Interesting interview with James Keating

[BoarSpear]

http://www.realfighting.com/1102/KeatingART.html

[thekuntawman]

Keating
Well that pisses me off, cause I'm 6'-2", I have reddish hair, I'm damn good with a stick and a knife, better than a lot of Filipino masters but people ignore me. If I was 5'-1" born in the Philippines I would be world famous by now.

Keating
Exactly, hacking and madman slashing, there was no sophistication until they met up with the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Dutch. These Europeans taught them about the western superiority of the point the hard way.

We can't change history, the facts are the facts, and when some group says, oh no, we had this before, well why isn't it pronounced in Tagalog, is there any reference in Tagalog, no there isn't, they used the proper Spanish term.

There's a guy in Southwest Arizona, he has taken plain old arnis, and he teaches it as La Azteca! La Azteca, the stick fighting art of the Aztecs. This guy is Spanish, and he says this is the art of my people and he discovered it.

The best way is to teach a solid program by using the truth. I cut the cultural shit out, I cut any racial bias out, and just said, here we are, men with two arms and two legs and an edged weapon.

And that's the bottom line, and you can solve so many problems this way. It gets down to, this time this moment, not what they did 100 years ago, but right now, and by God, if we're not in tune with right now today, then we've blown it, we may know everything there is about the way the samurai did it but it doesn't mean a thing.

RF
Well the samurai's prowess is so over exaggerated. There was a noted story about a cabin boy on a Portuguese ship in the 16th Century that landed in Japan to sell guns, with only one year of haphazard training in European fencing, killed a skilled Japanese pirate (and former samurai). Take a look at Japanese armor in any major museum, the majority of these guys were very short, some of this armor was made for someone who was not that much taller than 5'-0". Take a look at the European armor; the northern Europeans were tall, even by today's standards, If the samurai would have seen them en masse on the battlefield, they would have pissed in their hakama's. Size matters in all things.


wow, looks like a conversation between two boys who never got good at martial arts, so all asian martial arts must suck. please dont insult our intelligence with idiots like this.

[thekuntawman]

RF
I took Pekiti-tiersa years ago, I liked it; it's a very fast style, but it's got a lot of crap in it too.

Keating
Laughter...this is what I've done; I've taken Pekiti-tiersa and modified it, I agree with you, so you don't have to do a lot of the crap. I basically want the high-speed effectiveness and that's what we've got. So again in my opinion, as far as self-defense, close quarter, against any situation, the reverse grip is one of the best. But if we're talking about two men with knives squaring off amongst each other, oh hell no, get your knife out of reverse grip, get into regular grip, it is not a knife fighting method.

RF
Well that whole thing karate stylists do with breaking inanimate objects is just silly, and I can talk about it because I spent a great part of my life doing all styles of karate, from Korean, to Okinawan, to Japanese. And the funny thing is, it doesn't help your fighting ability one percent. I think Robert Smith said that Mas Oyama was a wreck from all that breaking.

Keating
Oh yeah, Oyama was a classic case of woe and sorrow because he was a man that went around breaking boards, stones, ice and killing animals…

RF
You mean sickly animals…

Keating
Yeah, and at the end of his life, he was a total cripple, he could hardly walk, his hands and feet looked more like the stones he had been breaking, you cannot destroy your body.

Man is tool-using being, and if for some reason I have to use my teeth or bash something with my hand, like a walnut or a coconut to open it, then I'm just a stupid son of a bitch I'm not a tough guy, cause all I have to do is pick up a tool and go boom, and my hand is fine.

I never understood the Japanese, Korean and Chinese fighting systems; these systems have a penchant for leaning towards self-destruction. If we were looking at this in Mexico, it would be called "Machismo," meaning in order to show you I am a man, and have a lot of balls, I'm going to beat myself up, and cut myself up, and won't that impress you. Well in Asia it does, but in the western world we say, "why is he doing that, doesn't that hurt, and won't that **** him up forever?" Oh yeah, but it's their way of doing things, this is one of the things behind, oh, I'll commit hara-kiri, or I'll die for the emperor…why waste the warrior?

