School of Sword & Dagger

28/08/2026

ARMAS
Same blade, same principle. But let's be honest, it's not that simple.
Distance management sounds easy to say and hard to live. In a real exchange there's no clean rhythm like what you drill in the gym. May takot, may adrenaline, may kaba na hindi mo ma control. The moment steel is involved, even trained hands hesitate for a split second, and that split second is where people get cut.
That's why we don't sugarcoat it sa AKS. Whether it's a bolo or a knife, the body doesn't automatically know what to do just because you watched a video or drilled a pattern twice. It takes repetition under pressure, hundreds of reps, para pumasok sa katawan yung tamang reaction bago pumasok ang takot. Even then, walang guarantee. What training gives you is a better chance, not a certainty.
This reel isn't about making it look easy. It's about showing the work it actually takes so that when the moment comes, the body has something real to draw from instead of panic.

Instructor J**s Jayme, based in Las Vegas, started as a student in this system and now teaches it himself, proof that what the body learns, it eventually passes on.

26/08/2026

SELF-DEFENSE: WHERE PROTECTION ENDS AND VIOLENCE BEGINS
By Maestro Fernando B**g Abenir

I'm not a lawyer, so take this as general knowledge, not legal advice for a specific case. But here's how it works, laid out plain para maintindihan natin lahat.

"Why violence sometimes answers violence"
A civilized society doesn't ban all force. It bans force without reason. When someone attacks you and there's no time to call police, no time to run, the law recognizes that you have the right to protect your life, your family, your property, right there in that moment. That's not chaos. That's the law drawing a line: force is allowed only to stop harm, not to deliver punishment.
There's an old saying that fits here perfectly, better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. Meaning it's better to face a court afterward, if it comes to that, than to end up dead because you hesitated when you shouldn't have.

When it's justified (self defense under Philippine law)
Three things have to be true at the same time:
1. There was unlawful aggression. Someone was actually attacking you or about to attack you right then. A threat from yesterday doesn't count. A dirty look doesn't count.
2. What you did to stop it was reasonably needed. If a slap would have stopped him, you don't get to break his arm. If a knife was already out and coming at you, more force is allowed because the danger was bigger.
3. You didn't provoke it. If you started the fight or egged him on, self defense becomes harder to claim, sometimes impossible.
If all three are true, the law is on your side. Same logic applies to defending your family or your property, slight differences in detail, same core principle: stop the threat, don't punish the person.

When it's not justified
1. The attack already stopped and you kept hitting. That's no longer defense, that's retaliation.
2. You had a clear chance to walk away and chose to fight instead, out of ego, not necessity.
3. You escalate far beyond what the threat called for. Someone pushes you, you pull a blade. The law will not protect that.
4. You go looking for the fight, or you finish what could have ended peacefully because you wanted to teach a lesson.
Once the danger is gone, your right to use force is gone with it. Whatever happens after that is on you, not on him.

The warning, and this is the important part
This is exactly what AKS teaches and what I want any serious practitioner to carry. "Skill in fighting is not permission to fight." The knife, the stick, the empty hand, these are for when there is no other option left. The moment you start looking for a reason to use what you trained, you've already failed the training.

A "no thought of stopping, only the kill, a mind that knows how to end but never how to hold back" mentality, turns a martial artist into exactly what the law and what Kapwa Tao stands against, someone who uses power without restraint, without honor, without judgment. Real skill shows in the fight you walked away from, not the one you won.

Train hard, stay ready, but the goal is always peace kept, not violence proven.

Kaiingat kayo.

25/08/2026

"Why Everyone Deserves to Defend Themselves: An Honest Take on Self-Defense vs. Combat Sports"
By Fernando B**g Abenir
Here's the truth I tell every new student, and I say it as someone who's competed and coached, not someone who read about it online: self-defense training matters more than combat sports, for one simple reason. Most people will never be athletes. Most people don't even want to be. And that's completely fine, because everyone still deserves to know how to protect themselves.
I spent years in the competitive world. I know what it costs: the weight cuts, the camps, dragging yourself out of bed at 5am to hammer the pads until your arms and legs feel like overcooked noodles. That world builds real athletes, and I have deep respect for it. But let's be honest, only a small percentage of any population has the time, the body, or the desire for that kind of commitment. You can't hand a 55 year old accountant or a college kid working three jobs a fight camp schedule and expect it to fit their life. Nobody's got time for that, and nobody should have to earn the right to defend themselves.
Self-defense is everybody's business. No exceptions. Ito ang karapatan ng lahat, this is everyone's right. You don't need a six pack or a training camp to deserve the right to protect yourself, your family, your peace of mind walking to your car at night. That's not a luxury for athletes. That's a basic right.
Combat sports build genuinely good things too. Years of sparring forge real cardio, real timing, and a certain tibay ng loob, an inner toughness, that comes from getting hit and not falling apart. If you've competed, you've been pressure tested in a way a lot of self-defense students haven't, and that's a fair point worth respecting.
Where combat sports fall a little short for real world defense is simple: they're built on rules, a referee, a bell, and an opponent who showed up by agreement. Real violence doesn't send an invite. There's no "teka lang, wait, let me set my stance" moment when someone ambushes you outside a sari-sari store, sa jeep, sa kalsada, sa eskinita. That structured environment, while great for competition, can leave gaps if it's never adapted to chaos, multiple attackers, or someone pulling a blade instead of throwing a jab.
Self-defense training has its own blind spot too, one I remind my students of constantly: if every session is compliant drilling, your partner standing there like a well behaved mannequin waiting to be disarmed, you're building confidence in a fantasy, not real skill. The body doesn't care how clean your technique looks against a cooperative partner. It cares how you react when your heart is pounding and your hands stop listening to you. That's why flinch based, ambush realistic training matters so much. You're training the gulat, the startle reflex, itself, not just memorizing a pattern and hoping panic skips you on the day it counts.
So here's my honest, balanced verdict after two decades on both sides of this: combat sports build incredible athletes. Self-defense protects everybody, walang kinikilingan, no exceptions. Give me one hour a week with the average person, and I'm not putting them in a competition camp. I'm teaching them how to survive the five seconds nobody sees coming, because that's the laban, the real fight, that matters for 99% of us.

