| Most Recent Posts Bohol and back...Posted Sep-05-08 04:09:13 PDT Hi All, Well, we are back from our "Mini-break" and we had a fantastic time. We got to see a lot of the natural wonders such as the famous Chocolate Hills (pictured) the Trasier (world's smallest monkey and only indeginous to Bohol - also pictured),   waterfalls and a butterfly farm. We also went snorkelling together on our anniversary. It was my Wife's first time and she thoroughly enjoyed it! The only problem was that I'll be hard stretched to repeat the trick for next year but I suppose at least our first one was special. We came back to a mountain of emails and back to sending out our items across the world. We had our first sale to Lithuania today as well! I have taken delivery of some new kamagong items and I have listed them on ebay. They're all nice but I'm really pleased how the Pinuti swords have turned out.    In the next week or so we will also have the popular aluminium kerambits with cord in stock too. Well, a short entry this week as I have to get back listing and emailing. Best wishes, Simon. Swinging in the rain...Posted Aug-24-08 22:30:42 PDT Updated Aug-24-08 22:37:56 PDT Hi All, Well, I hope all the wet weather is behind us for the time being here. The last two weeks or so we've been deluged with rain causing a lot of flash floods. Typhoon Karen was in the vicinity of Luzon last week causing a good 24 hours of strong winds and rains too. This meant the cancellation of our weekly training a week ago as Master Yuli's street was under about 3 ft of water! I couldn't practice in the back yard either so it really was a case of "Rain stopping play". Ofcourse, it didn't stop the taxi drivers from trying to take advantage of the situation. My wife and I dashed into a taxi on a trip to the post-office. After a short while we noticed the meter wasn't running. When asked about this the guy passed and said "Electrical Malfunction, because of the flood...". I'm compiling a list of these and will blog them soon as I'm almost up to 10. So, we stopped the taxi at the next corner and flagged another one down. I really don't understand them at times as if they'd be a bit more honest they'd make more money. By trying to con us he only made 1/5th of the fair. Oh well! Training thankfully went ahead this week and was as interesting and exasparating (damn feet won't co-operate!) as always. Master Yuli was in high spirits after doing a demo for the Philippines Police along with many other styles and Grand-Masters (Pekiti Tirsia, Lightning Arnis, Karate, Akido, etc, etc). The Police liked Bahad Zubu the best and are trying to intergrate it into their basic training. Master Yuli also gave me some more weapons he has made to do some "Market Research" for him. Below you can find some Bahi Flat Sticks, Pira training aluminum Swords, and a short training barong and pira knife with scabbard. As you can see the work is beautiful and as I know through my own competitor research unique across the world. If anybody would like more details of those items please contact me.     In other news I also have the immensly popular "JKD" training knives with holes in that many Escrima styles tend to use.  It is our first wedding anniversary next week so I will be closing the shop and going on a 5 day mini-break with my wife. I will be leaving the laptop at home so I am looking forward to rest, relaxation and hopefully a bit of sunshine. Best wishes to you all, Simon. Work and Pleasure...Posted Aug-10-08 21:54:17 PDT Hi All, Well, my "blogging" has been erratic over the last few weeks for sure. July was a record month for me in terms of sales and I was kept busy at the weekends with the minutae of packing equipment and website maintenance, etc. I did also try and spend some "Quality Time" with my wife too but fortuantely / unfortunately she is used to be darting off to the computer and then not coming back for ages... :( Sunday's training was eventful as always. Master Yuli is an extremely well renowned martial artist in the Philippines (as well as overseas) and has been for a number of decades. Quite often other martial artists pop in to visit, or sometimes he is training a foreign student so you never know who or what to expect. This week we were graced by the presence of GM Tony Diego and some of his Kali Ilustrisimo students. It was a social call more than anything and it was great to see these two Grand-Masters and former training partners together sharing a laugh and remaniscing about injuries caused to one another (just like a stick Kali and skin blemishes go hand in hand..). Master Yuli got our group to have some Padded Stick and "Live" Stick sparring for our guests. No armour / gloves as always. I am not skilled enough to "live" spar as yet though Master Yuli is pleased with my progress. So it was a mixture of envy and feeling "Thank @#&% I'm not on the end of that one!" as I watched my seniors spar. It definitely puts the padded sticks in perspective and as I see it gets closer to what the art was intented for. After the mad rush of July the first week of August was the quitest in ages. I spent my time practicising and wondering why the cable companies bothered to cover the Olympic Team Enterances only to have more commercial breaks than coverage. They must have missed 50 countries and we were flicking between 3 or 4 channels to try and see it all. Unfortunately we missed both the UK and Philippines teams as a result. What further annoys me is that all the commercials were of an olympic theme! Today I have just picked up my new batch of aluminium trainers so that has cheered me up considerably. Take a look at these bad boys!  