Program · Modern Arnis · Kali · Eskrima · Kalis Ilustrisimo
Filipino
Martial Arts.
Weapons systems admired around the world for their efficacy with sticks and blades of all sizes — and for empty-hand disarms against weapons of all kinds. Modern Arnis at Lakan rank, awarded in 2001 by the late Grandmaster Remy Presas himself, plus the Inosanto Blend of Kali and Kalis Ilustrisimo. Training since 1991.
1991
Training FMA Since
Lakan
Modern Arnis Black Belt
2001
Lakan, Ranked by Presas
3
Distinct FMA Systems
2011
Featured Guest, Arnis Camp
Why FMA
The weapons gap in your training is bigger than you think.
Most self-defense curricula treat weapons as an advanced topic and give them a couple of hours. That’s backwards. Weapons are common, they change every calculation, and defending against one is a genuinely different skill from defending against a fist — not a variation on it.
Filipino Martial Arts are the world’s most developed answer to that problem. Centuries of refinement around the blade and the stick, with a training methodology that gets people functional with a weapon in their hand remarkably fast, and then works backward to the empty-hand-against-weapon problem from a position of actual understanding.
There’s a second, less obvious reason to train FMA: it is the best attribute training in the martial arts. The stick work builds hand speed, timing, coordination, and left-right integration that transfer directly into everything else you do. Boxers, grapplers, and Krav Maga students who add FMA get noticeably faster hands.
And it’s a joy to train. The drills are rhythmic, cooperative, endlessly scalable, and unlike anything else you’ve done.
What you can train here
- Single stick — the classic entry point. Angles, disarms, and the flow drills FMA is known for.
- Double stick — coordination work that rewires how your hands cooperate.
- Stick and dagger, and knife — edged-weapon awareness, use, defense, and retention.
- Long blade — Kalis Ilustrisimo material with real depth.
- Empty hand vs. weapon — the reason most people come, approached from a foundation of understanding the weapon.
- Panantukan, Dumog, & Empty-Hand FMA — Filipino boxing, trapping, and limb destruction.
“Weapons systems admired around the world for their efficacy with sticks and blades of all sizes, as well as empty hand disarms against weapons of all kinds.”
Modern Self-Defense Center
Lineage
Three systems, three real sources.
Filipino Martial Arts is a broad family, and credentials in it are frequently vague. Ours aren’t.
Since 1991
Modern Arnis
Lakan — Black Belt
Lakan awarded in 2001 under Professor Remy Presas, the late founder and Grandmaster of Modern Arnis, along with Professor Lee Lowery and Master Brian Zawilinski, through the International Modern Arnis Federation. Training began in 1991 — ten years. 2001 was the final year of Presas’s life, which makes rank awarded directly by him a closed set.
In 2011 Chris Martell was a featured guest instructor at the New England Modern Arnis Camp — an invitation, not a registration.
Inosanto Blend of Kali
Level 1 FMA Instructor
Certified in 2011 under Professor Roy Harris, Harris International, after eight years of training. The Inosanto Blend is the most widely-taught Kali curriculum in the world, developed by Guro Dan Inosanto — Bruce Lee’s training partner and the bridge between FMA and Jeet Kune Do.
This is also why the JKD program and the FMA program reinforce each other here.
Kalis Ilustrisimo
Direct study with Mang Romy Macapagal
Kalis Ilustrisimo is a rare and highly regarded blade system. MSDC hosted Mang Romy Macapagal for training opportunities that were genuinely uncommon in the United States — and that material is part of this program.
Additional shorter study in Sayoc Kali.
Progression
What the first few months look like.
FMA has an unusually fast on-ramp. A stick in your hand is a great teacher.
Angles of attack and basic strikes
A small set of angles organizes almost everything in the system. Within one lesson you’ll be striking with structure and moving with intent.
Blocking, checking, and the first drills
The rhythmic partner drills FMA is famous for. They look impressive quickly, which is fun — but their real function is building timing and sensitivity under continuous motion, as they ramp up towards sparring and other functional training quickly
Disarms and locks
Taking the weapon rather than just surviving it. This is where the empty-hand-against-weapon material starts to make sense, because now you understand what the weapon can and can’t do.
Blade work and the shift in mindset
A blade is not a short stick, and training it changes how you think about distance and contact permanently. Edged-weapon awareness is the single most useful thing many people take from FMA.
Empty hand, and transfer back to everything else
Panantukan, trapping, and limb destruction — plus the point where clients notice their boxing, their grappling entries, and their Krav Maga reflexes have all quietly gotten sharper.
FMA questions
Common ones.
Is stick fighting actually relevant to modern self-defense?
More than most people expect. Improvised impact tools are everywhere — an umbrella, a flashlight, a bottle, a bag. But the stronger argument is transfer: FMA’s angles, timing, and coordination work make your empty-hand skill better, and its blade material addresses a real threat that most curricula handle badly. Also, honestly: it’s just a ton of fun.
Do I need to buy equipment?
Not to start — we’ll provide training sticks for your first lessons. If you continue, a pair of rattan sticks and a training blade is an inexpensive purchase and we’ll point you to good sources with no markup from us.
Is it safe? It looks like people getting hit with sticks.
It’s safe the way we run it. Contact and speed are controlled and scaled deliberately, and protective equipment is used when intensity increases. Safe training is a design constraint at MSDC, not a compromise.
Can I learn just the weapon defense, not the whole system?
Absolutely. Plenty of clients book a focused block of private lessons purely on edged-weapon defense, disarms, or retention — sometimes for professional reasons. You don’t have to enroll in a system to solve a specific problem.
Is there rank in FMA at MSDC?
Modern Arnis has a rank structure and progression is available through it — your instructor holds Lakan rank awarded in 2001 by Grandmaster Remy Presas. Kali and Kalis Ilustrisimo material follows instructor-level progressions; the Level 1 Filipino Martial Arts instructor certification was awarded in 2011. As with all our programs, you’re welcome to pursue rank or skip it entirely.
Put a stick in your hand
and see what happens.
One private lesson. We’ll bring the sticks.