When I first heard these words, my body is my weapon it didn’t mean much to me. After all if you are learning any kind of Martial Art, you could proclaim that statement applied to you and your Art. It wasn’t until years later that I clearly understood the difference between what one could say about various Arts and the difference in what we do.

You see the human body is composed of a variety of structures hidden by the skin which is drawn over it. Under this disguise that the skin provides lays, a universe of soft and hard areas. Some of these teeming with energy drainage spots, nerves and muscles. Some are delicate joints, others armour plated weapon looking outwardly very similar.

The real secret of using your body like a weapon lies in lining up all of your hidden armour plated parts of the body to fit against your opponents soft more vulnerable areas. When this is accomplished the opponent is hurt no matter what they do. When this happen a 115 pound woman can drop a 250 pound man, and know one can figure it out! While this is our goal, it is the delivery system that is used that is unique.

The body learns to move in an undulating unfathomable manner through the fascinatingly deadly moves hidden in brought to life by the Bunga ( the flow, the beautiful movements that units spirit with movement). So in tuned does the Cimande artist become with the opponent both physically and mentally that looking directly at their opponent is not desired.

Pukulan Cimande Pusaka is based on eleven guiding physical principles which build and train the body. These principles are:

1. Principle of Penetration
2. Principle of Continuous flow with camouflage
3. Principle of Adhesion
4. Principle of Bamboo – Whip and Ricochet Hitting
5. Principle of Off Timing – Mental, Visual and Auditory
6. Principle of Compacting – Thunder Bolts strikes and Poison Hand blows.
7. Principle of the Thorn.
8. Principle of Decoying – Includes Indirect Hitting.
9. Principle of Destruction.
10. Principle of Body Armour.
11. Principle of Hit Trapping.

The first Principle you see is the Principle of Penetration. Penetration has more than one dimension. At long range it is your ability to close and penetrate the opponent’s defences while negating their counters. Next once in range, the various ways to intercept all incoming blows with blows of your own, penetrating through the aforementioned energy points, muscles, nerves and joints.

One of the major differences between our art and many others is that we do not block anything! Everything that comes into our range is Hit.. Hit … Hit..! Punches are struck aggressively by flanking and perhaps bringing a powerful forearm smash against the attacking arm. Alternatively we may use a more passive destruction by guiding the incoming blow into a more powerful destructive force like the tip of the elbow. Kicks can be aggressively hit with another kick straight on, stopping them before they start or hit at an angle with penetrating toe points or heel kicks. Head butts, points on the shoulders and hips are other weapons that can be used when the opportunity arrives. It’s like the old paper, scissors, rock game. We always want to line up our superior body parts with the incoming weaker one, flank it this is not possible and quickly counter with the correct weapon. This then starts the Principles.