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- Written by: Robert Markovich
- Category: Technique
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By Robert Markovich, 8th Dan Isshinryu, 2nd Degree Black Belt in Modern Arnis
I am undertaking the writing of this article because I feel that the art of Modern Arnis is beginning to decline in Canada since the death of its originator, Grandmaster Remy Presas. I was very fortunate to have known him. I had the honour and the privilege of training with him for a number of years. I think of him now in the same way as we think of our own late Grandmaster Shimabuku Tatsuo. I believe that they were both visionaries whose main concern was the perfecting and the spreading of their art. They attempted to make it as acceptable and practical to a large number of people in the Orient as well as in the West. As a result, both were criticized to some extent because they were diverging from traditional methods. I think they were misunderstood, by their critics who failed to understand that by diverging to some extent both made it possible to expand their systems.