20/08/2026

AKS Tarlac

The rain can flood the streets, but it cannot touch the fire in our grip—blade and stick don't know the weather, and neither does our discipline.⚔️

Abenir Kalis Filipino Fighting System
School of Sword & Dagger
Riecharge Fitness Center

19/08/2026

The Live Hand: Your Other Weapon in a Real Fight
By Fernando B**g Abenir

"Ang kamay na tulog, unang masusugatan." - bng abnr

Let's get one thing straight. In a real fight, there are no clean sinawali patterns or solo baston drills that look nice for an audience. There's no time to think about which sequence comes next. Someone lands on you or you land on them first. That's the whole equation.
So forget the pretty drills for a second. In a real fight, your live hand is not there to look good. It's there to keep you alive while your other hand does the damage.
Here's the brutal truth. The moment you're in a real confrontation, the opponent's other hand is a threat too, even if you don't see it right away. Maybe there's a knife in it. Maybe it's coming for your face while you're busy attacking their arm. If your live hand isn't already there checking, controlling, or blocking that second hand, you are one second away from getting stabbed or getting your head knocked back.
This is the part most people miss in training. The live hand isn't a reaction. It's not something you pull out after you notice a problem. It moves first, at the same time as your strike, sometimes even before it. You're not waiting to see what the other hand does. You're already occupying it, smashing it against their own body if you have to, pinning it so it physically cannot do anything to you. You are not being polite about it.
Same thing with disarms. On the street, a disarm isn't a cool move you show off later. It's you physically removing the one thing that could kill you in that moment. The live hand is what makes that possible, because it's already gripping, already controlling before the disarm even happens. Without that hand doing its job first, you don't get the disarm. You get cut trying.
There's also a part of this people don't talk about enough. Your live hand is your early warning system. It's touching the opponent, feeling their weight shift, feeling if they're loading up another strike or reaching for something on their waist. That contact tells you things your eyes can miss in a fast, chaotic fight. Fighters who train this well aren't just reacting to what they see. They're reacting to what they feel through that hand.
Now think about what happens if you fight with only one hand doing something. Pure weapon hand, dead hand just hanging there. You're fighting with half your body active against someone who's using their whole body against you. On the street, there's no crowd deciding who wins on points. Wala kayong extra time. It's just you and him, and whoever controls more of the fight survives it.
Now here's how you actually train it, straight advice, no shortcuts.
If your partner never feels your live hand during drills, you're training it wrong. Plain and simple. Your live hand should be an actual problem for your partner every single rep, not a hand that's just floating there for show.
Stick fighting drills.
Start with your basic solo baston, but give your partner a rule from day one. Every single pass, your live hand has to make contact and disrupt something. Not a light touch. A real check that pushes his structure, that stops his rhythm for a split second. If your partner says it's annoying, that he can't just flow through his patterns clean, good. That means it's working.
Move into "heavy hands" drilling. One person strikes with the stick, the other counters, but the live hand of the striker has to actively hunt for the partner's live hand or check hand every time. Make it a competition. Whoever's live hand controls the other's live hand first gets the advantage in that exchange. This forces both of you to stop treating the off hand as decoration.
Then add resistance. Your partner tries to strike you back immediately after you land your stick shot. Your job, live hand jams his answering strike before it even starts. He should feel like he can't get a clean counter off because your live hand keeps getting in the way. If he's frustrated, if he says "ang kulit ng kamay mo," that's exactly the feeling you're building for a real fight.
Instinctive Knife Defense drills.
This is where the live hand matters most, because a real blade doesn't care about your footwork if your hands aren't controlling it.
Start with limb destruction and control drills. Your partner throws a slow, committed thrust or slash with a training knife. The moment it comes in, your live hand doesn't just block. It grabs, it pins, it redirects the weapon hand somewhere it can't come back from immediately. Your partner should feel actively trapped, like his knife hand is stuck in cement for that second.
Then work the follow up. Once the live hand has control, your other hand strikes, disarms, or transitions to takedown. But the rule stays the same. The live hand doesn't let go until the threat is neutralized. If your partner can pull his knife hand free easily, your grip and control aren't real yet. Tighten it up.
Add flow drills where your partner attacks randomly, different angles, different speeds, and your live hand has to find and control the weapon hand every single time before your counter happens. No live hand contact, no counter allowed. That rule alone will fix bad habits fast.
Finally, drill it under pressure. Add some resistance, some speed, some noise, someone shouting instructions, whatever breaks the calm training environment. Your live hand needs to work when things get ugly and fast, not just in a quiet dojo with everybody moving slow and polite.
That's why you train it like it's real from day one. Every single strike you throw, your live hand should already be doing something. Checking. Trapping. Clearing a path. Setting up a disarm. No hesitation, no room to play around with it.
Because on the street, the guy who only remembers his live hand after he's already been stabbed doesn't get a second chance to fix that mistake. This is exactly how we breathe in our system. This is the AK way of training. Brutal, honest and straight to the point.

