Suntukan is the boxing striking component of Filipino martial arts. In the central Philippine island region of Visayas, it is known as Pangamot or Pakamot and Sumbagay. It is also known as Mano-mano and often referred to in Western martial arts circles of Dan Inosanto lineage as Panantukan. Although it is also called Filipino Boxing, this article pertains to the Filipino martial art and should not be confused with the Western sport of boxing as practiced in the Philippines.
Etymology
The term
suntukan comes from the
Tagalog language word for punch,
suntok. It is the general Filipino term for a fistfight, brawl, or
boxing regardless whether the involved had background in martial arts or not as in
"suntukan sa Ace hardware" ("brawl at Ace hardware"). The Visayan terms (also found in
Waray language and Hiligaynon entries)
and
pakamot come from the word for hand, "
kamót", the word
pangamot is also used to refer to anything done by hand, making it a rough translation for doing things manually.
Due to
Cebuano language pronunciation quirks, they are also pronounced natively as
pangamut and
pakamut, thus the variation of spelling across literature. The Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Waray Visayan word (or at least sometimes referred to) for "punching" is
sumbag,
though the word
suntok is also listed as a Visayan entry, (in Hiligaynon it is listed as "to thrust").
Therefore the word
sumbagay in the Visayan languages is a term to refer to any kind of fistfight or brawl.
Mano-mano comes from the Spanish language word for "hand", mano, and can translate to "two hands" or "hand-to-hand". The phrase " Mano-mano na lang, o?" ("Why don't we settle this with fists?") is often used to end arguments when tempers have flared in Philippine male society. Filipino Boxing is a contemporary westernized term used by a few instructors to describe suntukan.
Panantukan (often erroneously referred to as panantuken by USA practitioners due to the way Americans pronounce the letters U and A) is a contraction of the Tagalog term pananantukan, according to Dan Inosanto.[Interview with Dan Inosanto by Daniel Sullivan] It is generally attributed to the empty hands and boxing system infused by FMA pioneers Juan "Johnny" Lacoste, Leodoro "Lucky" Lucaylucay and Floro Villabrille
History
The main source of this section is taken from a book written by
Krishna Godhania entitled:
Eskrima: Filipino Martial Art. It is possible that prior to colonization there was an existing unarmed fighting system which was most likely an indigenous form of
wrestling though it is arguable whether it was a martial art or not because it was not systemized or formalized. According to the author,
Doce Pares grandmaster Eulogio Cañete said that a certain book entitled
De los Delitos ("For the Criminals") which was said to be published in 1800 and written by a certain Don Baltazar Gonzales, made or contained references to an empty hand fighting system. Another instructor, Abner Pasa, then said that the copy of the book that Cañete saw was destroyed during World War II and is now lost. However, so far there are no entries in Spanish dictionaries from the 17th to the 19th centuries listing a name for a kind of unarmed fighting as either a sport or a separate fighting system, nor did the chroniclers mention or record anything about a codified system of combat, both armed and unarmed, as well as their training methods. It is also worth mentioning that as early as the 1930s there are already many Filipinos who had background in Japanese martial arts like
judo and
jujutsu.
The author then postulates that the origin of
suntukan as a martial art today is said to be traceable to the introduction of
Boxing in the country, which was already a codified sport. When boxing became a popular sport in the 20th century in the Philippines, Filipinos incorporated mainly knife-fighting techniques (some base their movements on double stick) with Western Boxing and some elements of Japanese martial arts that made
suntukan a martial art rather than just being a
violence
This is different from the Silat traditionally practiced in the Southern Philippines as it is more influenced by Malays and Chinese and often do not teach Luzon and Visayan martial artists their own style of fighting for political reasons, thus their martial art cannot be considered as a "Filipino" martial art, just as their culture cannot be considered "Filipino" lest a controversy will spark.
Characteristics
Striking
Suntukan is not a
sport, but rather a street-oriented fighting system. The techniques have not been adapted for safety or conformance to a set of rules for competition, thus it has a reputation as "dirty
street fighting". It mainly consists of upper-body striking techniques such as punches, elbows,
headbutts,
and limb destruction. It is often used in combination with
Sikaran, the kicking aspect of Filipino fighting which includes low-line
, tripping and knee strikes to the legs, shins, and groin. Many of its other unique movesets include elbow blocks, hand strikes resembling
Eskrima movements and other chopping strikes, evasive maneuvers, and parrying stances.
[ June 25, 2008]
Suntukan practitioners typically use triangular footwork to avoid getting hit and look for openings, just like with knife fighting. According to Filipino martial artist Lucky Lucaylucay: " ...if your practice is based on knife fighting, you have to become much more sophisticated with your footwork, evasions and delivery because one wrong move could mean death... ...Filipino boxing is exactly like , except instead of cutting with a blade, we strike with a closed fist."
Grappling
Suntukan also consists of limb trapping and immobilization,
including the technique called
gunting (scissors) because of the scissor-like motions used to stop an opponent's limb from one side while attacking from the other side. Suntukan focuses on countering an opponent's strike with techniques that will nullify further attack by hitting certain bones and other areas to cause damage of the attacking limb. Common limb destructions include guiding incoming straight punches into the defending fighter's elbow (
siko) to shatter the knuckles.
Dumog or Filipino wrestling is also an essential component of Suntukan.[ THE MARTIAL ARTS OF THE PHILIPPINES] This type of wrestling is based on the concept of “control points” or “choke points” on the human body, which are manipulated – for example: by grabbing, pushing, pulling - in order to disrupt the opponent’s balance and to keep him off balance. This also creates opportunities for close quarter striking using head butts, knees, forearms and elbows. This is accomplished by the use of arm wrenching, shoving, shoulder ramming, and other off-balancing techniques in conjunction with punches and kicks. For example, the attacker's arm could be grabbed and pulled downward to expose their head to a knee strike.
Weaponry
Even though suntukan is designed to allow an unarmed practitioner to engage in both armed and unarmed confrontations, it easily integrates the use of weapons such as knives, palmsticks (
dulo y dulo) and
.
These weapons can render suntukan's techniques fatal but do not fundamentally change how the techniques are executed. Weapons in suntukan tend to be small, easily concealed and unobtrusive. Thus, suntukan minimizes contact with the opponent because it is not always known whether an opponent is armed, and knives are very often used in fights and brawls in the
Philippines.
As such, parries and deflections are preferred over blocks and prolonged grappling.
Suntukan is a key component of Arnis and is generally believed to have evolved from the latter.
Usage in sports
A number of Filipino boxing champions have practiced eskrima and suntukan.
While many Filipino boxing champions such as Estaneslao "Tanny" del Campo
and Buenaventura "Kid Bentura" Lucaylucay
(Lucky Lucaylucay's father) practiced Olympic and sport boxing, they also used
pangamot dirty street boxing which is distinct from western boxing.
World champion Ceferino Garcia (regarded as having introduced the bolo punch to the Western world of boxing) wielded a bolo knife in his youth and developed his signature punch from his experience in cutting sugarcane in farm fields with the bladed implement.
Famous and influential suntukan practitioners in boxing and mixed martial arts include:
See also
Further reading
-
A Guide to Panantukan, the Filipino Boxing Art, Rick Faye, Cambridge Academy Publishing, 2000
External links
