Filipino Martial Arts

[aquafire]

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Some points on M.A.

1. Fighting ability is only incidental in the mastery of martial arts.
2. Weapons: Study and practice the most advanced and practical weapon for your particular need in your time and setting.
3. Martial arts have honor codes. Rules are a hallmark of sports.
4. Is it the artist and not the art?
5. Mind: most essential weapon.

Kudos to all martial artists for keeping the peace.
Thank you to FMA practitioners for propagating this part of Filipino culture.

[lone wolf]

Philippine History from the FMA Warrior’s Perspective (1630-1634).

1630 –

17 Mar:(Sultanate of Sulu) The Spaniards invaded Sulu again. They almost doubled their forces from 1,600 to 2,500. But at the time they landed in Sulu, the sultanate forces were already highly prepared for battle. In the ensuing war, the Spanish commander Lorenzo de Olaso was wounded, which prompted his forces to withdraw.

Sweden: As a defensive maneuver, King Gustav II entered the Thirty Years’ War to secure the Swedish state and church from danger. An excellent military tactician, Gustav led an army of unusual quality, and his position was strengthened by alliances with France, Brandenburg, and Saxony.

1631 –

Sultanate of Sulu: The Sulu warriors launched another invasion aimed at Leyte, the seat of Spanish power in Visayas.

Sultanate of Mindanao: In Maguindanao, Sultan Qudarat continued to consolidate his power throughout Mindanao in preparation for new invasions. The Buayan and the Sangil leaders were brought under his control. He also established contact with the Sulu sultanate.

China: As an important and popular Yellow Hat Buddhist temple, an additional "Defender of Buddhism" hall was added to the Ta Er monastery in the Nan Shan Mountains of Western China. Bronze mirrors lined the walls of this latter hall, and near the doors stood rows of spears and swords. The monks used these weapons to exorcise demons and entertain crowds during quarterly temple fairs.

1632 –

Sultanate of Mindanao: In order to concretize his contact with the Sultanate of Sulu, Sultan Qudarat made a marriage alliance by marrying the daughter of Sulu Sultan Waist/Rajah Bungsu, the sultan of Sulu. This paved the political alliance between the two sultanates of Mindanao and Sulu. These two sultanates mustered a coordinated military attack and joint invasion of Central Visayas.

Sweden: At Lützen in 1632, the Swedes defeated Albrecht W.E. von Wallenstein's army, but King Gustav was fatally wounded in battle.

England: From the anonymous, Pinder of Wakefield, published in 1632 we read of a grudge contest between the common men from rural Kendall and Halifax on Midsummer day. Among the various swords and weapons the bouting included were cudgels by which many heads were bruised and bloodied.Â*

1633 –

England: Charles I refurbish Holyrood Abbey for his Scottish coronation and incorporate Masonic tombstones in its North Wall, including one for the Earl of Sutherland.

1634 –

The first joint invasion of the Sultanate of Sulu and Mindanao when they mobilized 1,500 warriors who landed at Dapitan, Leyte and Bohol. The challenge now before the Spanish colonial regime in Manila was how to stop the Muslim invasion of its held-territories. After drawing lessons on the military behavior of the Muslims, the Spaniards changed their approach by establishing a forward force at the enemy’s territory so that the war’s trend could be reversed. This was the focus of the fourth stage of the Moro wars.

From the Book THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, Chapter XV by Blair & Robertson is a narrative of Moro raids in Leyte, Bohol and Panay Islands:

"That year of 1634 was so quiet and so barren of events worthy of remembrance that I shall not dwell long upon it; for there is nothing of which I have heard to detain me, unless it be the raid of the Mindanao enemy into the island of Leyte, and the depredations that they committed there with the license permitted to them in seeing that there was no attempt made in Manila to check them.

On Sunday, December 3, 1634, the Mindanaos arrived with eighteen galleys at the village of Ogmuc, (Ormoc City) leaving behind in that of Baybay the rest of the vessels, which they brought in their fleet. Fifty of our Indians went out to resist them, but being unable to fight so many, they gradually retired to a little fort, possessed by the village.

They thought that they would be able to resist the pirates there, being encouraged by their minister, Father Juan del Carpio, of the Society of Jesus; and they did so for sometime, until the Moros, knowing that the church was higher than the fort, entered it and our men could not reach them with their shots. They planted three pieces in a convenient place at the church, in order to do great damage to those in the fort; and firing without cessation, they did not allow our men to fire a shot through its loopholes and windows.

Others of the enemy hastened by another side to gather bundles of thatch by uncovering the roofs of the houses; and by fastening together what wood and bamboo they could gather, and pushing this contrivance toward the fort, they set it afire. The fire burned a quantity of rice and abaca (which is the hemp of this country), and many men were choked by the smoke. The besieged, seeing that the fire had caught the timber-work [of the fort], and that they were being inevitably killed without any chance to defend themselves, displayed a signal for surrender, and in fact did so.

