UNIFIED FIELD THEORY OF FMA FOOTWORK

I’ve been playing around for many years trying to draw a diagram with all the footwork patterns of Pekiti-Tirsia on a single grid. This experiment started after seeing so many FMA teachers adding various triangles, diamonds and other patterns to the floors of their schools to help their students understand FMA footwork. I thought it was a great idea and wondered if it might be a fun mental exercise to try and have as many patterns as possible within a single framework. Call it my Unified Field Theory of FMA/PT footwork.

Here is the original footwork pattern sheet from the PTI website:

My UFT pattern starts with the ranging footwork (The red “X” with horizontal stroke) and adds a diamond pattern (blue lines) all of which is inside a large box pattern ( Green lines). The small grey box shows a short step distance within the patterns, while the full lines are the steps at their furthest reach. The “O” at the top of the pattern marks your opponent, while you are at the center of the “X” of the ranging footwork pattern. The black vertical line is the direct attack line between your opponent and yourself.

Stage 2 adds another UFT box behind you. Your position is marked by a red X at the center.

Stage 3 occurs after you have reached the final stage of enlightenment, are struck by a bolt of lightning inside your chemistry lab, are bitten by a radioactive spider and the whole floor is now covered by multi-verse of lines and angles.

So folks, how did I do? Does this cover most of our footwork drills? If not, what would you add?

Train hard, train smart and have fun,

Tuhon Bill McGrath