The System or the Practitioner: What Actually Makes a Martial Art Legendary?

We all hear the hype – these “legendary” systems: Balintawak, Modern Arnis, Pekiti-Tirsia. They’re supposedly the best. But let’s cut through the noise. Are these arts truly legendary – or was it the legends behind them?

Is the art really that good, or was it Bacon, Presas, and Gaje who made it shine?

I’ll tell you straight – I’m not convinced any system is inherently amazing. I’ve got thoughts on that, but that’s for another time. What I know? It’s the person who makes the system, not the other way around.

I’ve been saying this for years: A system is only as good as the people sweating for it.

I’ve seen every system under the sun – karate, taekwondo, jiu-jitsu, kung fu, FMA – and in every one, I’ve seen both top-tier people and bottom-of-the-barrel. It’s not the system – it’s who’s doing the work.

Early on, I’d show up at events, and people would ask: “Tim, are you sure you’re Modern Arnis?” I’d say, “Yeah, why?” They’d say, “Because you’re good.” Why the surprise? Because a lot of folks were just dabbling – cross-training. They weren’t trying to become Filipino martial artists. They were adding FMA bits to something else. You can’t expect the same result.

Even now, I hear, “Tim, you and your people are solid – but how do you explain this other person?” Easy. Sometimes standards were low. Sometimes they got rank based on time served. Or maybe they’re better teachers than fighters. And guess what? That’s fine. There’s room for that too.

Kenpo gets it: The first five degrees are what you take from the art; the next five are what you give back.

Now when I judge someone, I want the whole picture. Are they a technician? A competitor? A teacher? Maybe all of the above. Maybe none. I’ve seen it all.

At countless seminars – FMA and beyond – I get compliments. Not because I’m special, but because I put in the effort. I know I’d excel in any Filipino system because I outwork the hype. It’s obvious when my crew and I show up – we stand out. Even in systems we don’t teach, people pair with us. We’ll figure out the techniques, even if the instructor’s busy.

I’ve been offered rank in other systems because of my work ethic – sometimes outperforming the host. I don’t take inflated ranks, though. But I know I can make any Filipino system work – because I make it work.

So, what makes a martial art legendary? The system? Or the person doing the work?

Don’t assume the name makes it great. Go see for yourself. You might be surprised which “legendary” art is solid – or not.

In the end, I know this: It’s not about the system. It’s about how you apply what you learn.

So what do you think? Let’s hear it.

Respectfully,
Datu Tim Hartman
Modern Arnis Tribal Chief

Modern Arnis, Kombatan, Arnis de Mano: The Brothers Who Shaped FMA

Let’s cut through the noise.

Lately, people have been arguing about the Presas brothers – who created what, who “owns” which name. But here’s the reality: when we talk about history, especially living history, you don’t get to claim authority unless you were there – really there.

So the first question should always be: who’s talking?
And right behind it: how close were they to the source?

Casual encounters and secondhand stories don’t count. If someone barely spent time with the brothers, their version of events is shaky at best. And if they’re repeating what they heard because they weren’t around during the formative years, that’s not history – that’s hearsay.

I watched someone recently try to “set the record straight.” I responded publicly, and not long after, both the post and my response conveniently disappeared. So instead of playing social media games, I’ll give you my perspective – plain, direct, and unfiltered.

I didn’t just meet the Presas brothers. I lived those relationships.

I attended 180 events with Remy Presas alone – that’s well over 1,500 hours on the mat, not counting the travel, the meals, the late-night conversations, and the quiet moments in between. Remy stayed in my home. We shared hotel rooms and long road trips. Ernesto sponsored me for training camps in the Philippines. Roberto and I sat together at the Presas family ancestral home. I helped reconnect the brothers.

That’s not rumor. That’s family.

Now here’s the part many people miss – especially those looking at this through a Western lens.

In Filipino culture, ownership is collective. It lives in the family. It’s not about one person planting a flag and saying, “This is mine.” So when we talk about Remy Presas creating Modern Arnis, we also have to recognize that his brothers were part of that family collective.

That said, let’s be factual.

When Modern Arnis was created, Ernesto and Roberto were kids. As they grew, they contributed, refined, taught, and shaped the art – but the creation of Modern Arnis belongs to Remy Presas. That isn’t disrespectful to say. It’s simply the truth.

And then there are the names – because people love to obsess over names.

Arnis de Mano literally means “harness of hands.” It’s a generic term. I was buying Arnis de Mano patches from Remy back in the 1980s. Ernesto later developed Kombatan. Roberto eventually carried the Arnis de Mano banner forward.

Who used what name first? Honestly, that matters far less than people think.

What matters is the expression of the art.

Remy was the master of single stick.
Ernesto was the double-stick specialist.
Roberto excelled in stick and dagger.

