Pekiti Tirsia Kali Seminar Review with Meynard Ancheta

I want to thank my teacher Meynard Ancheta, and all the participants of this weekends Pekiti Tirsia Kali (PTK) seminar, for two wonderful days of training, learning, and growing!  Meynard continued our in depth study of the Doce Methodos "Twelve Methods" which are the foundation upon which all of PTK rests.   We had attendees from Oregon, British Columbia, and all over Washington state!

Using the five strikes as our base Meynard taught various drills from several of the methods where we worked from long range, to middle range, into close range.  We later took these individual drills and began working them into free flow technical sparring.  Meynard's emphasis of always sparring and testing our theories is a product of his teachers Leo Gaje and Tim Cartmell!

This visit by Meynard really helped solidify my understanding of the structure and curriculum of PTK.  This is the exact reason I have chosen to train under Ancheta, because the way he teaches makes sense to me since we come from the same teacher Tim Cartmell.  Many Kali teachers have no clue how to organize a lesson plan and lead a student down the right path, creating confusion, and eventually stagnation leading to frustration.  Though it seemed like a lot of information over the weekend, in reality Meynard did an excellent job weaving what we did not know into what we did know.

Three Harmonies Group

An interesting observation; by Sunday at 1pm I looked around the room and started to see the glossy glare of deer caught in headlights type of thousand yard stare.  For the most part (I can only speak for me and my students here) the physical part of the seminar was not really taxing, but the mental aspect of the training was COMPLETELY tiring!  I started to think about this, on Monday naturally (Sunday after the seminar my brain was completely fried!), and I wonder if because we are using both sides of our brain with Kali that we exhaust mentally so differently then other martial arts?  Something to observe and ponder at future events.

As I stated last fall when Meynard came for a seminar, I am so happy to be back training the Filipino martial arts again!  Not only are they challenging on a different level then all other martial systems, but PTK is so frickin' applicable it almost too simple!  I really enjoy learning about the Filipino culture, history and arts via Kali.  And lets face it... most of us "men" are really "kids" disguised as men, so when it comes to playing with weapons and pretending to attack a bunch of sword wielding zombies... well we are hard pressed not to enjoy playing!  Just wait until I show you all the beautiful Ginunting I got from Meynard!

Again thanks to all my students for attending, as well as our guests from out of town.  Thank you much to my awesome wife for everything!

Stay tuned to the Ground Never Misses for announcements on the first ever Pacific NW Pekiti  Tirsia Kali camp this summer!  Rumor has it we will focus on double stick methods and short staff work as well.

Train Hard.  Train Smart.
Jake

Cash Cab made an appearance, and Russ won a choke!