Sarong / Malong - Filipino Martial Arts (english)

The Filipino Martial Arts, also known as Kali, Arnis and Eskrima, deal with different areas of weapon and empty hand fighting. In our series Filipino Weapons, we want to offer the wide variety of Filipino weapons, their handling, different drills and their application in today´s self-defense to interested martial artists. Part three of our multipart series shows the art of fighting with the sarong or malong. The sarong is a traditional garment in many parts of Southeast Asia and comes in different colors and designs. It is worn mostly by men and still used today. When worn the sarong it is wrapped around the hips like a skirt, but it can also function as a bag or hang over the shoulder like a sash. Already in the 13th century the piece of cloth was used as a weapon by the so called Thugee brotherhood in India who robbed travelers. In this video you will see techniques with the sarong to manipulate, to throw, to lock and to strangulate an attacker. We use a scarf which is sewn together at the ends. Many of the techniques could also be applied by using a different long, flexible object like a belt, a towel or a carrying strap of bag. At the beginning the focus will be on the carrying positions of the sarong and the transitions to the different positions. The following part will demonstrate techniques and applications in the sash position. First we will show different ways to catch and fix the attacking arm with the sarong. After that you will see counterattacks to the throat followed by techniques to fix the arm and the throat at the same time to take out the attacker. After the sash position we move on to the double hand position. Here you will see explosive sarong techniques and different ways to catch the hand, the throat or both at the same time. To train the techniques and applications more intense we created some exercises and drills which we also show in this the end we will demonstrate a few techniques on how to counter the sarong and how to transfer the sarong techniques to everyday objects. The authors are Timm Blaschke (Guro Filipino Fighting Arts), René-Marc Zeller (Guro and German representative of Filipino Combat Systems) and Christian Metzner (Lakan Dalawa Filipino Fighting Arts and Manong Filipino Combat Systems). They learned the art of the sarong under Jeff Ray Dionaldo, Jeff Espinous, Ron Balicki and Doug Marcaida as well as adding their own concepts for this weapon. They want to share their insights into the field of the sarong with this Film.