Machete Injuries
As soon as Octavia and I moved out of our hotel in Pasay City last month, I began looking in earnest for a Pekiti-Tirsia Kali instructor. I was very lucky that a friend-of-a-friend used to be involved in the URCC (more or less the Filipino UFC), and that he very kindly introduced me to his old instructor.
Following a month of progressively harder training, and despite the fact that I had carefully taped my thumb and forefinger beforehand, after 300 full power strikes to a stack of tyres with a heavy baston, my hand is a mess of blisters 
Training Times
This isn’t a formal club, and training is at mutually convenient times in the instructor’s back yard. My hands can only hold up for a couple of hours at most, and my head is usually full to bursting with new information to process by then. I’m trying to make it twice a week, and leave enough time between visits to recover a little 
Lesson Structure
Even with the informal atmosphere, and the steep learning curve, each session builds carefully on the last. So far the two hours generally consists of an initial warm up, with many repetitions of basic strikes and footwork leading into a new technique or two for the day. After a short break, the middle part of the lesson works on variations of the day’s new techniques, first in the air, and then with a partner (either as a drill, or defending against multiple angles). The final part of the lesson works on conditioning and fitness, either sparring or striking a dummy or stack of tyres.
Students and Instructor
Often there are one or two other students already training when I arrive, or who turn up while I am training, and when that’s the case it’s always interesting to compare notes on our martial backgrounds. Just as often I’m lucky enough to have the entire two hours of one-on-one learning all to myself.
Because training is by invitation only, I feel extremely privileged to have the opportunity to train here; the structure reminds me very much of my Jeet Kune Do Sifu, Andre Martin, with his real world experience and no frills teaching style. After years of study with several Filipino Martial Arts, what he teaches can’t be pigeon-holed as a particular style or lineage… it is a combination of techniques and principles that he has successfully applied and refined in real combat.
Style and Techniques
As Andre had already begun to show me, FMA has techniques that can be applied with a variety of weapons, or even empty handed. Had I not known this when I started training here in Manila, I would likely have been a little perturbed when 30 minutes into my first lesson I had to swap my steel pipe for a machete (a blunt machete, but a real metal blade none-the-less) and execute the swings I had just been taught.
Pekiti-Tirsia Kali proper takes this idea to its logical conclusion, where the swings and angles are shown to work equally well, and be just as damaging to your opponent whether you’re armed with an Escrima baston, a pen knife, a chop stick or even just a cell phone.
What I’m learning isn’t just PTK though, as all the flamboyant moves have been discarded, and the emphasis is placed very strictly on effectiveness in combat. Though I hadn’t thought so previously, I’m coming around to the idea that even though you can strike your opponent extremely hard with a wooden stick, if you don’t hit a vulnerable spot then it’s very unlikely to end a fight. Especially if your attacker is pumped on adrenaline at the time. The antidote to this is to develop a hugely powerful swing, and the accuracy to repeatedly hit those vulnerable points with it.
And that, in turn, is why I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time killing tyres at the moment!