They were all captured; and a great contest arose among the enemy as to who should have Father Carpio as his captive. In this contention they had recourse to the Mindanao captain, and he ordered that the father be killed. That they did very gladly, and beheaded him and carried his head back to present it as a spoil to their king, Cachil Corralat (Sultan Kudarat). The latter had charged them not to leave alive any religious or Spaniard, for so had he vowed to their false prophet Mahomet in an illness that he had had.

They took the others captive, and sacked and burned all the village. From that place they sailed out and committed the same destruction in the villages of Soyor, Binan, Cabalian, Canamucan, and Baybay (Leyte Island). But they were so stoutly resisted in the village of Inibanga (Inabanga) in [the island of] Bohol, and in Dapitan (Mindanao), that they retired but little the gainers; for those Indians (Visayan Christian natives) are very valiant, and very different in valor from the other villages which the Mindanaos sacked.

The Camucones (the name of the Moro pirates who inhabit the little islands of the Sulu group east of Tawi-tawi, and the islands between these and Borneo) also-a people from islands subject to Borney, cruel and barbarous, and Mahometan by religion, although there are pagans in some islands-made their raids into the island of Panay, chiefly on the villages of Batan, Domayan, and Mahanlur, and in those of Aclan and Bahay, where they captured many of our Indians, and burned the churches of the visita. The visitas are usually deserted, and have no houses to defend them; and those Camucones are very cowardly and very different from the Joloans and Mindanaos, who are valiant, and much more so the latter named.

The Camucones entered by the river and bar of Batan, which is salt water, where a very grievous jest happened to two or three of their craft. The river of Batan has another river a short distance above the village road, which ends in a very wide and spacious sea, which they call " tinagongdagat," or "hidden sea," in which the inhabitants enjoy excellent fishing. With the ebb of the tide that spacious sea is left, almost dry, and then many kinds of shellfish are caught, such as oysters and crabs.

The Camucones entered that sea, with the intention of lying in wait for some capture, but when they least expected it they found their craft on dry ground. An Indian who was gathering the aforesaid shellfish saw them; and, recognizing them to be piratical enemies by the style of their craft, went to the village and gave warning of them. Many of the inhabitants of Batan assembled, and, well armed, attacked the Camucones very courageously. They made a great slaughter of the pirates, and captured many of them and burned their craft. Some of the Camucones escaped through the mangrove plantations and swampy ground. They were captured next day, with the exception of those who had the luck to rejoin the boats of their companions-who repenting of their carelessness, returned to their lands, and did not return to try their fortune in those regions for many years."

The foregoing narrative demonstrated the cunning and bravery of the early Christian Boholanos and Ilonggos of Panay inÂ* repulsing the Moro raiders.

Japan: According to his own writing, Musashi came to understand strategy when he was fifty or fifty-one in 1634. He and his adopted son Iori, the waif whom he had met in Dewa province on his travels, settled in Ogura in this year. Musashi was never again to leave Kyushu Island. The Hosokawa house had been entrusted with the command of the hot seat of Higo province, Kumamoto castle, and the new lord of Bunzen was an Ogasawara.

[lone wolf]

Philippine History from the FMA Warrior’s Perspective (1635-1639).

1635 –

Jan: Don Juan Cerezo de Salamanca, interim Governor-General of the Philippines, received reports relative to the Moro power concentrated near the site of the present downtown of Zamboanga. During that year, a Sulu Sultanate captive named Padre Juan Batista Vilancio, who had been for years a captive in Jolo, escaped to Manila and brought to the ears of the Governor-General a report of a Moro power concentration in the Zamboanga peninsula by forces of the two Sultanates. He gave an account of the town where "the nobility of Mindanao held court."

Governor Salamanca resolved to take possession of this strategic peninsula, hoping in this manner to strike a heavy blow on to the Moro power. A fortress in Jambangan would command the Basilan Straight, the waters of which were the ordinary course of the Moro pirate vessels infesting the coasts of the Visayas. The region of Jambangan, while not as important as the seats of the Sultans of Sulu and Mindanao, was nevertheless the territory of a minor Moro king whose authority reached along both sides of the peninsula for a hundred miles on either side. Salamanca hoped to divide this unbroken front and his efforts would prove successful.

Thirty-seven (37) years after the ill-advised destruction of their La Caldera Presidio and Mission, the coffers of the Manila-centric Filipinas Spanish government is once again enriched and well-supplied with new troops from Nueva España and other native settlements in the Visayas and Luzon islands, who have suffered tremendous losses from the Moro attacks on their villages, leading to a more concerted effort in restoring their important sentry in the Mindanao island peninsula.

6 Apr: After due preparation for their voyage, a conquering force of 300 well armed Spaniards from Luzon and 1,000 Cebuanos under the command of Captain Juan de Chaves landed at Jambangan. Spanish Captain Juan de Chaves was ordered to beachhead the south and established a military garrison in Jambangan/Samboangan. There, de Chaves temporarily founded the town of Bagumbayan, which was the first Spanish-given name for Jambangan or Ciudad de Zamboanga, and from this station he soon attacked and cleared the town of La Caldera, now barrio Recodo in Caldera Bay, and eventually the rest of the Jambangan peninsula, of Moro Pirates. This garrison in Samboangan led to the beginning of the defeat of Kudarat’s feared admiral, Datu Tagal, who had raided several pueblos in the Visayas.

