Filipino martial arts a family affair

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This article was published 22/06/2023 (1196 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Outlawed in the Philippines by Spanish invaders more than 500 years ago, arnis is a form of martial arts created by the Indigenous population of the Southeast Asian archipelago. Arnis was then forced to evolve into a more benign form of entertainment, with sticks taking the place of weapons.

Today, while the art has returned to its combat roots, the sticks remain. Winnipeg students learn under the guidance of Dante Solomon Alambra, 72, who has been practising arnis and sikaran, another Filipino martial art, for 67 years.

“People continued the training, making it like a game,” Alambra says. “Some of them used it like a folk dance so it wouldn’t be detected by Spanish authorities. It was practised long before the coming of the Spaniards in 1521.”

Alambra was five when his father started training him.

“My first teacher was my dad, Damian Alambra. I learned arnis first — it is different to sikaran. Arnis is stickfighting and sikaran is footfighting,” Alambra explains.

Damian Alambra, a second lietenant in the Philippines army and a veteran of the Second World War, had learned the skill from the elders in his community. He not only taught his children how to fight but also instructed soldiers in the army.

“My father believed that there would be a war every 20 to 25 years,” Alambra says. “He taught me the art of self-defence so I could teach my siblings. That’s how I got interested in learning it.”

Alambra moved from the Philippines to Winnipeg in October 1977 with his wife, Clamancia. The couple have two children, Charissa and Dastin, both of whom are in their 40s, and six grandchildren.

He started his school, Sikaran-Arnis School of Martial Arts, just a few days after he arrived in the city. Although they are two separate forms, Alambra combined the footfighting of the former with the stickfighting of the latter.

“I was the one who started sikaran-arnis here; I was the one who brought it to Canada,” he says. “I wanted to introduce it to the people here and I was very lucky, because people accepted it.

“I even joined up with other martial arts schools such as taekwondo and kickboxing. Even though we didn’t have a formal organization at that time, they accepted me as part of the martial arts circle in Winnipeg.”

He accepts students from as young as five and his oldest student is 84 — although he stresses there is no age limit when it comes to training.

It’s a family affair. Alambra has taught his children, grandchildren and wife, although he admits “she only practised a little bit.” His brother Carlo often instructs students, as does Charissa; Dastin has won a number of competitions.

“Before the pandemic we travelled all over the place to attend tournaments,” he says. “My son is a five-time world champion in arnis and sikaran.”

Alambra himself has organized various local and international tournaments, the last of which was in 2014 at the RBC Convention Centre.

His school, which was flourishing before the pandemic, currently only has between 15 to 20 students. He used to teach full time. But as student numbers have dropped, he now works as a security guard for a casino, teaching in the evenings and on weekends.

“I am trying to make it bigger and have more students,” he says. “I have to do it very slow; I am still working. The income of my school right now is not very good, not like before.

“If I can make it more prosperous, I am very willing to go back to teaching full time.”

For more information on the school and the martial arts program visit wfp.to/sikaran. Classes are held on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5 to 6.20 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. at 49 Euclid Ave.

av.kitching@winnipegfreepress.com