MYSTERY OF HISTORY

Although the Filipino martial arts rank among the world’s most popular fighting systems, their origins are murky, to say the least. Yes, a good deal of material has been written on the topic, but most of what you read about the roots of kali, arnis, escrima and so on is either conjecture passed off as fact or, in some cases, pure mythology. So rather than merely repeating myths, I will present what’s actually known about the origins of FMA and offer a few new ideas about how they might have developed.

To begin, it should be noted that what we regard as FMA — those weapon-based arts that are found primarily in the northern and central islands of the Philippines — share many similarities. This could point to a common influence, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they had a common origin. Such an influence could have come about in recent years after the arts had been established.

SPAIN

As for those origins, we do know from Spanish documents that at least as far back as the 16th century, residents of what is now the Philippines possessed some form of combative ability. Case in point: The Filipinos mounted an armed resistance against early European explorers like Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521).

However, almost all societies back then possessed some level of combative capability with weapons, which means this is not evidence of advanced martial arts skills, let alone anything that necessarily resembles modern FMA. The earliest Spanish accounts actually