HISTORY

My interest in weapon based combat began after watching a Sinbad movie at the age of 10.  I devoted much of the next day to designing swords,  much the to the consternation of my math teacher who felt that a long division quiz took precedence over sword design and reinforced that concept with a rap on the knuckles with a yardstick.  I didn’t realize at the time, but that rap on the knuckles would be the first of many to come.

Later, at university I met like minded Asian international students who introduced me to Karate and Kendo – where the martial knuckle rapping began.  So began a decade long fascination with Japanese martial arts that ended up in a move to Japan in the mid 80’s to live in the land of  martial truth.  I was fortunate to be taken under the wing of Moroi Sensei, a Japanese culture expert and a lineage holder in Musashi’s two sword style, Nito Ryu.  Here was a Kenjutsu expert who also practiced the martial applications of the tea ceremony.  I felt I had reached the pinnacle of martial arts practice until a random meeting with two escrimadors in a gym.  I had heard of Kali but never really seen it.  Experiencing Kali changed my outlook on all things martial.  It was like a critical gap had finally been filled with concepts like planes of motion, zero pressure and triangular geometry. 

Upon returning the Canada in the early 1990’s I began training Kali/Silat with Louie Lindo and along the way met a guy who invited me to “train in the park.”  The guy was Loki Jorgenson who would later form the Mano y Baston Kali Club that would evolve into Maelstrom.  Training in the park was code for Dog Brothers sparring. 

Here were some guys who had a special term for knuckle rapping – defanging the snake.  Different name – same pain.   For the next decade we would train in parks, on tennis courts, in backyards and eventually move indoors to get out of the winter rain.  It was a time to learn Pekiti Tirsia Kali and test it using the Dog Brothers platform.  Along the way, I would move to the Philippines, then back to Japan and spend time in Indonesia and Thailand always looking for training partners and running various combat systems through my “Kali filter.”   I went on to live in Mexico for two years exchanging ideas and techniques with Boxers, Tai Chi players, Bagua practitioners and a second generation Bruce Lee student.

Now, over 50 years after Sinbad and 30 years after my introduction to Kali, I still practice most days.  Whenever I see an interesting technique or train with someone new, I run everything through my Kali filter.

My elementary math teacher would be disappointed to learn that I have been letting various apps do my long division for decades, but I am still swinging sword shaped objects pretty much daily.  It turns out running around on triangles swinging sticks would give me pleasure for decades – long division not so much.  Strange, I have a 1960’s Sinbad movie to thank for all this.