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DACAYANA SEMINAR OCTOBER 2007
Master Jun Dacayana - 1st UK visit
At 6.00am on Monday the 8th of October 2007, Eskrima Master Jun Dacayana of Cebu City, Philippines arrived in the UK for the first time.
He was here at the invitation of his two UK representatives John 'Jo' Biggs of Sacred Spring & Bedford Jujutsu and Marcie Harding of Malvern Eskrima Group (myself). Jun has made the decision to promote his own family style of Eskrima into Europe - and was persuaded that the recently named 'Dacayana Eskrima system' would ensure that his family name would forever be associated with it.
Eskrima and F.M.A are extremely fast, powerful and fluid martial arts. Jhun believes F.M.A to be most effective and benifical systems there are for real application. The Dacayana System concentrates on applied footwork, body mechanics and consecutive striking patterns when both attacking and countering.
The system is not for sport. However Jun believes that the development of safe sporting Eskrima competitions have much benefit for all and any Eskrima Student and is away of developing friendship and harmony throughout. Competitions are also a valid vehicle for the exchange of knowledge. Both Jo and Myself have experienced full contact competitive sparring would wholeheartedly agree
All of this was to ably demonstrated during Jun's stay in the UK. The first half of Jun's stay concentrated in his imparting an understanding of the system to both Jo and myself through several days of intense training (both mentally and physically) to ensure that we 'got it' in both our muscle memory and our grey matter!. Jun is not only a Master Eskrimador but an inspirational teacher too. Jun's stamina and patience only added to his teaching skills and made learning even easier for us. In fact Jun taught practically non-stop for the duration of his stay despite the 20 hour flight, experiencing some painful back problems, jet lag and an English cold! He was persuaded to take a short lie down rest during the break for lunch on the Saturday - as we were afraid it could just be too much!
At the end of our personal training Jo and I both felt that at least we understood the core concepts of the system, even if we still had a long way to go before we were physically fluid with it! Much of the training of the first week was in true Filipino style (taking place in Jo's 'Backyard') and went on until late evening by lamplight. Remarkably the British weather was exceptionally kind to us, being almost without exception dry and mild. I'm not sure Jun understood just how bad the weather can be in mid October over here! One evening a family of hedgehogs decided make their presence known in the undergrowth of the garden and I tried to explain to Jun what type of small animals they were - we settled for 'small porcupine ' which seemed to about right. I felt I was able to teach Jun something even if it wasn't anything to do with Martial Arts!
Senior students from Sacred Spring and one of Jun's students from France were also able to take advantage of an evening session and it proved to be a memorable and atmospheric training experience. I don't wish to be too clichéd in my description of this particular evening's training but there was a special energy felt by all. This was also experienced on the Monday following the seminar when other senior students including those from Malvern Eskrima Group were invited to attend. Jun also found time during the first week to attend and teach both children and adults at Jo's dojo in Bedford. This was a class that none of the students would ever forget.
Jun
Friday the 12th October was the first of the series of Jun's four seminars. As I had foreseen, Jun's teaching once again proved to be of the very highest calibre and of course, the students loved him. They even learnt to smile and relax - two of Jun's mantras and two that I will make sure I maintain at my classes.
The Saturday sessions were also excellent, the morning session was a consolidation of the material we had covered on Friday and included the 12 Basic strikes and the first Five consecutive strike that are taught within the system. Most students managed the Dacayana footwork too.
Picture shows Jun and Marcie with Doug, Michael and Keith from Malvern Eskrima Group
The second Saturday session, the 'Open Seminar' was also very successful. I would like to extend our gratitude to both John Harvey and Jude Tucker (of Kapatiran Arnis UK) two real stalwarts and great guys who very kindly took the warm up before Jun retuned to continue the seminar (after treatment for his back problem).. This was an unexpected and additional treat for everyone! The atmosphere and tone of the event was like the rest of Jun's stay - one of warmth, openness and fun all contributing and aiding the learning experience.
The Saturday Open Seminar
Sunday 14th was even more informal than the previous seminars. It was almost a long series of one-to-one teaching by Jun to all of the Sacred Spring and Malvern Eskrima Group students (& guests) who were there for all three days. A fair chunk of material was able to be shown, we even touched on some of the Olisi Kutselyo (Espada Y Daga) in the system and I will always remember the beauty and fluidity of the Form that Jun demonstrated to us all.
Picture shows (from left to right) Jude Tucker of Kapatiran Arnis, Jo, Jun Dacayana, Marcie, Maynard from Dacayana UK and John Harvey (Kapatiran Arnis)
This account of the time Jun spent with us here in the UK cannot really portray my feelings and gratitude to him. I do not have the descriptive talent to really express in the narrative how much his visit meant to us all. I also suspect his visit will have extremely far reaching implications concerning the propagation of the Dacayana system in the UK and (I hope) Europe too.
Every day of Jun's visit I was surprised when I woke up - simply because I thought I'd died and gone to Martial Arts Heaven!
Best wishes
Marcie Harding October 2007
Anyone interested in learning Dacayana Eskrima or school owners interested in becoming a coach for the Dacayana Eskrima System please feel free to contact Jo Biggs or myself. Further information on the system can be found at:
Dacayana UK
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