Table of Contents :

Excerpt:

Introduction

For nearly half a century, the work of Placido Yambao has interested and intrigued Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) aficionados all over the world. Yambao's book was the first widely released documentation of a popular and, at the same time, obscure art. The book was the primary reference used by many FMA authors for details on the history of arnis.

Placido Yambao and his colleagues, in their own way, were able to preserve the priceless legacy of the Warrior Arts of the Philippines. Despite the haphazard illustrations and notations used in the original book as well as the classic and archaic language and phraseology, the manuscript managed to safeguard the art's many overt and hidden treasures. Taking advantage of this book, unscrupulous writers have blatantly ransacked Placido Yambao's work while making specious claims of ownership and originality.

With the publication of this book, we hope to clarify and credit the true origin and seed of this plundered knowledge. The reader will discover familiar terms whose origin and exclusive ownership have been ambiguously claimed by other FMA systems. Yambao and his colleagues were unselfishly focused on documenting the art, as it was practiced in their days, and in sharing it with the general public. They liberally shared this generous legacy with the Filipino people and the martial arts world.