After Captain de Chaves' force of 300 well armed Spaniards and 1000 Visayans had cleared the peninsula temporarily of hostile Moros, the construction of one of the finest forts in the East was put into execution. Their two-month long campaign would provide them a temporary relief from the Moro Pirates and allow them to start construction on the fort.Â*

23 Jun: The construction of one of the finest and most important Spanish forts in the East was put into effect. Upon careful choice of locating the fort at the southern-most tip of the peninsula for its military vantage point, the foundation of the grand fortress of Fuerza de San José was laid by Father Melchor de Vera, a Jesuit priest and engineer of the Spanish army, on June 23, 1635, establishing a permanent Spanish presence here brick-by-brick. After finishing his contract and on returning to Spain, he brought with him the impounded “Coat-of-Arms� of The Royal Sultanate of Sulu.

Along with the new formidable fort, the Spaniards would forever change the area’s original Jambangan name (which came to be known and spelled Samboangan in the early 1600s by Spanish historians) that stood for over four centuries into its present one – Zamboanga.Â* Little did Captain Chaves foresee that it will someday be considered by some of the leading travel writers today to be the most beautiful and exotic sounding name for a tourist destination city.

Another historical transformation will take place henceforth and will forever embody the character of Zamboanga – the evolution of the Chavacano Dialect and its People - the Chavacanos.Â* The conglomeration of the multitudes of ethnic and foreign peoples and languages from the surrounding Philippine Islands and European countries would force upon the fort and city builders a rudimentary form of survival communication, evolving into the unique dialect of today, based on Creole Spanish: Chavacano.

June 23, 1635, the day Zamboanga and Chavacano were founded, should also be symbolically known as “Dia del Chavacano de Zamboanga.�

Thus, the veil of Catholicism began to slowly spread across the region with the spirited drive of the militant Jesuits.Â* With no spices or gold to enrich the king’s coffers, except for local taxes, the Jesuits refocused the Spanish government’s agenda and made religion the object of their expansion and conquest here.Â* It is conceivable that eight hundred years of Moorish domination over Spain that ended in 1492 with the fall of Granada must have left bad blood in the Spanish conquerors’ dealings with the region's transplanted Malayan residents who were converted to Mohammedanism.Â* In this crossroads of Zamboanga’s storied history, Filipino people of the same Malayan decent fought each other to the death in battles for religious domination.Â* The Spaniards and Filipinos from the Visayan and Luzon Islands, backed by the bigger guns and resolve of the Spanish empire to stop the murdering Moro Pirates, eventually made their secure foothold in Mindanao with the strategically placed San José Fort in Zamboanga and have not relinquished it to this day.

In the history of Spanish conquest, there is no other place that symbolizes their greatest achievement as the success of the Zamboanga campaign and the formidable San José Fort that saved them, erasing almost a century of their failure to win against the resilient Moro Pirates.Â* It is even more remarkable what the severely outnumbered Chavacanos have accomplished given the isolation of Zamboanga in the middle of predominant Moroland.

Jesuit missionaries were able to negotiate peace treaties for the teaching of Christianity in Zamboanga with the use of military force. As a result, the Jesuits and Spanish conquistadores felt the wrath of Sultan Kudarat.

The erection of this fortress was accompanied by serious interruptions in the way of Moro Pirate attacks. With only a portion of the massive walls in place, the Spaniards awoke one morning to meet the attack of some 5,000 Moro Pirates, who entered Rio Hondo and attacked the unfinished fortification.Â* Canons were hastily mounted upon the fragmentary walls and the Spaniards retired to the partial shelter to pour a terrible canon fire towards the advancing Moro Pirates. The Moro Pirates' wave broke on the uncompleted walls and the force eventually retired, with severe casualties inflicted upon the Spaniards.

With the completion of the San José Fort, a convenient base of operations paved the way for a long-awaited Spanish victory in Moroland. This strong fortress, only ninety miles from the Moro capital of Jolo, always remained as a serious deterrent to Moro Pirates' aggression. The meter-thick walls withstood numerous attacks, and in all of the long history of this fort, the Moro Pirates never captured it.

This Spanish base at Zamboanga became the lunching pad for attacking Muslim settlements as well as the sultanate’s capital of Jolo and Lamitan in the Maguindanao area.

17 Oct: Early beginnings of Zamboanga – a letter to King Philip IV of Spain from the Bishop Fray Pedro of "Santissimo Nombre de Jesus" (locally known as Cebu) dated October 17, 1635 states that he requested, and got approval, from interim Governor Salamanca, the building of a fort in "Samboanga or Samboangan" to preclude their enemies in Mindanao and Sulu from raiding his "people" and "burning villages, firing churches, destroying images, and capturing many Indians" (their description of the locals), especially worst during the previous year. Bishop Fray Pedro also advised the new Governor Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, ex-governor of Panama, that the work on Fort San José be continued for the benefit of church and state.Â* The efforts of the Bishop of Cebu would prove fruitful for the coffers of Spain, and a handful for the few Jesuit priests from Cebu he "entrusted" to do the religious conversion of the natives, who numbered in the "many thousands."Â* The inadequate number of Jesuits for their religious mission resulted in the Bishop requesting from the King "forty" (40) more devoted and "efficient" fathers of the Society of Jesus.The local scenery at this time must not have looked that much different than a picture scene in the late 1700s, proving that early Jambangan was already a major trading town with thousands of residents.

