Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s the Filipino art of Eskrima
When you put two martial arts enthusiasts together – particularly if they don’t practice the same form – the conversation will invariably revolve around the viability of different fighting styles. It’s basically a safe and socially acceptable way of discussing who would beat up who. However, when it comes to the Filipino combat art of eskrima, such a debate would end as quickly as a fight between an eskrimador and anyone they might happen to get into a ruck with.
The Spanish occupation of the Philippines virtually wiped out all records of eskrima’s early years but interestingly, the West’s first interaction with the armed warrior code has also given it a permanent place in world history.
The tribal people living in the Philippines’s rural regions at the time of the conquistadors frequently engaged in raids on each other’s territory, and eskrima became the skill set both attackers and defenders, generally armed with sticks and swords, utilised against each other. The viability of the form was given a stiff test when a flotilla of heavily armed Spanish explorers/inva-ders, led by Ferdinand Mag-ellan, arrived on a beach on Mactan Island in 1521. Wary of the bearded foreigners and unimpressed by their offers of glass beads and other small shiny objects, a band of natives led by tribal chief Lapu-Lapu bucked the trend and had a pop.
Lapu-Lapu and his boys gave the cocky Spaniards and their Portuguese leader an eskrima masterclass. An acc-ount of one of the Spaniards there that day survives, al-though it is widely believed to have exaggerated the numbers of ‘Indians’ the Europeans – who were armed with swords, axes, shields, crossbows and guns – were hammered by. Antonio Pigafeta said of the invasion force, which had landed with the intention of killing Lapu-Lapu as a means of currying favour with the leaders of a nearby island: “When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly.”
In a stunningly stupid but somewhat unsurprising attempt to frighten the natives away, the Spanish torched the homes of a group of locals. But predictably, this had the opposite effect; as Pigafeta wrote: “When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury.”
So, armed with just swords, bows, sticks and rocks, the early eskrimadors moved in to finish the fight. Magellan was killed and the surviving Spaniards were chased back to their ships. Lapu-Lapu’s victory is still marked in the Philippines today with an annual national celebration and a re-enactment of the battle.
In the centuries that followed, the practice of eskrima was outlawed by the country’s occupiers, but it continued to resurface during times of political strife. When the Philippines was occupied by the Japanese during World War II, for example, eskrimadors led the resistance, often successfully attacking heavily armed convoys equipped with little more than sticks and machetes.
Modern eskrima – which is a collective term for a range of Filipino martial arts involving the use of sticks, swords, knifes and unarmed throws, strikes and kicks – has come to be known for its practicality and effectiveness. The similarity between the sticks used by eskrima and police batons has made the fight form the darling of many forces around the world.
Eskrima has been in Ireland for decades, and although it has never exactly exploded in terms of its popularity, there is an established eskrima community led by Philippine native grand master Danny Guba, the highest graded eskrimador in Europe, who hosts classes at the Wild Geese Martial Arts Academy, off Dublin’s Pearse Street.
Guba heads a team of junior instructors, most of whom also hail from the Philippines, from the group’s Dublin base. He also travels around Europe – particularly Eastern Europe, where eskrima is particularly popular – promoting the art and holding seminars.
As with most martial arts, eskrima has different variations, and Guba teaches a style known as Doce Pares – named after the famous 12 bodyguards of Emperor Charlemagne of France, who were said to have been top swordsmen with several hundred kills to their credit.
Doce Pares, which was founded in 1932 by a group of eskrima grand masters, is seen as a particularly modern style of eskrima with a heavy focus on the armed combat aspects – and on the one- and two-stick training – of the broad, often eccentric form.
There tends to be plenty of room for debate when it comes to discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of various martial arts forms. Some are great for developing strength and fitness, while others equip you with devastating fighting techniques.
But the thing about eskrima is that no matter how good you are at your chosen martial art – whether it be krav maga, karate or kung fu – you are always going to seriously struggle against a bloke with a big stick.
