Filipino/Moro Martial Arts question...

[ThePepperSkull]

I am very interested in looking into how Moro Silat differs from modern eskrima/arnis.

As a practitioner of Filipino Eskrima and of Indonesian Silat, I can definitely see the difference between those fighting systems. The Eskrima style I learned was from my instructor's family style, updated by him after he studied Lameco Escrima under the late Edgar Sulite. Escrima/arnis/kali, at least under the lameco school of thought, covers a series of ranges hence the name (which is short for 'Largo, Medio, Corto' or 'long, medium, short' range). Generally the stances in modern FMA are practiced standing up on both legs, shoulder-width apart. There is a focus on footwork (like many, if not most sword or weapons based fighting systems) and there seems to be no shortage of stabbing motions taught for the use of bladed weapons. Trapping/sticking/checking hands also seems to be a common thing being practiced among us arnisadors as well. Our strikes tend to be quick and we focus on optimizing the efficacy of our strikes: in power, recorvery time, and where we aim for to be more effective. A strike like the Abaniko, or 'fan strike' as many call it, seems to be one that comes to mind to characterize what I have described.

As opposed to that, the indonesian-based Silat I've practiced (Indonesian Mande Muda and some bruneian silat suffian bela diri) has a focus on what it deems effective but the focus differs. There is a focus on range, but also a focus on stances. Silat practitioners train to fight standing up, kneeling with one knee down, on both their knees, and in many instances sitting down as well. I was taught that this was because many areas, depending on where the style of Silat is practiced and was fought, there was rougher terrain. To fight standing up in a muddy area or area where there was loose soil would meant that sometimes you would need to fight if you slipped and fell down, because your opponent would not hesitate to strike while you were down (nor should he hesitate). To prepare oneself to fight in a compromised position, then, could be seen as a necessity depending on the area. I've also noticed that as opposed to the more quick, rapid recovery strikes of escrima, Silat prefers an array of wide sweeping motions in their weapons strikes intended for deep penetrative cuts. Longer blades have none or close to no use of stabbing motions in contrast to escrima, although shorter blade training in silat does focus a lot on stabbing.

Does anyone on here practice Moro Silat? How do the weapons application of your arts differ from what I have described that is common among Indonesian Silat and Filipino Arnis/Escrima?


(As a side note, I know many people have some hangups about how authentic the term 'kali' is, the general consensus being 'not at all', but many arts under the 'kali' banner are just as effective as any art labelled under the name of escrima or arnis that I have seen. Is Pekiti Tirsia any less effective since it changed its name from Pekiti Tirsia Arnis to Pekiti Tirsia kali? I think not and in that respect I have no prejudices about the name. If it's effective it's worth learning in my opinion. Although from a historical standpoint I understand your concerns about its now widespread usage.)

[Rick]

Just a question here; have any of you seen the staged combat sequences from Crossing Sulu Seas , Cecil Quirino's vid ?

Any comments if you have ?

[David]

Originally Posted by ThePepperSkull

Does anyone on here practice Moro Silat? How do the weapons application of your arts differ from what I have described that is common among Indonesian Silat and Filipino Arnis/Escrima?

I am unaware of anything called "Moro Silat". AFAIK "silat" is not a term associated with the Moro arts. I'm i wrong about this?

[KuKulzA28]

Originally Posted by David

I am unaware of anything called "Moro Silat". AFAIK "silat" is not a term associated with the Moro arts. I'm i wrong about this?

Their neighbors and cousins in Brunei, Sabah, and Kalimantan call their fighting arts Silat I think. Their long-term enemies and distant relations to the north in Luzon and the Visayas call it Eskrima/Arnis/Kali. Since the Moros are culturally closer to the Borneo melayu, I guess it could be safe to refer to it as Moro silat. Though if we knew what they comonly called it themselves, we'd probably call it that... whatever it is.

[ThePepperSkull]

Originally Posted by David

I am unaware of anything called "Moro Silat". AFAIK "silat" is not a term associated with the Moro arts. I'm i wrong about this?

The Moro martial arts are referred to as either "Silat", "Kuntaw"/"Kuntao", or a combination of both. The names of the style come from the tribe (for example a silat player from Basilan would practice "Silat Saudara Yakan" at home). I've heard that calling it 'filipino silat' is incorrect as they never swore allegiance to king felipe of spain and would rather have it referred to as 'mindanao silat' in general terms. Calling it 'Muslim silat' is also incorrect AFAIK, as many seem to acknowledge that the art was there before the arrival of the muslims. For discussion purposes I will call it Moro Silat to describe it as the art of the bangsamoro people. A big difference between moro silat and indonesian silat is that It's more of a private affair in mindanao rather than a nationally acknowledged activity like in indonesia. The teacher-student dynamic is more individual and less group lesson focused and generally the styles passed down are between family members. In this respect it is very difficult to find an authentic Silat/Kuntaw teacher, much less find one who would be willing to teach outside of his bloodline or extended family. As a result I have seen very little of these styles, but have seen enough to draw certain conclusions.