The arrival in Manila of Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, an efficient Governor-General and soldier, marked a period of success for the Spanish arms. During Don Corcuera’s term of office as Governor-General of the Philippines (1635-1644), he incurred the displeasure of the Friars, and upon being succeeded by Diego Fajardo; he was haled into court, fined 25,000 and thrown into prison for five years. He was finally released by a Royal Order and given the tardy award of Governor of the Canary Islands.

Accdg to Celestino C. Macachor in his Rapid Journal Article “NEW THEORIES ON THE ORIGINS OF ESKRIMA�: Years 1635-1644. The explosion of FMA during the administration of Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera. Recruitment of Pampango, Cebuano, Ilonggo and Warays and cross-pollination of raw martial skills with aid of Spanish fencers. Supposedly warrior priests actively engaged in combat alongside Christian Indios and Spanish Regulars. Coined by the Spanish colonial masters of the era, the single most definitive word that best described their engagement with the indomitable Moros of Sulu was – ESCRIMA.

1636 –

Pedro Ladia led the 1636 Bulacan Revolt.

Sultanate of Mindanao: Datu Tagal, a brother of Kudarat, gathered a large fleet of Moro pirates from Mindanaw, Sulu, and North Borneo and looted the coastal islands of the Visayas.

Zamboanga: The first victory for the men of the fortress and also the first major victory for Spain was the destruction of a Moro Pirates' fleet.Â* In 1636, Tagal, brother of Kudarat- the Sultan of Maguindanao (Mindanao), gathered a large fleet recruited from Mindanao, Sulu and Borneo and made a cruise to the Visayan Islands. The result was a glorious field day for the pirates. Every town of importance on the whole coast of the Visayas was attacked and looted.Â* When Tagal wearied of the slaughter and raised his hand to turn the prows of the pirate vessels to the south again, 650 captives lay trussed like chickens in the pirate hold.

One hundred miles from Jolo, a Spanish fleet that was operating from their base in Zamboanga, intercepted the victorious Tagal as he rounded the treacherous angle of rough water at Puenta de Flecha in the Dumanquillas Bay. Hampered by the hundreds of captives in the holds, the garays (a Spanish term given to the swift Moro-built pirate ships) of Tagal were slow and unwieldy, and in the naval engagement that followed the Moro Pirates suffered a crushing defeat. Three hundred Moro Pirates, including Tagal, were killed, and 120 captives were set free. Tagal jettisoned many of the captives as the tide of battle turned against him, and the sharks at Puenta Flecha fed well on the bound bodies of Christian slave girls bound for the harems of Jolo.

Accdg to Complete Sinawali Reynaldo Galang in his book Complete Sinawali: "A royal decree in 1636 ordered the "pacification� of the island of Mindanao. Two large companies composed of mainly Pampangans and Visayans were part of the force led by Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera. This force traveled aboard eleven large vessels with 760 Spanish infantrymen who were divided into a total of seven companies. Using Zamboanga as base, the troops underwent rigorous training with the advice and help of Datu Suksukan of Zamboanga and Datu Piatong of the Lutaos."

1637 –

In an effort to subdue Kudarat, the Spanish Governor Corcuera personally led a well-equipped expedition to Mindanao. On the banks of the Rio Grande Mindanao stood the proud fort of Sultan Kudarat, surrounded by over two thousand armed warriors. What followed was a grueling battle that left the colonial forces in control of the town, while Kudarat and his followers retreated to the hills.

13 Mar: The Spaniards captured Lamitan the seat of the Maguindanao Sultanate. Qudarat’s forces of about 2,000 suffered defeat and were forced to move to the interior. Seventy-two Muslims were decapitated and the Spaniards put their heads on spikes for display (Majul, 1996:135). The Spaniards did this to instill fear. The Spaniards then attempted to exploit Basilan’s resources by driving away the legendary Sultan Kudarat.

Under the edict of Spanish rule kali was banned from practice in the Philippines in 1637. It was also at this time that the Spanish friars had written and created a new form of theatrical entertainment known generally as komedya. These are socio-religious plays depicting the victory of Christian Spaniards over the Muslim Moors of Africa. Filipinos viewed these plays as a mechanism through which to practice their martial arts under the guise of harmless entertainment.

The "Father of Filipino Printing", Tomas Pinpin, launched the first Philippine newsletter called "Successos Felices" (Fortunate Events). The publication was written in Spanish and contained a 14-page report on current events.

