{"id":265,"date":"2019-01-27T19:13:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T03:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999936341"},"modified":"2019-01-27T19:13:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T03:13:26","slug":"survival-arts-academy-breeds-generations-of-warrior-women-with-ancient-filipino-martial-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/survival-arts-academy-breeds-generations-of-warrior-women-with-ancient-filipino-martial-arts","title":{"rendered":"Survival Arts Academy breeds generations of warrior women with ancient Filipino martial arts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Warrior chants rang from the center of Gumbiner Park in the East Village early Saturday afternoon, where three long rows of women, each woman wielding a wooden stick, maneuvered in unison.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Survival Arts Academy breeds generations of warrior women with ancient Filipino martial arts\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cPv645C8ffY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Class was in session, and the trainees of Survival Arts Academy\u2014ranging from elementary school girls to mothers\u2014had their eyes fixed on Jamie Yancovitz, who stood tall in front facing them.<\/p>\n<p>Yancovitz is the great niece of Grand Tuhon Leo T. Gaje Jr., the sole living guardian of Pekiti Tirsia Kali, an ancient Filipino martial arts practice renowned for its knife fighting system. Since initially founding Survival Arts Academy in her hometown of Bacolod City, Philippines, to provide self-defense training based on this practice, Yancovitz brought the program stateside at the start of last year to serve women of color in greater Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Survival Arts has partnered with Flora Y Tierra to provide training once a month in Long Beach. It also serves South Gate, Redondo Beach, Griffith Park and wherever else they are called. Yancovitz estimates some 200 to 300 women and girls have completed the program in this past year alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a society that is patriarchal and very violent against women, especially women of color, we\u2019re dealing with multilayers of oppression,\u201d Yancovitz said. \u201cSo the question becomes, how do we deal with them, and how do we survive them, and how do we prevent them from ever happening again?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The prime demographic that Survival Arts serves is women of color and members of the LGBTQ community, who are statistically most susceptible to violence. Many of the participants are often sexual assault survivors.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_999936344\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-999936344\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-999936344\" src=\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/survivalarts-970x648.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"401\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-999936344\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nearly 20 women gathered for the Survival Arts training in Long Beach on Saturday. Photo by Darcey De Los Reyes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cSurvival Arts is a space where we can come together and talk about being survivors of sexual trauma or assault,\u201d Yancovitz says. \u201cAs a woman relating to other women, how do we confront these traumas and move forward with them? My solution is to fight back, and I use the Filipino fighting arts, the indigenous fight arts of my people, to train women to be strong and to fight against violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Using a long wooden stick, a substitute for a sword, and wooden knives, trainees are walked through multiple movement sequences to deter an attack. The idea is to commit these movements to muscle memory, so that in case of an attempted assault or unwanted wrist grabbing, one can maneuver out of the situation or fight back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstanding what is consent, what are boundaries and what is respect, these are lessons that should start at the earliest age,\u201d Yancovitz says. &#8220;My students can be as young as 4 to 6 years old, and they should be learning this. These are even adults who don\u2019t understand these concepts very well. If you look at the U.S., there\u2019s nothing that tells women they\u2019re protected \u2014 not the legislature, not the executive branch. There\u2019s nothing in the system that will protect us. It tells us that we can only protect ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amy Solis, who attended her fourth training on Saturday, said she now carries around a pocket knife for self-defense. The training, she said, has helped her gain the confidence to protect herself in practical ways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we were to need to use it, we would know how to use it instead of having one just for show,\u201d Solis said. \u201cI can now use it in any of the ways that we\u2019ve been trained to use the knife. I haven\u2019t had to use it yet, luckily, but if I had to use it, I\u2019m glad I know how.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pekiti Tirsia Kali was initially founded in 1897. Yancovitz\u2019s great uncle, the Grand Tuhon, brought the PTK system from the Philippines to the United States in the 1970s. Its effectiveness has been proven by the number of military and law enforcement groups in India, Asia, Europe and the U.S. who train their agents within this system. Yancovitz carries this legacy through Survival Arts Academy, equipping the most vulnerable population of our time with these sacred fighting skills.<\/p>\n<p>Her team\u2019s plan is to take this program worldwide, where women anywhere can teach each other how to protect their bodies through PTK.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGirls feel stronger, and they feel more confident,\u201d Yancovitz said. \u201cThese are not things that you can easily put value on or easily attain: confidence and strength.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><i>For more information on Survival Arts Academy, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.survivalarts.org\">survivalarts.org<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warrior chants rang from the center of Gumbiner Park in the East Village Saturday afternoon, where three long rows of women, each wielding a wooden stick, maneuvered in unison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":65793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3,182],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-instagram","tag-survival-arts-academy","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8041,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/8041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}