They shared roots, training, and blood – but each evolved into a distinct pillar of Filipino Martial Arts. Arguing endlessly over names misses the entire point.

The brothers loved each other. Like any family, it wasn’t perfect. There were frustrations. I understand them. I was told things privately, and I was trusted with that knowledge – and it will stay with me.

I won’t disrespect the dead or break that trust. I won’t air family matters for clicks or attention. Respect still matters, even if it feels rare these days.

My own father wasn’t perfect. He was a great dad, but he had flaws. That doesn’t mean I broadcast his shortcomings to the world. Truth doesn’t require public humiliation.

So here’s the bottom line – clearly and without apology:

Remy Presas – Modern Arnis
Ernesto Presas – Kombatan
Roberto Presas – Arnis de Mano

They were the three kings of Filipino Martial Arts – to FMA what the Gracie brothers are to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

They’re gone now. And arguing over names won’t honor them.

Carrying the art forward will.

As long as I’m alive, these arts will not die. And if more of us shared that mindset, Filipino Martial Arts – and martial arts as a whole – would be better for it.

That’s how I see it.

Datu Tim Hartman Modern Arnis‘ Tribal Chief

Beyond the Mats: Why Some People Don’t Understand the Loyalty to Professor Presas

This all started after I listened to a podcast where people were flat-out ridiculing the relationship many of us had with Professor Remy Presas. Not questioning it – ridiculing it. The tone wasn’t curiosity, it was dismissal. As if these family-style relationships were somehow fake, unhealthy, or just people engaging in idol worship.

And honestly, that’s where I take issue.

First, let’s get something straight: yes, I think extremely highly of Professor Presas as a martial artist. He was one of the best in the world, and most people will never have the opportunity to train with someone of that level. But I can separate his martial ability from who he was as a human being. In fact, I care far more about the man I knew than the techniques he taught.

What a lot of people miss – and this is huge – is culture.

In many Japanese and Korean martial arts systems, there are strict cultural protocols. Hierarchy is emphasized. Distance is maintained. Respect is shown through formality and structure. That doesn’t make those systems wrong – it just makes them different. But those same protocols naturally limit how close students and teachers become on a personal level.

Filipino culture doesn’t work that way.

Filipinos are warm. They’re open. They make you feel like family whether you planned on it or not. That cultural mindset absolutely carried over into how Professor taught and how he lived. He treated people like people, not subordinates. And when you do that, real relationships form.

I saw Professor close to 200 times throughout my martial arts career. Let that sink in. Seminars averaged five hours. Training camps ran 25 to 30 hours. That’s over 1,500 hours of face-to-face training – not online, not virtual, not occasional drop-ins. When he came to Buffalo, he stayed at my house. We talked. We shared meals. We lived real life around training.

And here’s the part that really gets ignored when people casually throw out the “idol worship” label.

I watched Professor bend over backwards to help his students. I saw him reach into his own pocket to help people who were struggling. He offered help to me more than once. The first time I went to Germany, he handed me a fistful of money and said, “Buy your ticket.” I paid him back, but I never forgot that gesture. On another trip, after buying emergency plane tickets home wiped me out financially, he offered again. I didn’t need it that time – but the fact that he cared mattered.

That’s not idol worship. That’s a relationship.

What I don’t understand – especially in today’s society – is how quickly people judge without asking questions. If you don’t understand something, ask. If something surprises you, ask. It wouldn’t take much to say, “Why did you feel that way about Professor?” or “What did he do that created that kind of loyalty?” If people actually listened to the answers, the evolution of those family relationships would make perfect sense.

Instead, some people would rather dismiss it as BS – while conveniently ignoring the fact that they weren’t around nearly as much as they like to believe, or as much as they want others to think they were. Time matters. Face-to-face time matters. You don’t get the same relationships from distance, formality, or occasional contact.

This is also the model I’ve followed in my own organization, the World Modern Arnis Alliance. We take care of each other. Our people feel like family – not a cult. I’m not idolized. People stick around because of how we treat one another: with respect, care, and support. When someone needs help, we try to help. And because of that, relationships naturally grow deeper. Some feel like father and son. Others like brothers and sisters. That’s what happens when people actually spend time together and look out for one another.

So no – this wasn’t about deifying Professor Presas. It was about respect that was earned through actions, culture, and time. And maybe, just maybe, if people asked questions instead of passing judgment, they’d understand that too.

Datu Tim Hartman, Modern Arnis Tribal Chief.

Lately, I’ve been labeled a “traditionalist,” as if that means I want to freeze Modern Arnis in time and stop it from moving forward. Let’s be clear right from the start: that accusation couldn’t be more wrong. What is happening, though, is a growing trend of people trying to “patch” Modern Arnis by importing material from other systems – Balintawak groupings, PTK Sabayan, or whatever happens to be fashionable at the moment.

