Filipino martial arts (FMA) refer to ancient and newer modified fighting methods devised in the Philippines. It incorporates elements from both Western and Eastern Martial Arts; the most popular forms of which are known as Arnis, Eskrima, and Kali. The intrinsic need for self-preservation was the genesis of these systems. Throughout the ages, invaders and evolving local conflict imposed new dynamics for combat in the islands now making up the Philippines. The Filipino people developed battle skills as a direct result of an appreciation of their ever-changing circumstances. They learned, often, out of necessity on how to prioritize, allocate and use common resources in combative situations. Filipinos have been heavily influenced by a phenomenon of cultural and linguistic mixture. Some of the specific mechanisms responsible for cultural and martial change extended from phenomena such as war, political and social systems, technology, and trade and practicality.
Arnis, also known as kali or eskrima/escrima, is the national martial art of the Philippines. These three terms are, sometimes, interchangeable in referring to traditional martial arts of the Philippines, which emphasize weapon-based fighting with sticks, knives, bladed weapons, and various improvised weapons, as well as "open hand" techniques without weapons.
Aurora, officially the Province of Aurora, is a province in the Philippines located in the eastern part of Central Luzon region, facing the Philippine Sea. Its capital is Baler and borders, clockwise from the south, the provinces of Quezon, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, and Isabela. Maria Aurora is the only landlocked town in the province and yet, the most populous. It is the only province in Central Luzon that has no chartered cities.
Baler, officially the Municipality of Baler, is a 3rd class municipality and capital of the province of Aurora, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 43,785 people.
The kampilan is a type of single-edged sword, traditionally used by various ethnic groups in the Philippine archipelago. It has a distinct profile, with the tapered blade being much broader and thinner at the point than at its base, sometimes with a protruding spikelet along the flat side of the tip. The design of the pommel varies between ethnic groups, but it usually depicts either a buaya (crocodile), a bakunawa, a kalaw (hornbill), or a kakatua (cockatoo)..
A bolo is a general term for traditional pre-colonial small- to medium-sized single-edged swords or large knives of the Philippines that function both as tools and weapons. Bolos are characterized by a wide curved blade that narrows down to the hilt, and that comes with a pointed or a blunt tip. Bolos are used as tools in the Philippines and are sometimes compared to machetes.
The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera in northern Luzon, Philippines, often referred to by the exonym Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples, are an ethnic group composed of nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains are in the Cordillera Mountain Range, altogether numbering about 1.8 million people in the early 21st century.
Modern Arnis is the system of Filipino fighting arts founded by Remy Presas as a self-defense system. His goal was to create an injury-free training method as well as an effective self-defense system in order to preserve the older Arnis systems. The term Modern Arnis was used by Remy Presas' younger brother Ernesto Presas to describe his style of Filipino martial arts; since 1999 Ernesto Presas has called his system Kombatan. It is derived principally from the traditional Presas family style of the Bolo (machete) and the stick-dueling art of Balintawak Eskrima, with influences from other Filipino and Japanese martial arts.
Doce Pares is a Filipino martial art and a form of Arnis, Kali and Eskrima, that focuses primarily on stick fighting, knife fighting and hand-to-hand combat but also covers grappling and other weapons as well. In reality, the stick is merely considered an extension of the hand, and is meant to represent almost any weapon, from sticks to swords to knives to anything else you can place in your hand and use as a weapon in the modern context. Doce Pares was founded in 1932.
Kombatan is a Filipino martial arts system. The founder of the system was GGM Ernesto Amador Presas. The current head of the system is Ernesto Presas Jr. The style is known for its double stick techniques, but it features other stick and blade techniques, as well as empty-hand methods.
The Philippines is inhabited by more than 182 ethnolinguistic groups, many of which are classified as "Indigenous Peoples" under the country's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Traditionally-Muslim peoples from the southernmost island group of Mindanao are usually categorized together as Moro peoples, whether they are classified as Indigenous peoples or not. About 142 are classified as non-Muslim Indigenous people groups, and about 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither Indigenous nor Moro. Various migrant groups have also had a significant presence throughout the country's history.
The Pangasinan people, also known as Pangasinense, are an ethnolinguistic group native to the Philippines. Numbering 1,823,865 in 2010, they are the tenth largest ethnolinguistic group in the country. In the 2020 census Pangasinan speaking households made up roughly 1.3% of Phillipine households. They live mainly in their native province of Pangasinan and the adjacent provinces of La Union and Tarlac, as well as Benguet, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, and Nueva Vizcaya. Smaller groups are found elsewhere in the Philippines and worldwide in the Filipino diaspora.
Antonio "Tatang" Ilustrisimo was the Grandmaster of Kalis Ilustrisimo (KI), a Filipino martial art bearing his family name.
Kalis Ilustrisimo is a style of Eskrima founded by Antonio "Tatang" Ilustrisimo.
The Bontoc ethnolinguistic group can be found in the central and eastern portions of Mountain Province, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. Although some Bontocs of Natonin and Paracelis identify themselves as Balangaos, Gaddangs or Kalingas, the term "Bontoc" is used by linguists and anthropologists to distinguish speakers of the Bontoc language from neighboring ethnolinguistic groups. They formerly practiced head-hunting and had distinctive body tattoos.
Suntukan is the fist-related striking component of Filipino martial arts. In the central Philippine island region of Visayas, it is known as Pangamot or Pakamot and Sumbagay. It is also known as Mano-mano and often referred to in Western martial arts circles of Inosanto lineage as Panantukan. Although it is also called Filipino Boxing, this article pertains to the Filipino martial art and should not be confused with the Western sport of boxing as practiced in the Philippines.
Anito, also spelled anitu, refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities in the Indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial age to the present, although the term itself may have other meanings and associations depending on the Filipino ethnic group. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the taotao, made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. Anito is also sometimes known as diwata in certain ethnic groups.
