Modern Arnis
A Filipino stick-fighting system that Remy Presas arranged so it could be taught in a school class. The movement stays the same with or without the stick.
Quick Facts
PhilippinesCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Modern Arnis
About Modern Arnis
Modern Arnis is a Filipino stick-fighting system arranged by Remy Presas, who lived from 1936 to 2001. Presas came from the island of Negros, grew up in a family tradition of arnis and added to it the judo and karate he practised in his youth. From that combination came a system whose aim was not to create a new school but to rescue an art that was declining in its own country. Presas wanted to bring arnis into Philippine schools as a national sport, and to do so he had to present it intelligibly and safely: he introduced an order of instruction, grades, and drills that can be taught to a class. He began teaching in 1957 in Bacolod and later founded his own federation. The basis is the single stick, solo baston, about seventy centimetres long. Practice covers strikes along fixed angles, blocks, disarms and the passage from the stick to the empty hand, since the movement stays the same even when the stick is missing. Characteristic is tapi-tapi, a flowing paired drill in which every answer breeds a further answer and the student learns to read movement by touch rather than by sight. Two sticks, doble baston, and forms called anyo are practised as well. Presas's motto was that arnis is the art within your art: the student is not to set aside what he already knows but to put arnis into it. In 1975 Presas moved to the United States and from there spread the system to Europe. Since his death several organisations have continued side by side.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.