I will be listing them on ebay as and when. I've also got a number of auctions running at the moment that you might be interested in. I moved away from the auctions for a bit of stability but after last week I decided to make a few to get things going again. Well, I'm off into Manila now to get more equipment so I hope you are all well and enjoying the summer. Simon. "SONA".....Posted Jul-29-08 06:01:40 PDT ...which before yesterday I would have thought meant the method bats employed to find their way. I wish I had a bit of that ability yesterday as I would have DEFINITELY not gone down Quezon Avenue to the post office. Like most places there are rules here for the post office that are a bit of a pain. We have a local "Post Station" in the mall by our house. We are their best customers but they will not accept packages less than 2KG. Frequently we go there and the scales are one line short so we have to add a bit of carboard for it to be sent. It seems stupid as 1.95KG is exactly the same price to send as 2KG...Anyway, for packages that are a lot smaller we have to go to the City Post-Office. This involves a 2 hour round trip, usually in the FX 10 person communual SUV Taxi previously pictured. So, I don't do a lot of business with the small packages and if I lived next to the City Post Office my revenue would be much higher. There's also a bald guy (whose job it seems is to "help" customers pack their items into boxes...) who harrases my wife when she goes alone "Your husband should buy you a pair of Levis" (?!) being one of his random observations and a generally unhelpful staff. I will say this. "Philpost" (The Post-Office) is ten-times better than the UK Royal Mail. Philpost have never lost any of my 500 or so packages around the world. Royal Mail seem able to loose my products on a weekly basis. And they won't send packages overseas that weigh > 2KG. Anyway, I digress.. As we were carrying 4 4ft Rattan staffs I opted to splash out a pay double for a "real" taxi. I know something untoward was afoot when the traffic slowed and there was a battalion of riot police assembled in a phalanx on the other side of the road. It turns out that the President of the Philippines was holding a "State of the Nation Address" from the building by the police. The police had set up to stop a stream of protestors from reaching the site. The protestors decided to go over the bridge and block the other side of the road causing complete gridlock!  Here in the Philippines it seems everybody adopts the refuelling policies of a formula one driver. They will typically fill up for gas once on the outbound leg and again on the return. I guess this is a neccessity with the rising cost of fuel and where every peso counts. Our taxi driver was seriously worried that he was going to run out of fuel. After 45 minutes of being stationary I asked the driver to take us home and he managed to do a u-turn and get us out of there and to a gas station. The weird thing is that we had no prior knowledge of this event happening. If this kind of thing was happening in my native UK there'd be a few traffic signs warning people and perhaps a detour route set up. I guess living in the Philippines is never dull and even a simple trip to the post office can land you in the middle of a riot! It was certainly interesting messaging my customers to let them know why their packages had been delayed... Well, time has beaten me so I best go. Training is going very well and hopefully I'll have some of my own videos to put up soon... Bye for now, Simon. Another week flies by...Posted Jul-18-08 23:21:13 PDT Updated Jul-18-08 23:23:35 PDT ....and it was a good week too. In the course of our business I was introduced to GM Felix Valencia (Valencia LAMECO - http://www.valencialameco.com) and he was in the Philippines following a gruelling European schedule this week. I invited him to our Sunday training and was able to introduce him to GM Yuli. Here is a picture of the two of them together and underneath a video of Guro Felix sparring at a dog brothers event in Germany.  GM Yuli gave an overview of his "Bahad Zubu Mangtas Baraw" and as always it was great to watch. I am really fortunate to have these opportunities! Which reminds me of another example. I was in "Chow King" (Chinese fast food chain here in P.I) and somebody was trying to get my attention. Now, this part of Manila is a bit rough so I was just keeping myself to myself. The guy eventually came and introduced himself and it was Master "Bambit" Dulay of Modern Arnis! He had spotted my big bag of Eskrima cases. We had a great chat about the forthcoming WEKAF world events in Cebu and Eskrima. It was very nice to meet him. My week's practice was great. I am focusing on the initial positioning on the monitoring hand. I was told of a great training exercise where you roll a piece of newspaper up into a ball with one hand and then continue to squeeze and roll it until the paper is shredded. This will help with the squezing power of the thumb and fingers and is set to make my house even more untidy! Below is a picture of a baraw that Master Yuli made for me personally. I am calling it the "Spiderblade".  Master Yuli has a great knowledge of weapons and encourages his students to develop theirs too. He grudgingly makes weapons for me on occasion as he'd much rather be training. At close to 60 years old his dedication to developing and evolving his art is an inspiration. Moving on to ebay I have just come up with a winning combination (I hope!). I am pairing up my two durable bags to get them in the 500g shipping category and save customers money. Take a look as they have received great feedback from Eskrimadors:  Going forward I will be getting some new training aluminum swords made soon. They are all hand-made from a blacksmith's here in the Philippines. I will hopefully be introducing some karambits with Kamagong handles to Ebay soon as they have been flying out all over the world. Tonight I am off to see the new Batman movie. I wonder if it lives up to the hype... Well, that's all from me. I would like to wish all Eskrimadors involved in this month's tournaments the best of luck and safe travels. Simon. |
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