Stowupland Modern Arnis made their first group outing as a club this month to train at the Filipino Martial Arts Festival in Peterborough.
The festival takes place every year, and is is Europe’s number 1 South East Asian martial arts event.
It’s a chance to train with Europe’s leading teachers of a huge range of Filipino martial arts styles and systems such as: Doce Pares, Balitawak, Modern Arnis, Lightning Scientific, Kalis Illustrisimo, Rapid Arnis, Cabales Serrada Escrima and many more.
The first thing to stand out on arrival was the amazing venue. The even was hosted at Immortal 365, a huge dedicated martial arts facility, boasting over 5000 square feet of mats. I think every martial artist dreams of a venue like this, so being able to spend a day at one was a treat in itself.
The second thing was the sea of smiling faces. Everyone in the building was a wonderful mix of happy, friendly and excited as we waited for the training to start. So many people pleased to be bumping into old friends, many of whom originally met at previous year’s events.
Once training got underway, it was pretty relentless. With so many top level instructors available to teach their arts, it was almost 7 hours packed tight.
Each hour session had a choice of two arts so we could tailor our day focussing on exactly which things we wanted to try.
Being Filipino Martial Arts, most of the day was weapon focussed, but the variety of weapons there meant every session was different. Amongst the sessions available were stick, knife, machete, sword, kerambit, and even torches.
Needless to say, we all had a great time. We learned a lot, made new friends, and can’t wait for next year’s gathering.