The Moro martial arts seem to have a closer relationship stylistically to that of Indonesian and Bruneian Silat. Footwork is similar to indonesian silat, as are some stances when comparing to how different modern Arnis is. Blade movement seems, superficially, more similar to bruneian Silat. Again, these are conclusians I have drawn from observing what very little I have seen of Moro Martial Arts.

The Moro martial arts seem older and more traditional to me, whereas visayan/luzon based escrima/arnis has a lot of european influence. The footwork in modern arnis is very similar to styles like Portugese Jogo De Pau. I may be digressing from the main topic, but as a side note I should add that Jogo De Pau is very recent, having been first recorded in history around the 1910's. It's a long stick art primarily, with a significant portion of training dedicated to short stick work in place of a sword, much like Arnis. here is an example of some Jogo de pau sparring. The basic strikes, blocks, and footwork seen in Arnis can be seen here as well, although arnis' footwork is less linear and more angular because of the S.E.A. influence. Arnis also employs the use of 'sticky', or trapping hands: possibly the influence of the chinese/taiwanese martial arts or perhaps even Indian martial arts with their use of a katar in the non-sword hand. We move in similar ways when we have a knife or no weapon in the non-sword hand.

[ThePepperSkull]

Originally Posted by ThePepperSkull

As opposed to that, the indonesian-based Silat I've practiced (Indonesian Mande Muda and some bruneian silat suffian bela diri) has a focus on what it deems effective but the focus differs.

I made an error in this post. I meant to type out "Harimau", but I think I may have been watching a suffian bela diri video on youtube while typing this and it got into my head as I typed. Apologies all around!


I have also replied to this thread to showcase a couple of videos. the first is of Telesporo SubingSubing, a lesser-known martial artist in the FMA community. Mr. SubingSubing comes from Mindanao and some say that he taught a certain Mr. John Lacoste (who later settled in california and ended up teaching Mr Dan Inosanto) his style of fighting (The name of which has been lost and which many have dubbed simply as 'Moro-moro style'). I post this because I believe this is some of the very few footage we have access to in terms of Moro fighting systems:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNentRsIkWE


And here we see Manong Lacoste performing a very similar from to that of his predecessor, Telesporo SubingSubing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpsGcT5j2Vg

It's said that Lacoste was a sailor in Mindanao when he met and trained under SubingSubing. I thought it was interesting enough to share with you gentlemen. Hopefully it will give us all more insight into how these blades were used.

[Rick]

I see definite similarities to the footage in Cecil's documentary .
Thanks for this .

[Battara]

I agree Rick. Very similar. Even then, there the Indonesian forms go very low and one of the older Moros on Cecil's work that learned from an older Moro stood more upright more of the time. Also most of the pictures of fighting Moros from the turn of the century through the 1940s I also see Moros fighting or practicing upright.

Interesting how things evolve.

[ThePepperSkull]

Great observation.

I find that a lot of Phillippine martial arts takes into account the range in terms of distance between fighters (Largo, medio, corto ranges; or Long, Medium, and close ranged hand to hand or weapons combat), however Silat styles take another range into account. This being how far you are from the ground.

I was taught in Mande Muda Silat to fight standing upright, crouched, and while sitting. I know Harimau styles have this training dynamic, as well as many other Silat fighting systems. Perhaps moro fighting systems have had this as well.

If we take a look at the videos, notice how both SubingSubing and Lacoste are both standing, and progressively bending their knees lower and lower as if to transition into a crouching position (In the SubingSubing video, he is actually crouching while demonstrating some stickwork at timestamp 2:08). Note subingsubing's tendency to lean into and crouch while striking. In Cecil's film, the demonstrations are also often performed in a range of positions; crouched, standing, I believe it was the Barong demonstration (recalling from memory, I could be wrong) that had one gentleman kneeling while exchanging blows.

The standing-kneeling-sitting dynamic of combat training is being adopted by a lot of FMA schools in more recent years, but this is a distinctly Silat characteristic in terms of origin.