"The hand that sleeps, gets wounded first."- bng abnr

19/08/2026

10 Benefits of Learning Filipino Martial Arts (FMA)
1. Weapon and empty hand integration. FMA teaches stick, blade, and empty hand as one continuous skill set, so principles transfer across ranges.
2. Real world self defense focus. Many systems emphasize ambush realistic, flinch based responses rather than sport only techniques.
3. Sharpens reflexes and reaction time. Drilling against strikes and disarms builds fast, instinctive reactions.
4. Improves hand eye coordination. Stick and blade work demand precise timing and spatial awareness.
5. Builds situational awareness. Training conditions you to read distance, angles, and intent before a conflict starts.
6. Full body conditioning. Footwork, striking, and grappling elements give you cardio, coordination, and functional strength together.
7. Mental resilience. Sparring and pressure testing build composure under stress, useful well beyond the gym.
8. Rich cultural and historical depth. Many systems trace to real combative lineages, such as guerrilla era Philippine fighting traditions, giving practitioners context, not just technique.
9. Adaptable across skill levels and ages. Concepts like broken rhythm and structured drilling can be scaled for law enforcement, civilians, or older practitioners.
10. Community and mentorship. FMA culture often centers on direct lineage and personal transmission from teacher to student, building strong training relationships.

15/08/2026

REVERSE SWORD HOLD "Hawak Susi"
Tatang's Blade Fighting Method.

Abenir Blade Fighting Youtube Channel:
https://youtu.be/-UirG_4BKl4?si=njEHkvM-6UW-qL22

Maestro Fernando B**g Abenir

14/08/2026

HE GRABBED THE BLADE WITH HIS BARE HAND

"Dun na niya nakita ang buhay niya, sabi niya. Akala niya patay na siya."
"That's when his life flashed before him, he said. He thought he was already dead."

A student of mine went missing from class for a week. When he came back, he told me why.
He was a working student, school by day, taxi driver by night. One night two men hired his cab, told him to head for Pasay. Along the way, the man beside him pulled out a long kitchen knife and pressed it against his chest, cold metal through the thin fabric of his shirt. The one in the back seat held him down from behind.
They wanted his earnings. He gave it, no argument. But the one in front had other plans. He felt it in the air inside that cab, this wasn't going to end with just a robbery.
"Dun na niya nakita ang buhay niya, sabi niya. Akala niya patay na siya."
He grabbed the blade with his bare hand. That single move kept the point from going into his chest. The one in back kept hitting him. Hindi na niya iniisip ang technique. Ang laman lang ng isip niya, makauwi, makita ang pamilya niya.
He held on. At some point the knife snapped off its handle, maybe from the force, maybe just a cheap kitchen knife that gave out under the stress. The sound of it breaking was enough to send both men running.
He told me all this in class, then showed me the hospital report. A deep cut ran from his palm up his forearm, stitched closed but still raw. Paulit-ulit niya akong pinasalamatan, sabi niya ang natutunan niya sa PE class namin ang dahilan kung bakit siya nakauwi ng buhay.

That hand still drives a wheel today. Scarred, healed, still working.

Maestro Fernando B**g Abenir
Abenir Kalis System

13/08/2026

AKS Tarlac

Rainy night. Pushing cardio, locking down weapon control standing and on the ground. Slick conditions, zero excuses.
​

Abenir Kalis Filipino Fighting System
School of Sword & Dagger
Riecharge Fitness Center

12/08/2026

ESTRELLA TECHNIQUE
Tatang's Blade Fighting Method

Abenir Blade Fighting Youtube Channel:
https://youtu.be/-UirG_4BKl4?si=njEHkvM-6UW-qL22

Maestro Fernando B**g Abenir
Abenir Kalis System