PTI Blog

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.”

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.”

“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.

Basic symmetrical sparring, with two evenly matched opponents, each using the same evenly matched weapon, is a great way to introduce students to many of the skills they need for combat. They can even stay in this symmetrical mode their whole martial arts careers, if the only place they will ever fight in are tournaments.

Things are different in a real fight though.

    Comparisons Based vs Rules Based learning methods (and how to combine them).   I read an interesting article several years ago on an experiment...

Here are some of the knives I’ve chosen for my wife to carry for daily use as well as her protection, based on my 40+ years teaching Filipino martial arts and 30+ years in law enforcement.

I was asked recently for my recommendation for an Every Day Carry knife (a.k.a. EDC). The parameters were that this knife should be capable for sel...

TWO NEW TUHONS FOR PEKITI-TIRSIA INTERNATIONAL This week I promoted Guros Scott Faulk and Jack Latorre to the rank of Tuhon Guro “Chief Instructor...

I am writing to ask all my fellow edged weapon instructors who have knife videos on the internet, for them to remove any of their videos that teach knife attack techniques or strategies specifically against an unarmed opponent.

The following structure closely follows the way I learned Pekiti-Tirsia knife work from Grand Tuhon Gaje in the 70’s and 80’s.

( Originally printed in the Winter 2000 PTI newsletter ) When I started training in the Pekiti-Tirsia system in 1975, I was 14 years old. It very q...

Most blade based martial arts have included wooden swords as part of their training.
The samurai had oak training swords called “bokken” and european swordsman of the Middle Ages and Renaissance used hardwood wooden swords called, (in English,) “wasters”.
The Martial Arts of the Philippines are no different, but the most common wood used for training traditionally is a vine-like species of palm known as rattan (one of 600 species of Calameae).