27 Hours of Eskrima training in Germany June of 2023

It’s been a few weeks since I have been back from Germany. 

Frequent Flyer

Being in a plane for more than 10 hours isn’t fun any way you shake it, at least for me. While the flight wasn’t bad, seats on an airplane don’t seem to be made for someone of my size. I occupied myself in planning what I might be able to teach the students in Germany, some of whom had been training with me since I started teaching in Germany in 2001, and some would be attending an intensive training with me for their first time. 

I also took some time to edit more video on my iPad for the upcoming launch of the online supported ITO Instructor Membership training and live events. This would be the modernization, the digitization, of the Inayan Eskrima Instructor Certifications offered by the Inayan Training Organization since my father started the ITO in the late 1980’s. 

I have been traveling and teaching my family system of Filipino Martial Arts since the end of 1996. These trips to Europe were hard back then, but I developed a specific way of teaching. It’s not just the difficulty of teaching people of varying experience and ability at one time, this is something we have always done in the Inayan System of Eskrima, I watched my father teach this way since I was a boy. That is something we are good at in Inayan.

The difficulty is being able to accurately asses participants in a short period of time at the beginning of the seminars and training session so you can arrive at a meaningful result by the end of the training session. This experience has resulted in a number of experiences that informed many of the basic training drills that have become essential drills for training in the Inayan System of Eskrima. (You can download a guide of 5 of the Essential Drills here). This laid the foundation of how I trading students and more importantly developing Inayan Guros.

Intensive training

This kind of training, which is what I usually offer to my instructors and students in Europe every time I visit can be, like the name implies, intense. But it also can be a time where we go into intense detail on all the details and specifics of the styles and techniques found in Inayan Eskrima.

We trained for 4 hours a day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. It’s rewarding to see how students I have known so long have been able to develop in their own unique ways, that is one of the reasons I love teaching the ITO members in Europe. 

For the new students I try and balance the need for Self Defense with learning Filipino Martial Arts and by extension something of the Inayan System of Eskrima. Working my Essential Drills, I can rapidly ratchet up intensity while keeping intensity at the appropriate level for every member of the class.

For my more experienced student I encourage them to use more complex skills from Inayan Kadena De Mano, Inayan Dequerdas Eskrima, and Inayan Serrada Eskrima as well as any other relevant skill form the Inayan System.

Seminar in Aachen Gernany.

I was surprised to see some old faces, people who never really became dedicated students but seemed to always attend seminars none the less. It was fun to introduce the new comers to Inayan Eskrima. It was a special bonus to have the Portugal contingent there. 

Seminar in Pfungstadt Germany

Kadua Guro Christian, who arranged the entire trip along with Kadua Guro Katja, assisted me in Pfungstadt. We covered Inayan Serrada Eskrima as well as Inayan Kadena De Mano Eskrima as requested by Sifu Klaus who hosted the event. I presented the use of the “Cross Counter” in the Inayan Serrada Style against most of the basic angles of attack and then went onto incorporate Disarming and Locking skills too.

Can’t wait to visit again

All in all this was a great trip and I got to reconnect with some great people and strengthen the roots of the Inayan System of Eskrima and grow the Inayan Training Organization just a bit more. Can’t wait to visit again.. next time maybe visit Portugal too!

~Suro Jason Inay