[Battara]

Although I have had only what I consider an introduction to arnis/escrima, I remember being taught upright but with bent knees and being able to be near the ground or upright. I guess bent knees and mobility of range are a must to these island forms.

[KuKulzA28]

Awesome, thanks for posting up the video links! The Chinese martial art I practice also emphasizes this. 3 ranges (long, medium, short), as well as 3 heights... this and footwork allows for one to have superior positioning.

[kai]

I have also replied to this thread to showcase a couple of videos. the first is of Telesporo SubingSubing, a lesser-known martial artist in the FMA community. Mr. SubingSubing comes from Mindanao and some say that he taught a certain Mr. John Lacoste (who later settled in california and ended up teaching Mr Dan Inosanto) his style of fighting (The name of which has been lost and which many have dubbed simply as 'Moro-moro style').

Well, this looks very Visayan to me. (BTW, I love the way he moves!)

AFAIK, Telesporo SubingSubing came from Balamban, Cebu. There are some old Visayan outposts on Mindanao and during the last century many Visayans settled throughout Mindanao. From all accounts there is no open teaching of any traditional Moro MA/Silat on this island (if any); the Sulu archipelago might be a better place to look for genuine Moro MA but even there you'd have to be careful not to run into Visayan MA nowadays...

Regards,
Kai

[ThePepperSkull]

Interesting. I wasn't aware of how widespread the Visayan arts were back then. Although I do find it unfortunate that this did not end up being actual moro martial arts, I appreciate the clarificaion very much. Thanks for the input, kai!

[Dimasalang]

I'd really like to get in to this area also and learn(or at least have a better understanding) the origins of Moro Martial Arts, as well as Visayan Martial Arts. I do not have a firm understanding of either right now, right now I take a style stemming from Cebu...and from class, the history doesn't go that deep. So this thread intrigues me, and I hope you guys can further help me in which ever way. As I posted earlier, I find it interesting that Moro arts seems to be so hidden from the public eye...obviously there is an art, but even today most people have no clue on what it is or what it looks like. So Subingsubing kinda fascinates me as most seem to associate him with Moro arts. I just did a search right now and found this post in a martial arts forum. This guys seems to be well hearsed in FMA history, and makes claims that possibly can be supported. Just thought I'd throw this in there.

This is in response to the poster's inquiry on Waray Eskrima. With regard to that story of Villabrille learning eskrima from a Waray-waray in the fabled Gandara Island, it's a fantasy made up by people who wanted to add mystical elements into the FMA. I've gone to Gundara myself to check for any eskrima lineage and the result: NIL! All I found there were tons of tahong, sorry to disappint Tagadat, but no eskrima! So let's scrap that Blind Princess Josefina B.S. once and for all. If at all there existed a so-called blind princess in Gundara, I can only surmise that she must have been a member of the Pulahan movement. From historical facts gathered, the Pulahan movement in Samar-Leyte area was brought by Cebuano insurrectos that came along with the first wave of Basak Pardo blacksmiths who were fugitives from the Spanish authorities.

There were actually two entry points of these Cebuano Pulahans and blackmiths in Leyte, one was in Carrigara led by the Tabada and de la Pena families of Pardo and the other was in Padre Burgos in Southern Leyte. No less the Filemenon TAbada the son of the first wave of Tabadas told me this story, he was about 74 years old when I met him in 2003. Now with regard to Andrew Abrian who's the only living Waray-waray that I know who is into eskrima, his system is Moro-moro Orabes Heneral. I can only name one person who has a credible lineage of the Moro-moro style: the late Telesporo Subingsubing of Balamban, again this sounds boring, TAGA CEBU lang gihapon! Let us not confuse Moro-moro as a style coming from the Moros of Mindanao...it is actually copied from the Moro-moro plays of the Spanish colonial period depicting the Chritian victory over the Mohammedan Moors of Southern Spain, how many times do I have to repeat this and yet, some idiots continue to insist that the Moro-moro of Sonny Umpad, Subingsubing and Andrew Adrian come from our Muslim brethren's... no less than my Tausug friend of the Bangsa Moro Arts can attest to this fact. When the book on the Bangsa Moro Arts which i and ned have the privilege to proof read a lot of B.S. circulated in the FMA is going to to be debunked once and for all including that KALI baloney!

I don't think Abrian got his eskrima from a Waray-waray, again we have to base these on historical facts that we've gathered in our field research.

