Kombatan (Presas Arnis)
Ernesto Presas's Filipino system joining stick, sword and dagger, knife and empty hand in one scheme of angles.
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PhilippinesCharacter & Origin
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About Kombatan (Presas Arnis)
Kombatan is a Filipino fighting system assembled by Ernesto Amador Presas (1945-2010), the younger brother of Remy Presas, the founder of Modern Arnis. Ernesto Presas taught from the 1960s under the name Arnis de Mano and helped bring arnis into the physical-education programmes of Manila universities; he adopted the name Kombatan for his system in the late 1980s, though the sources give no exact year and this page therefore does not state one. The umbrella body is the International Philippine Martial Arts Federation, which Presas founded and which operates in more than thirty countries. The syllabus starts with the single rattan stick, solo baston, and moves on to the pair of sticks, doble baston, to the sword and dagger combination espada y daga, to knife work and to empty hands. It is precisely the empty-hand approach, mano mano, that is Presas's chief contribution: punches, elbows and knees, forearm blocks, wrist and elbow locks and takedowns derived from the movement of the sticks, together with the Filipino grappling dumog. Characteristic is a training scheme in which the same angle of attack is practised in turn with the stick, with the blade and unarmed, so that the technique carries across the tools. Since Presas's death the system has divided into several lines led by his students and sons.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.