Author: Miles Henderson
CARLOS NAVARRO, grandmaster of the Black Eagle Escrima style from Cebu Island in the Philippines, has been a resident of Brisbane for the past eight years. In his mid-sixties, Carlos is a living encyclopaedia of Escrima technique and history.
Black Eagle Escrima is a composite of two old styles, Escrima de Llave and Escrima de Avinico; as well as Carlos’ own personal improvements which he calls ‘New Generation’ style. The curriculum of Black Eagle Escrima covers all the traditional weapons and combinations used in the Filipino Martial Arts: single stick, double stick, staff, dagger and sword. It also includes effective empty hands techniques.
Escrima de Llave was taught to Carlos by his grandfather, a grandmaster of the art. It was an old style, even in his grandfather’s time, with a history stretching back to the days of the Spanish invasion. Escrima de Llave specialises in using the stick to apply a comprehensive array of locking and throwing manoeuvres. The stick is often held in the middle in order to be more effective at short range and for applying chokes. This style was originally practised with a heavy stick, using crushing blows swung from the shoulder. In Black Eagle Escrima, however, the techniques have been adapted to a lighter stick which is swung from the wrist and forearm to deliver a ‘stinging’ impact.
Escrima de A vinico was taught to Carlos by his father, a grandmaster of this style. It is a style characterised by fast, fan-like, multiple strikes used in deadly combination with a dagger. Many of the double-stick techniques taught in the Black Eagle style are adaptations of the stick and dagger techniques from Escrima.
The ‘New Generation’ style has been developed from Carlos’ own experience on the Cebu City streets, in challenge matches, and from practising with other Cebuano Escrima masters. In ‘New Generation’ the hand is the primary target for rapid, up-and-down slashing strikes. The intention is to destroy the attacker’s capacity for wielding a weapon …
Like all teachers who have taught over a number of years, Carlos has ‘generations’ of students who reflect a different emphasis in technique, depending on when they trained with him. Deane Lawler, a student of Carlos in the early eighties, recalls training sessions that were hard, bruising, combat-oriented affairs and his own teaching style still reflects this. Such rigorous training was similar to the training in the Philippines where realistic self defence training was and is a practical necessity.
Whilst emphasis on practical technique is still present, students training now with Carlos have an older master mellowed by life in a more peaceful society. Training is a relaxed affair with an orientation towards a gradual assimilation of a wide variety of techniques.
When students see Carlos demonstrate, however, they are reminded that mastery of techniques, whilst being an enjoyable recreation, in their real context are a matter of life or death. Seeing the agility of his actions, the speed and accuracy of his strikes, and above all the fierce spirit and concentration in his eyes, students are left in no doubt that the techniques performed are for the purpose of survival and, indeed, may have served that purpose in the past…
In teaching his art, Carlos has not taken the direction that many other modem Filipino Martial Arts masters are taking that of adopting ‘Japanese-style’ formality, ranking systems and rigidly categorising styles. Rather, it is Carlos’ hope that students will use their imagination to take the art in their own personal directions, whilst retaining the true spirit of Black Eagle Escrima.