1638 –

4 Jan: (Sultanate of Sulu) The Spanish attack continued with Governor de Corcuera leading a war expedition of eighty ships and 2,000 Spaniards to Jolo but was foiled by Sultan Wasit. The sultanate capital fell after a three-month battle due to an epidemic within Sultan Wasit’s Acotta and he and his datus were forced to seek refuge in Dungun Tawi-Tawi and the Spaniards freely occupied Jolo. This was the period when the Spaniards occupied Jolo and the sultanate court was moved to Dungun, Tawi-Tawi. The sultanate reorganized its forces and even secured the support of the Dutch in Batavia, Indonesia.

Records had it that Sulu Sultan Wasit’s many heroic battles during this period at Bud Datu in Jolo Island against the Manila Spaniards were never lucidly recorded. It was Wasit who named this hill to honor the bravery and unconditional loyalty of his datus.

Japan: Iori – adopted son of Musashi – found employment under Ogasawara Tadazane, and as a captain in Tadazane's army fought against the Christians in the Shimawara uprising of 1638, when Musashi was about fifty-five. The lords of the southern provinces had always been antagonistic to the Tokugawas and were the instigators of intrigue with foreign powers and the Japanese Christians. Musashi was a member of the field staff at Shimawara where the Christians were massacred. After this, Ieyasu closed the ports of Japan to foreign intercourse, and they remained closed for over two hundred years.

1639 –

San Juan del Monte survives the Chinese uprising in 1639.

Sultanate of Mindanao: Sultan Qudarat re-established his forces and held his court at Pulangi.

[lone wolf]

Philippine History from the FMA Warrior’s Perspective (1620-1629).

1620 –

Father Francisco Lopez introduced the cross kudlit to the ancient writing system of our ancestors known as Baybayin/Alibata in order to represent certain Spanish words less ambiguously in his Ilocano version of the catechetical Doctrina Christiana. The cross kudlit is placed underneath the graph and functions much as the virama in the scripts of India, so that the graph represents only a consonant.

A diacritical mark called kudlit modified the sound of the symbol. The kudlit could be a dot, a short line, or even an arrowhead. When placed above the symbol, it changed the inherent sound of the symbol from a to i; placed below, the sound became u. Thus a ba with a kudlit placed above became a bi; if the kudlit was placed below, the symbol became a bu.

Â* Â*---Â* Â*---Â* Â*---Â* Â*Alibata CharactersÂ* Â*---Â* Â*---Â* Â*---

The Tagalog script: a, i, u, "stop," ka, ga, nga, ta, da, na, pa, ba, ma, ya, la, wa, sa, and ha. The bottom line shows how a kudlit turns a ba into a bi and a bu.

Cape Cod, Mass: Mayflower Compact drafted by Puritan Pilgrims upon their landing at Provincetown on Cape Cod, Mass.

1621 –

Revolt of the Irraya.

Bankaw's revolt.

THE REVOLT OF TAMBLOTÂ* (1621-22). In the year1621 the flames of a religious revolt engulfed the island of Bohol. This disturbance was incited by a Filipino babaylan or priest named Tamblot, who exhorted the people to return to the faith of their forefathers and convinced them "that the time has come when they could free themselves from the oppression of the Spaniards, inasmuch as they were assured of the aid of their ancestors and diuatas, or gods."

Around 2,000 Boholanos responded to Tamblot's war call and began the uprising at a time when most of the Jesuit fathers, the spiritual administrators of the island, were in Cebu celebrating the feast of the beatification of St. Xavier.

News of the revolt reached Cebu, and immediately the alcalde-mayor, Don Juan de Alcarazo rushed an expedition to Bohol, consisting of 50 Spaniards and more than 1,000 Filipinos. On New Year's Day, 1622, the government forces began the campaign against the rebels.

In a fierce battle, fought in a blinding rain, Tamblot and his followers were crushed. The gallant valor of the Cebuano soldiers in this fight gave victory to Spain.

Japan: The pivotal point in the formalization of Kito Ryu is the arrival of an almost legendary Chinese figure, Master Chen Yuan-Ping (also known variously as Chen Tsu U, Gin Chin Pin, and Gempin by the Japanese). Master Chen came to Japan first in 1621, and came back to stay in 1638. He was a scholar who had apparently held some positions in the Chinese court. He taught Taoism's Lao Tzu and T'ung K'ao, and a Chinese martial art based upon ju. Three wandering, masterless samurai (ronin) found him at Kokusei Monastery, where he taught them "secret arts." The names of these samurai were Fukuno, Isogai, and Miura. Fukuno, after going on to master Yagyu Shingan Ryu, met a samurai named Terada. Fukuno and Terada founded Kito Ryu, and passed the art on to Yoshimura and Takenada.

Kito-ryu emphasizes many esoteric elements, including aiki. Aiki is the joining of internal or life energies. Kito teaches that there are three types of energy: Ryoku or Riki,Ki, and Shin.

The ki in aiki refers to the second of these. Kito teaches that "When two minds are united, the stronger controls the weaker..."

Kito is also based upon the principles of wa (harmony, accord, fluidity) and ju (suppleness, softness, gentleness). In application on the battlefield, the system incorporates a complex amalgam of strategies, many calling back to the Chinese master strategist Sun Tzu.

