How does your Arnis class differ from Modern Arnis or Arnis de Leon?
A. I am not a robot and cannot do things in exactly the way the professor did or in how GM deLeon does. Professor Presas taught in a number of different ways with the name Modern Arnis and changed some of what he was doing over the years. Mainly he taught in seminar settings, so there wasn’t much structure in terms of belt ranks and skill levels. Grandmaster de Leon has it set up in a more structured way, and my curriculum is very close to his, but I am teaching arnis in a more conceptual fashion. My arnis is certainly based on what I learned directly from Professor Presas and Grandmaster de Leon, but has also had indirect influence from Dan Inosanto, the Dog Brothers, Mike Inay, and others.
A. I am not a robot and cannot do things *exactly* the way the professor did or in how GrandMaster deLeon does. Professor Presas taught in a number of different ways under the name Modern Arnis and changed some of what he was doing over the years. Mainly he taught in seminar settings, so there wasn’t much structure in terms of belt ranks and skill levels. Grandmaster de Leon has it set up in a more structured way, and my curriculum is very close to his, but I am teaching Arnis in a more conceptual fashion. My arnis is certainly based on what I learned directly from Professor Presas and Grandmaster de Leon, but has also had indirect influence from Dan Inosanto, the Dog Brothers, Mike Inay, and others. And of course it is also influenced by my backgrounds in Hapkido and Taekwondo. It is not, however, a mixture of Arnis and Hapkido; they are separate arts with different approaches and flavors. There are many positives to cross-training, but when mixing in techniques from other sources the