This is a ridiculous thing; you know I haven't trained 30 years of my life to throw it away in combat. This futility in some Asian arts based on ancestor worship, that somehow it's honorable to go out and throw my life away. Well, I'm totally against that, because I train so I that won't throw my life away. This is what I personally disagree with that whole morbid aspect and devotion to the daimyo. This caused me a lot of grief in my Asian martial art days, I'm much happier fitting into the western styles.

guys like this still teach the "silly asian martial arts", but they are calling it european. reminds me of GIs in the philippines who hated "poddys", but loved our women.

[Sun_Helmet]

Keating
Exactly, hacking and madman slashing, there was no sophistication until they met up with the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Dutch. These Europeans taught them about the western superiority of the point the hard way.

We can't change history, the facts are the facts, and when some group says, oh no, we had this before, well why isn't it pronounced in Tagalog, is there any reference in Tagalog, no there isn't, they used the proper Spanish term.


This is completely false.
Spain acknowledged the skill of the Filipinos in their journals.
There is no documented account of Spanish winning a SINGLE battle against Filipino natives utilizing their sword skills ALONE.

By the time Spain reached the Philippines, the transition to pike and guns was already well underway.

Unless they are teaching pike and shot tactics, this is a complete revision of what actually happened.

As for the Tagalog language, Keating is again misinformed; the earliest terms for warfare and weapons used by the natives were closer to Sanskrit. He is confusing the cultural fluidity of one segment of the island's population (there's many Philippine islands and dialects who do not use Spanish terms) with the origin of the weaponry and tactics.

Historian William Henry Scott wrote, "Prior to Spanish arrival the native Philippine languages had more words for the tactics of war than of commerce. " Evidence that Filipinos knew the ways of war. Indigenous Intertribal war, Chinese and Muslim influence, Malay and Hindu.

In 1610 a Tagal printer named Tomas Pinpin devised a way to alleviate the shock of the Castilian language. In hopes that his people would better understand the Spaniard from the INSIDE, expose and take away their secret alien speech. He printed the first book of translation and lesson for the Tagal reader. Pinpin believed that to be able to engage in a linguistic exchange with the Spanish is to take away the fear. Tagals could better gauge Spanish intentions. Vincente wrote, " Tagalogs such as Pinpin would thus have at their disposal a way to inoculate themselves against the larger shock of conquest." The Filipino immunization from within began and through time the Tagals were now in control of their own secret language. They knew the enemy's thoughts while the enemy was lulled into thinking they would stand to rule forever.

Thus, when a Filipino references 'espada y daga' - it is of course in the Spanish mentality pre-1900 to assume they are speaking of the same thing- that all it's elements originate from their own, all it's methodology pure Castilian (what would the Spain's own conquerors the Moors say?).*

Of course! And the Tagal smiles and walks on.

The Spanish were intrigued by the island's unique array of weapon designs that they catalogued them in their weapons museums as early as the 1800's.


The FACTS truly are the FACTS.

"We fear them more than we do the Spanish"
Lieutenant Geo. F. Teller, 2nd regiment INFTY, OR USV
Stationed in Cavite July 18, 1898

--Rafael--
Sayoc Kali

"..awaken your consciousness of our past, already effaced from our memory, and to rectify what has been falsified and slandered."
Jose Rizal, from his 1889 essay, ' To The Filipinos '

[Black Grass]

It reminds me of how England conquered the USA, after all they speak english in the US don't they!!!

Vince

[haumana2000]

First of all it is staggering how much keating and "custer" look alike. Second of all it represents the norm for his "type" as demonstrated by any other time these guys see something they can capitalize and corner for their own agenda. This holds true whether it is mineral rights and oil deposits in an overseas country, prime sea port real estate in the philippines or guam, business interests as in the overthrow and takeover of Hawaii, or any other time these guys historically see an opportunity to self serve their own agendas. All packaged as a western "innovation".

Too bad

[george stando]

SunHelmet,
once again thanks for sharing the wonderful insights. Its one of the reasons I come on to read your stuff, it spurs alot of thought and further research.
George

[Limbas]

James Keating must be a bit touch in the head if he thinks that by speaking like this he will get the respect he wants.Surely he won't get it from Filipino and non-filipino FMAers.