Kito addresses the pursuit of loftier ideals, including spiritual and self-actualization interests, in a similar way, teaching that one should harmonize the Self with the Universe. It is so complex in terms of its theory as to be nearly impenetrable to analysis from the "outside." Chinese Taoist elements have been imported wholesale.

Kito means rising and falling, with the rising being synonymous with Yo (Yang) and the falling being the In (Yin). This is the blend between strength and suppleness or gentleness. Kito Ryu taught that when the enemy shows strength you defeat them with suppleness, when the enemy shows suppleness you defeat them with strength. But never rely on strength; rather discard strength to harmonize with the universal spirit, Ki. Thus Ki allows you to overcome an enemy by rebounding his own strength against him. The essence of this is simply gentleness overcomes strength. These are the teachings of Kito Ryu.

The techniques of Kito Ryu are fast, fluid, subtle, and direct. The techniques exploit centered action and the projection of internal energies. Kito emphasizes projective throwing methods, and kokyu (kuki) techniques, and is considered a form of aiki-jujutsu.

We can see the most obvious elements of Kito Ryu in Sumo, the Koshiki no Kata of Judo, and much of Aikido.

1622 –

19 Aug: (Spain) Philip IV laid the blame on officeholders and other persons of influence for the havoc wreaked on his royal treasury and upon Indians. The audit of officials must be carried out and abuses stopped. But as Salvador de Madriaga observed:

"...as with so many well-meaning laws emanating from far-distant Spain, by the time its spirit had traveled along the limbs of the giant empire, it has lost much of its vigor, and much too often in the end its actual effect depended on the local official whom distance made almost omnipotent.�

1623 –

England: William Shakespeare's plays are published in book form for the first time.

1624 –

Spain: Spanish war with Siam because the latter had signed a treaty of alliance with the Dutch, Spain’s mortal enemy.

Japan: Japan expels all Spanish traders and puts an end to trade with the Philippines.

China: Many people believe Damo (Bodhidharma) wrote the famous 'Yijinjing,' the base of Shaolin martial arts or Gongfu. But there is no record about the book before and during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) so experts think Damo has little to do with Shaolin Gongfu. Zongheng, a Taoist priest of Tiantai Mountain, wrote 'Yijinjing' in 1624, but to add mystery to it, he made up a story saying 'Yijinjing' was originally written by Damo (Bodhidharma).

Brazil: The history of capoeira is perhaps the most obscure of all martial arts. It was developed by slaves from Angola, Congo and Mozambique who were brought to Brazil by the Portuguese. The most common theory is the slaves began to develop basic fighting techniques at night in the cramped sleeping quarters called the senzala. Independent villages established by escaped slaves between 1624 and 1654, when the Dutch attempted to overtake parts of Brazil, were integral to the development of the art. With the abolishment of slavery in Brazil in 1888, capoeiristas, marginalized from society, used their skills for crime. They ingenuously disguised the martial art as a dance during its suppression and it evolved into the eclectic, music-oriented art form it is today. In 1974 it was recognized as the national art of Brazil.

George Fox establishes the Quaker church.

1625 –

A missionary record of 1625 sets forth that the King of Spain had arranged with certain members of Philippine religious orders that, under guise of preaching the faith and making Christians, they should win over the Japanese and oblige them to make themselves of the Spanish party, and finally it told of a plan whereby the King of Spain should become also King of Japan. In corroboration of this may be cited the claims that Japan fell within the Pope's demarcation lines for Spanish expansion and so there was complaint of missionaries other than Spanish there. Therefore it was not for religion that they were converting the infidels!

Sultan Mohammad Dipatuan Kudarat of the Sultanate of Maguindanao reigned from 1625 to 1671. He was a virtual leader who embodied the idea of basic unity, oneness and freedom among the diverse people scattered throughout his Sultanate. He was considered as one of the national heroes of the Republic of the Philippines not only because of his virtues of leadership but also because of his patriotic exploit in repelling Spanish domination.

England: King James died, and his son Charles became king. He left the Virginians to themselves for the most part. They liked this. But they did not like his giving the northern part of Virginia to a Roman Catholic favorite, Lord Baltimore, with the name of Maryland. Many Roman Catholics soon settled in Lord Baltimore's colony. The Virginians feared lest they might come to Virginia and made severe laws against them. Puritan missionaries also came from New England and began to convert the Virginians to Puritanism. Governor Berkeley and the leading Virginians were Episcopalians. They did not like the Puritans any better than they liked the Roman Catholics. They made harsh laws against them and drove them out of Virginia into Maryland.

1626 –

Cagayan de Oro City: Christianization of Datu Salangsang by a Portuguese Recollect friar.

1627 –

Sultanate of Sulu: The war resumed between the Spaniards and the Muslims in 1627 but by this time the war was now with the Sulu sultanate. This was triggered by a maltreatment suffered by Sulu envoy, Datu Acheh. On his way home from Manila, the Spaniards intercepted his ships, and all of them were brought back to Manila and humiliated. This incident angered the sultanate leadership. Rajah Bungsu/Sultan Wasit, the Sultan of Sulu led 2,000 Tausug warriors, and attacked the Spanish base and ship yard in Camarines Sur, South of Manila and Central Visayas.