And that raises a serious question: why?

Modern Arnis already has everything it needs. The problem isn’t the art. The problem is incomplete training and a lack of understanding of its fundamentals. When someone feels the need to constantly bolt on techniques from elsewhere, it usually means they never fully learned what was already there.

Now, let me be clear – I believe in innovation. I believe in growth. And yes, I absolutely draw inspiration from other martial arts. Professor Remy Presas did the same thing throughout his life. The difference is this: he didn’t copy systems. He synthesized ideas through his own fundamentals, his own structure, and his own martial logic. That synthesis is what made Modern Arnis what it is.

That is the model I follow.

My applications today go further than what Professor Presas personally demonstrated. That’s not arrogance – it’s evidence of good teaching. He trained me well, and he passed far too early. His ability to teach wasn’t the limitation; time was. The fact that his students can continue to develop the art is proof that his foundation works.

If you look at what we’ve built within the World Modern Arnis Alliance, you’ll see that the core has never changed. The fundamentals are intact. The structure is intact. The innovation comes from within the system, not from outside patches.

When I teach Modern Arnis, I teach Modern Arnis.
When I teach Kombatan, I teach Kombatan.
When I teach Balintawak, I teach Balintawak.

And when I teach a blended system, it is clearly identified as such – the Presas Arnis program. That program exists to reconnect family systems and examine the roots that influenced Remy Presas’s master art, including Balintawak, Kuntaw, Sikaran, and others. There’s nothing hidden, nothing mislabeled, and nothing passed off as something it isn’t.

Words matter. Systems matter. Honesty matters.

Think about language for a moment. The English alphabet has only 26 letters, yet new words are added to the dictionary every year. Those words don’t require new letters – they come from rearranging and reapplying the same ones. That’s how Modern Arnis is meant to grow. We already have the alphabet. We don’t need to import new letters – we need to learn how to use the ones we have more effectively.

I stay true to Professor Presas’s teachings, his synthesis, his expressions, and his martial mathematics. From that foundation, I develop new applications. That’s real evolution.

There is no reason to steal from other systems. If someone feels compelled to do so, it usually means their foundation is weak. And the solution to weak foundations isn’t patchwork – it’s training. Real training. With people who actually know the art.

Many of us trained directly under Professor Presas, across multiple eras of his teaching. If someone doesn’t want to train with me, that’s fine – seek out others from those eras and fill in the gaps properly. But don’t disguise borrowed material as “advanced Modern Arnis.”

When I go to the Philippines, it’s not to collect techniques. It’s to understand where our material came from. Sometimes I see things that inspire new expressions, but those expressions still come from the same core principles.

Modern Arnis does not need to be preserved in a museum—and it doesn’t need to be patched like a broken machine. It needs to be understood, trained, and applied at a higher level.

You can’t do advanced mathematics without mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. From those basics come algebra, geometry, calculus, and beyond. The same is true in martial arts. Fundamentals first. Everything else builds from there.

Modern Arnis is complete.
If it isn’t working for you, the art isn’t broken.

Just some food for thought.

Respectfully,
Datu Tim Hartman
Modern Arnis Tribal Chief

You Weren’t There, So Keep Your Mouth Shut

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Recently, there’s been a parade of people who never once stood in the same room as Remy Senior acting like they’re experts on what he could do. And now they’ve got the nerve to claim that Remy Junior has outdone his father – people who weren’t even there, never trained with the Professor, and now want to play historian. Well, here’s a reality check: you weren’t there, so keep your mouth shut.

I started training with the Professor in 1985. In all that time, I didn’t see any of his family members training with him. They hadn’t trained with him since he left the Philippines in the ’70s, which would’ve made them kids back then. So let’s not pretend they were there on the training floor.

There’s one particular loudmouth, who was about ten years old when the Professor passed away, claiming his twelve-year-olds could walk through Datu Dieter. That’s beyond ridiculous – it’s laughable. And when he got called out, he backpedaled, saying it was just a joke. Well, guess what? The entire thing was a joke.

And then he had the audacity to say that all of the Professor’s students – all the Masters and Datus – were a bunch of jokes. If you think all of us are jokes, I’m easy to find. Let’s cross hands and see who’s laughing. Normally, I wouldn’t care what someone yaps about on their own corner of the internet. But you poked your nose into one of my posts. When you do that, don’t be surprised if I respond. And if you’ve heard anything about me, you know I don’t back down.

So here’s the deal: you weren’t there, so keep your mouth shut. If you actually want to know what was taught, I’m here. Otherwise, let’s cut the fiction.

Datu Tim Hartman
Modern Arnis Tribal Chief

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