PTI Blog

  • MODERN TRAINING TIME: HOW FAST VS HOW MUCH

    by Bill McGrath
    Grand Tuhon Gaje would often tell the story of how he began Pekiti-Tirsia training at the age of six, under his maternal grandfather Conrado Tortal. Conrado began young Leo’s training with three long years of footwork. Conrado started Leo on a rickety old table in the home, moving in forward and reverse triangles, while his grandfather tapped his leg with a stick at the apex of the movement to get him to move faster. After a few weeks of this Conrado moved his grandson to training on the halves of three coconut shells, while stepping with only one foot at a time on each shell.
    Posted in Training

  • Big Blades for your family’s Get Home Bags.

    by Bill McGrath
    Choosing a blade for your own emergency bag should be fairly easy job: but what if you need to choose blades for the rest of your family? Here are my choices for my own family and how I made the decision on each one.
    Posted in Survival

  • THREE NEW PTI TUHONS!

    by Bill McGrath
    Three longtime Pekiti-Tirsia instructors have been promoted to the rank of Tuhon by Tuhon Mike Popolizio. Read their martial arts biographies belo...

  • CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT GRIP

    by Bill McGrath
    Back in the 1970s, when I first started learning Pekiti-Tirsia knife work, Tuhon Gaje had us do many exercises to strengthen our grip. Things like doing push ups while holding our rattan sticks with the butt end braced on the floor, as well as striking and thrusting our sticks full power into a stack of car tires.
    Posted in Training

  • HOW TO FIND YOUR PERSONAL FIGHTING STYLE

    by Bill McGrath

    While a fighter needs to know just a few good techniques that work for him and his own fighting style, a teacher needs to know many more techniques, since he can’t predict what type of fighter will come train with him.

    Here are a few ways to help your students refine their personal fighting style and which techniques, tactics and principles best fit that style.

    Posted in Training

  • HOW TO HIT HARD

    by Bill McGrath
    ( In this article I will discuss how to train using equipment such as the tire stack, heavy bag and focus mitts and which weapons are best trained on each training tool )
    Posted in focus mitts, hitting heavy bag, Training

  • PTI FOUNDATIONAL DOCUMENTS

    by Bill McGrath

    Several PDFs and JPEGs of important PTI documents did not make it over to the new web service when we had to change services this September. Here are some of them all in one spot for ease of viewing. 

    Posted in Organization

  • PEKITI-TIRSIA INTERNATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT

    by Bill McGrath
    There are No Secret Techniques in PTI: If all techniques are listed in the course outline it keeps the instructors honest. An instructor cannot say to a student “Do this for me (pay for private lessons/bring a large group to my seminar/etc) and I will teach you these secret techniques.”
    Posted in Organization

  • HOW TO AVOID BECOMING A “KNIFE CULT”

    by Bill McGrath
    Knife work is inherently "dark" and it is all too easy for your students to go over to "The Dark Side" while training in it. While I want my students to take their training seriously (and the consequences of their actions VERY seriously), I don't want them to take themselves or even me too seriously. Here is the danger I am trying to avoid. What should be a defensive tactics class that simply focuses on one practical defensive tool, can easily be turned into "The Cult of the Knife.”
    Posted in knife fighting, Training

  • KARAMBITS & MAGIC SWORDS

    by Bill McGrath

    “Smell the blade.” said my Indonesian Penchak Silat instructor, Suryadi “Crazy Eddie” Jafri.

    “Why?” I replied, not understanding what this had to do with the question I had asked him.

    “Billy, just smell the blade.”

    Eddie had given me a small Indonesian knife, with a pistol grip and a 3 inch, leaf shaped blade of black damascus steel. It had a strange, elongated hole that looked to be deliberately forged into the center of the blade. The whole thing was small enough to fit into the palm of my hand.

    Posted in karambit, knife fighting, silat

  • SURVIVAL DRILLS – BEYOND SPARRING

    by Tuhon McGrath
    Basic symmetrical sparring, with two evenly matched opponents, each using the same evenly matched weapon, is a great way to introduce students to m...
    Posted in Training

  • LEARNING THROUGH COMPARISONS VS. RULES (and how to combine them)

    by Bill McGrath
      I read an interesting article several years ago on an experiment computer scientists did to test an artificial intelligence program. The scienti...
    Posted in Training