Nepal: The oldest known Khukuri/Kukri appears to be one in the arsenal museum in Kathmandu, which belonged to Raja Drabya Shah, King of Gorkha. It is interesting to note that it is a broad, heavy blade.

1628 –

The Spaniards retaliated against this Sulu attack. They organized an expedition composed of 200 Spanish officers and 1,600 native allies. They were able to defeat the Sulu forces, but withdrew immediately for fear of a counter-attack.

England: The second St. Clair Charter confirms the Earl of Rosslyn as Grand Master Mason.

1629 –

Trade relations were not interrupted for a considerable time after the arrival of the Spaniards, for in 1629 Medina states that ships from China, Macao, and India “are accustomed to anchor in these ports—and all to the advantage of this district.�

Sultanate of Sulu: The Sulu sultanate still managed to send another expedition. By this time the Sulu forces were now commanded by Datu Acheh. They attacked the Spanish settlements in Camarines, Samar, Leyte and Bohol.

[Oakboy]

pero mag unsa maning arnis if you're empty handed...alangan mag dala2x ka anang bunal nimo lakaw2 hehehe!! unsaon mana mga bro..wla gyudko nakamahuan aning arte sa pag away oi!!

[reklamador]

the stick or the weapon is only an extension of the hand........it means the weapon is a training aid in empty hands.........pangamot, the last stage in arnis training.

[jIrIcO]

hay reklamador wala na ko kadongugimo da! kumusta naka?

Catfish; thanks for the advrtise. pm me unya murag kaila ko nimo da!

[pauwiks]

the stick or the weapon is only an extension of the hand........it means the weapon is a training aid in empty hands.........pangamot, the last stage in arnis training.

correct arnis or kali is principle based not technique. so wehter you got a stick on your hands, a bottle a pen whatever you can still use the art...yes even empty handed.

[lone wolf]

Philippine History from the FMA Warrior’s Perspective (1610-1619).

1610 –

Bataan: Tomas Pinpin is regarded as the first Filipino printer. He was born in Abucay, Bataan but records about his birth were lost after the Dutch invaders destroyed the town of Abucay in 1646. Pinpin learned the art of printing from the Chinese artisans when he worked in the shop of Filipino-Chinese printer, Luis Beltran.

Among his works were Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala (Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala of Fr. Blancas de SAN JOSE) and the Librong Pag-aaralan nang mga Tagalog nang Uicang Castila printed in Bataan.

England: Galileo sees the moons of Jupiter through his telescope. Galileo publicly confirms the structure of the solar system.

Italy: Italian Rapier Combat, by Capo Ferro is published.

1611 –

The Universidad de Santo Tomas, the second oldest educational institution in the Philippines, was founded by Fray Miguel de Benavides.

England: King James Version of the Bible published in England. Rubens paints his Descent from the Cross.

Sweden: King Gustav II Adolf (1594-1632) was monarch of Sweden from 1611-1632. Gustavus Adolphus was elected King of Sweden.

1612 –

Sultan of Sulu: Rajah Bongsu was installed sultan-de-facto of Sulu and named himself Sultan Mawallil Wasit; He appointed Brunei Datu Acheh as his aide-de-camp because of his skills in helping unite the Sulu leaders.

Japan: Musashi's most well known duel was in the seventeenth year of Keicho, 1612, when he was in Ogura in Bunzen province. His opponent was Sasaki Kojiro, a young man who had developed a strong fencing technique known as Tsubame-gaeshi, or "swallow counter", inspired by the motion of a swallow's tail in flight. Kojiro was retained by the lord of the province, Hosokawa Tadaoki. Musashi applied to Tadaoki for permission to fight Kojiro through the offices of one of the Hosokawa retainers who had been a pupil of Musashi's father, one Nagaoka Sato Okinaga. Permission was granted for the contest to be held at eight o'clock the next morning, and the place was to be an island some few miles from Ogura. That night Musashi left his lodging and moved to the house of Kobayashi Taro Zaemon. This inspired the rumor that awe of Kojiro's subtle technique had made Musashi run away afraid for his life. The next day at eight o'clock Musashi could not be woken until a prompter came from the officials assembled on the island. He got up, drank the water they brought to him to wash with, and went straight down to the shore. As Sato rowed across to the island Musashi fashioned a paper string to tie back the sleeves of his kimono, and cut a wooden sword from the spare oar. When he had done this he lay down to rest.