Derobio Eskrima of General Ablin must have been imported from Cebu via the Pulahans and the Pardo blacksmiths... one of them was a certain Gorio a Cebuano eskrimador from Pardo who migrated to Carrigara and later married one of the Tabada women. Now, let's dig further whether there is really eskrima indigenous and originating in Waraylandia... of the people I sought and talked with in Tacloban, they learned eskrima from an old man who passed away a few years ago named Gualberto Sillar...however after much sleuthing, I found out that Gualberto Sillar who was one of the late Edgar Sulite's Waray teachers learned eskrima from Melecio Ilustrisimo of Kinatarcan Island-CEBU na naman! I wish i could find an authentic eskrima coming from the Waray's, I go there almost every week and I've even learned to speak Waray-waray like " maruyag ako haim...damo malidong ug madakmol adi Tacloban.." meaning ( Ganahan kaayo ko nimo, pagkadaghang mamords ug bigot diri sa Tacloban!). Tell him not to worry, I like the Waray-warays, but our research so far to look for authentic Waray-waray eskrima proved futile, they still lead to Cebu. No doubt the Waray-warays are very brave warriors, however during the height of the Sulu campaigns between 1635-1644 Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera recruited only the best of the Ilonggo, Cebuano, Boholano and Macabebe warriors...and that probably explains the dominance of these ethnic groups in the FMA.

[ThePepperSkull]

And here, I thought I was providing some helpful info when really I perpetuated some FMA-half truth I've been seeking to rid myself of!

Very informative post, Dimasalang! I find that a lot of FMA, because of the lack of a cohesive martial history, is steeped in this sort of half-truth and barely researched history that I really detest. A lot of it I was fed and believed until recent years and decided to joing message boards such as this to clarify which was myth and which was truth. It's very difficult to unlearn what I've come to accept as complete truth, but forum members like you and kai make the experience so enriching that I'm glad I decided to dig deeper.

I found this part of your quoted post in particular most interesting:

Let us not confuse Moro-moro as a style coming from the Moros of Mindanao...it is actually copied from the Moro-moro plays of the Spanish colonial period depicting the Chritian victory over the Mohammedan Moors of Southern Spain

This was also of interest to me, as it helped me understand why FMA really stands out stylistically when compared to other styles from neigboring regions and why a lot of widespread FMA has been attributed to have origins from just a few specific regions of the Philippines:

No doubt the Waray-warays are very brave warriors, however during the height of the Sulu campaigns between 1635-1644 Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera recruited only the best of the Ilonggo, Cebuano, Boholano and Macabebe warriors...and that probably explains the dominance of these ethnic groups in the FMA.

[Dimasalang]

Pepperskull, this is what makes this place so great! We can all learn and collaborate together and "iron out" these issues.

It is also a great peeve of mine to hear our history(general or of martial arts) being given in half-truth history lessons. Given our culture, the elders are always correct in speaking(even when it is their opinion), and the young must never question and must obey. Our elders never want document anything in writing...I don't understand why. And look at our history now, it is filled with so many holes, us Fil-Ams have a hard time finding and understanding our own identity when we go looking for it...there is no real reference and things just contradict one another...it ends up making no sense at all. Even older eskrimadors don't want to put their curriculum and lessons in writing...they all feel what ever is in their brain is enough. My only guess would be they believe their written secrets can get stolen? Just think, as it is being shown now, when they die, they take to the grave that great legacy as well. When one master falls, so does part of FMA history. So this is why I think it is important now(in this moment in time) to figure all this out...while there are still some old school eskrimadors walking around. Best way would be to interview and document for ourselves, since they sure don't want to.

I believe the quote you highlight about the Moro Moro plays should be emphasized above all else first. Most, even now in the Philippines, when they hear the term "Moro Moro Plays" they associate it with the war between the Spanish and the Moros of southern Philippines...which is untrue. As stated in the quote, the plays are about the war in southern Spain when the "Moors" from north Africa invaded. Moors is the English term; the Spanish have always called the Moors "Moros" since the very beginning. It is from the north African Moors(Moros), where the Spanish gave the southern Philippine Muslims their name "Moros". And it is through the reenactment of these Moro Moro plays "Christianized" Filipinos hid and practiced their martial art.

After reading the entire thread from where that quote came from, it looks like it was written by Celestino "Tinni" Macachor(who is based out of Cebu). Aside from being a researching historian, he is also one of the pillars of De Campo JDC-IO. He is the co-author of the book, Cebuano Eskrima: Beyond the Myth...which delves heavily in to the history of Visayan eskrima. I actually have this book and it is extremely deep. But I have only read a few of the chapters...I think I'll have to sit down now and read it in its entirety. You can also email Tinni Macachor at ambangmac53@yahoo.com. I think I need to send him a few emails.