Woof G:
Tail wags for the kind words and sorry for the delay in my reply.
DBMA has as its mission "to walk as a warrior for all one's days". In no particular order, the main areas of the fighting portion of the system are:
1) Staff/Dos Manos
2) Double Stick
3) Single Stick (long & short is a subset thereof)
4) Knife
5) Empty hand.
Within Empty hand there are:
I.
a) Ritual young male hierarchical fights such as MMA/NHB/Cagefighting
b) Total fights-- a.k.a. Kali
II.
a) Free Striking (i.e. unencumbered by trappling/clinching/grappling)
b) Clinch/Striking
c) Ground/Striking
II is filtered through the matrix of I.
IMHO one of the lessons of the UFC is that it is easy to fool oneself by saying "My art is too deadly for competition." It may be true, but when it leads to lack of experience with the application of one's skills in the altered state, then there can be a real problem.
When Top Dog and I, joined by Salty Dog, founded the Dog Brothers an important element of our motivation was to test the propositions of what we had been taught.
Similary with DBMA I look to test the proposition that the empty hand is "just like the weapons". Although Kali is a war art and young male ritual hierarchical competition is not, I reject the notion that the difference between the two justifies the current absence of Kali from the cage. The question "Why don't we see Kali in the Cage?" must be answered I think-- i.e. there needs to be a subset to the system wherein in the context of martial sport the skills can be manifested. If we can't do this, we must carefully ask ourselves why.
Within the logic of DBMA, doublestick plays an important role for several reasons-- amongst them for the bilateralism of triangular footwork we seek to develop. With this skill set 'installed' (I like this Sayoc choice of word) the empty hand free striking game can be developed.
As a long-time student of Guro Inosanto, I have a vast repertoire of ideas from which to draw. In DBMA the principle arts are Kali (I note that we see boxing as a subset of kali and employ the more complete fighting method of Panantukan) KK (of which Muay Thai is a subset) and Silat.
When we founded the Dog Brothers in 1988 I was still young enough to personally test and prove ideas. Now, at 51, I am not. What to do?
For several months now I have been working out in Rico Chiapparelli's Vale Tudo class at the RAW Gym 2-3 times a week. This includes sparring. Most of the members of the class are pro-fighters and often I am but the fat kid who gets picked last. It is a quiet satisfaction of this "old man having a good time" when I can give some of these young studs a good sweat. In turn, they do not overwhelm me with youth and superior conditioning.
It is a blast!!! I go out there waving my arms like two sticks (especially the first time I go with people I some get really strange looks
) and have a good time. Often I go down in flames, but there are moments when certain ideas really come together.
It is in this context that I am testing and researching and developing the ideas that comprise the distinctive elements of the DBMA freestriking curriculum. I then share them with my students and have been pleased with the results so far. Lonely Dog manifests the material particularly well as does Jeff Brown and some others.
A similar process in involved with the ground/striking portion of the system, although the systems upon which we draw are a bit different.
Does this begin to answer your question?
Woof,
Guro Crafty