The boat neared the place of combat and Kojiro and the waiting officials were astounded to see the strange figure of Musashi, with his unkempt hair tied up in a towel, leap from the boat brandishing the long wooden oar and rush through the waves up the beach towards his enemy. Kojiro drew his long sword, a fine blade made by Nagamitsu of Bizen, and threw away his scabbard. "You have no more need of that" said Musashi as he rushed forward with his sword held to one side. Kojiro was provoked into making the first cut and Musashi dashed upward at his blade, bringing the oar down on Kojiro's head. As Kojiro fell, his sword, which had cut the towel from Musashi's head, cut across the hem of his divided skirt. Musashi noted Kojiro's condition and bowed to the astounded officials before running back to his boat. Some sources have it that after he killed Kojiro Musashi threw down the oar and, nimbly leaping back several paces, drew both his swords and flourished them with a shout at his fallen enemy.

It was about this time that Musashi stopped ever using real swords in duels. He was invincible, and from now on he devoted himself to the search for perfect understanding by way of Kendo.

England: In Cotswold, England, a series of popular local games held beginning in 1612, included cudgel playing (considered a lower class sport) among its activities. A contemporary woodcut of the Cotswold games included a small depiction of two adult figures playing with wooden swords and daggers.

Germany: The plate of Sutor, a German manual, which is actually a compilation and plagiarism of a 1570s German manual by Joachim Meyer and another German named Hundt was published. They used the circle just to trace the path of the blade in the different cuts.

1613 –

15 Aug: Don Diego de Soria, the second Archbishop of Nueva Segovia reported that Vigan has a population of 2,000 souls while Bantay has 5,000 souls.

1614 –

The Code of Kalantiaw, in chapter 9 of part 1, was one of six translated documents that were dated before the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippines. The original Code was purportedly discovered in the possession of a Panay datu in 1614. At the time of Pavón's writing in 1839 it was supposedly owned by a Don Marcelio Orfila of Zaragoza. In 1966 the Philippine government asked the government of Spain for the return of the original Code of Kalantiaw by the descendants of Marcelio Orfila but the Police Commissioner there could not find any record of that family in the city of Zaragoza.

For several decades José Marco didn't explain, at least in writing, where he got Friar Pavón's manuscripts but it seems that he had a ready explanation to tell privately. The anthropologist and historian Henry Otley Beyer related this story to his colleague, Mauro Garcia, in the early 1950s. As the story goes, Pavón was the priest in the town of Himamaylan, Negros in the 1840s. When that town was looted during the revolution in 1899, Marco's father was among some looters who had stolen what they thought was a chest of coins or jewellery but when it was accidentally dropped in the river it became so heavy that they realized that it was full of papers which were apparently the Pavón manuscripts.

However if this story was true, José Marco would have had to explain why he didn't use this wealth of information or even mention these documents when he wrote his Reseña Historica in 1912. Perhaps Marco saw the flaw in his story so, when he explained the origin of the manuscripts to the Philippines Studies Program at the University of Chicago in 1954, he said that he had got them from an old cook who once worked at the convent in Himamaylan where Pavón had lived. It was this old cook, he said, who had stolen the manuscripts during the looting and then, evidently, sold them to Marco in 1913.

Japan: In 1614 and again in 1615, Musashi took the opportunity of once more experiencing warfare and siege. Ieyasu laid siege to Osaka castle where the supporters of the Ashikaga family were gathered in insurrection. Musashi joined the Tokugawa forces in both winter and summer campaigns, now fighting against those he had fought for as a youth at Seki ga Hara.

John Napier discovers logarithms.

1615 –

The Philippines shares the "circle of fire" with other Pacific Rim countries and is well dotted with volcanoes, mostly dormant, with at least ten still active. The most famous one is the Mayon, which boasts of a perfect cone and has also been the most active, having erupted more than 30 times since 1615.

1616 –

It was discovered that Cape Horn could be rounded.

Japan: Tokagawa Shogunate. Ieyasu (1543-1616) brought peace to Japan and was a fairly benevolent leader compared to his Grandson Iemitsu, who was a ruthless leader, slaughtered Christians and cut Japan off from the Western World for 200 years.

1617 –

14 Apr: The Spanish headed by Juan Ronquillo prevented Dutch attempts to invade Manila in the Battle of Playa-Homda.

1618 –

Spain: Spain’s involvement in the Thirty Years War (1618-4. Protestants revolt against Catholic oppression; Denmark, Sweden, and France will invade Germany in later phases of war. Kepler proposes last of three laws of planetary motion.

1619 –

(Up to AD 1671) Mindanao was ruled by Sultan Muhammad Dipatuan Kudarat (a.k.a.Cachil Kudarat), a direct descendant of Sharif Kabungsuwan. Kudarat and his mandirigma repelled continuous Spanish attempts at invasion of his sultanate in Jolo and Zamboanga.

Though it may look more like a parking lot than a plaza, Plaza Moraga was named after an Augustinian friar, Fernando De Moraga, who was once the parish priest of Sta. Ana. His main contribution to Philippine history was trying to convince the King of Spain in 1619 not to give up the colony due to financial constraint. Apparently the king listened to his argument and the rest is history. King Philip the Second considers but declines to abandon islands on economic grounds.

British North America: A Dutch ship brings the first African slaves to British North America.

[lone wolf]

pauwiks: musta na dyan sa cebu 'tol?

scooby doo: congrats pre!

MK Cebu: Padayon!!