Jeff Finder introduced me to Sonny Umpad in the early 1990's and when I was on the receiving end of the "centerline roll" I found it very,very effective. It was a unique enough technique that it was real eye opener to many when I presented it to various members of the Inosanto instructors group.
It uses a single reference chambering point, one stick under each armpit with the arms crossed, to respond to ANY siniwalli attack. This will confuse anybody used to standard drills, and probably does the same in combat. Good stuff.
Tom Meadows
This concept sounds great! I do a very, very simplified version of this in single stick with all my back-hand angles (fulcruming off my live hand/forearm). I was wondering if you knew of any clips online, videos, books etc on this? I'm trying to get my head around this and would really love to see this in action and/or go to a seminar where it is included.
Thank you in advance and thanks for a fun blog to read.
-Brian
The fulcrum is probably more common in single stick than double. Some arts emphasize it more, some practitioners find it more useful than others. Sonny has developed it to a pretty high degree, especially in regards to double weapons (stick or blade). BTW, Wade Williams, one of my seniors in Serrada and one of the top practitioners, IMHO, left a comment about training with Sonny in the guestbook.
FYI, there Sonny did a book on Balisong with his student Gary Cagaanan and written by Sid Campbell. It's still in print. Those other names will show up first in an Amazon.com search, but it's Sonny's material.
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