06/25/2025
Well it's Wednesday and I made it home from the Flowin on the River Modern Arnis seminar. I had an awesome time getting to meet new people and make some new friends in the Modern Arnis world. Here is a quick review.
Friday night was a meet and greet type of event, the hotel had a large space out back that opened up onto the river offering a very relaxing communal space that encouraged us getting together and catching up.
Saturday morning started early with Datu Dieter Knüttel from Germany teaching on the basics or fundamentals of the Sinawali, the 12 count, and then the rolling punyos/butts, and how each of these components related to the Tapi Tapi drills found in Modern Arnis.
Bruce Chiu (with his son Chris Chiu) then taught playing off of the material Datu led with. Then we had lunch. All of the meals were held at the hotel and we gathered around the outdoor area or some headed back to their rooms to rest before the afternoon session began.
Datu then taught for a couple of hours semi building on the material from before teaching on the "Modern Principle" as it related to the "Modern Drill". Sound confusing it wasn't. The Modern Principle is the empty hand translation of Block Check Counter for the single stick and the Brush Grab Strike translation for empty hand. The Modern Drill is what many of us here in the states refer to as Empty Hand Tapi Tapi. For myself I enjoyed his instruction on this drill since I had just taught this myself, to my parent TKD organization and at the Presas Fusion seminar back in April. I enjoyed seeing how Datu presented the material since it gave me more ideas on how to teach it next time.
Bruce once again kind of played off on Datu's material adding his own twist to it, so that was fun. To be clear GM Bruce is perfectly fine teaching by himself; his kind of playing off of what Datu was teaching was by design since Datu was coming from Germany and he only comes to the USA every once in a while, Datu was given the majority of the teaching time. Bruce's playing off of his material gave us all a slightly wider and different viewpoint of the material allowing us to absorb and apply it quicker.
Saturday night we had BBQ pork and it was great. Once again served outside at the hotel. After dinner several of us gathered around the communal space and talked telling stories about Modern Arnis and FMA worlds
Sunday Datu opened up with teaching on different techniques/combinations found in the Tapi Tapi drills. He covered various locks and traps it was awesome. GM Bruce closed us out talking about and demoing how the 10 Principles of Small Circle Jujitsu relate or are found within Modern Arnis. It was a VERY enlighting session.
Then we all said our goodbyes and later days.
Over the years I have attended many many seminars generally focused on the FMAs. At last count pre Covid I was at 1000hrs+ on the mat at different seminars and camps. A few stand out more than others, this will be one of those seminars, not because of content, or who the presenters were, although that is important. Rather the overall experience largely due to the hotel and location which makes it memorable, but also due to the hosts bending over backwards to make sure that we had everything we needed as participants. For first time camp hosts they did an awesome job and I hope that this isn't their last. A big thank you to Jamie Byrd and Cameron Byrd.
