corto ranges too.
So Bogsai is basically a cane, fitted to the size of the user - overall length is measured roughly from hip to ground. It is not one set size for all, as the 2 handed manipulations have to work without the ends getting caught up. The hand positioning (how much sticks out past the hands) and geometry relative to the user's hips and shoulders is very important.