I woke up early this morning and started pondering reaction times and the basic movements of Serrada Escrima. Hmmm...my mind really started spinning after a strong cup of Java. I snuck some coffee in, because the ball and chain was soundly asleep in the next room. Sometimes I just start going over basic movements of Serrada Escrima and whatever pops into my mind: Ill just go with it. I go through several basic movements and just let my mind come up with whatever it can come up with. This really works for me right after I wake up. Today it dawned on me that the basic movements of Serrada Escrima are very blade oriented. One of the things that I never really paid much attention to when performing the basic movements of Serrada was that they were all tailor made to release a blade that is stuck in a human body, be it in bone or deeply lodged in the cavity of a body and they give you the option that you could manipulate a man with your blade still in them, if you cant release the blade: A sort of bladed Judo. How this has got passed me is astounding, when you consider how many years Ive practiced the art of Serrada Escrima. The men who designed many of the bladed Filipino arts were true martial geniuses. Its sad that we the following generations many times little understand the great strides that they achieved in the bladed arts. Mostly, I am speaking for myself. The problem with getting my newly acquired knowledge of effectively dislodging blades that may be stuck in someone across to you the reader, is that this should probably be done visually. I just shot some video last night with a professional cameraman and wish that I had known what I know now. It might have made some great video. So having said this: Ill cover reaction times instead and hopefully get the guy back to shoot some more video on dislodging blades using our basic movements. I get to hear a lot of FMA Instructors talking about reaction times. Some of the things that they say are slightly off, but generally they are spot on. So what about reaction times? What is the physiological process that we call reaction time. Reaction time is the measure of the quickness that an organism responds to a stimulus. Simple enough. Its a measurement of time. Quickness is a subjective measurement. My quick may not be your quick, but we all know what quick is when we see it. A cat is quick. But the speed that my wallet deflates after payday is also quick. A cat is quick, because the clawing action that cats do so well may be a reflex action. We also have reaction. Reflex and reaction are different. Reflexes are automatic: Like when something touches your eye and you will automatically blink. So quickness in most martial artists minds has more to do with reactions to stimuli than reflexes. Some of us will say that someone has quick reflexes, but we will really mean reaction times. So if a stick is coming towards us: What will actually be happening within our brains that will cause us to hopefully avoid our getting hit? Ive stolen this information from a chart on the internet, because I cant say it any better: 1. See stick. 2. Eyes register incoming light and sends information to the Occipital (visual) Lobe. 3. Occipital Lobe sends information regarding the stick to the Frontal Lobe. 4. Frontal Lobe decides that something must be done about the incoming stick and makes a decision. 5. The Motor Cortex receives signals from the Frontal Lobe. The Motor Cortex sends signals to the Spinal Cord. 6. The Spinal Cord sends signals to the parts of the body that need to act out the decisions that the Frontal Lobe decided that were best. 7. The body enacts the the decisions that were made. Reactions are much more complex than reflexes. This is why a physically fast martial art can be much more effective than a slower martial art. In all of this, the choices that the Masters before us made can make the difference whether we make it home alive or take the dirt nap. There is whole lot of things that go into a martial art more than just hitting another man. I have just discovered that my basic Serrada Escrima movements contained the ability to effectively release a blade that was stuck in someone. Some really deep thinking men lit a whole lot of midnight oil to have come up with movements that are generally safe to perform under life and death situations and that cover most possibilities. So to the many out there that think that Serrada Escrima is a stick art: Not! Maybe some of us have lost some of the old knowledge along the way, but it is really good to know that at least a few of us will always try to propel our art to the highest level that we possibly can. There are more than a few out there. Anyone practicing any of the Filipino Martial Arts arts can do this as well. There may be a whole lot more to your art than you currently give it credit. Hope that some of this information will help a few of you: From Ground Zero/Stockton, Ca. Me.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 15:24:27 +0000
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