After studying weapons you’ll learn the basic principles of the method, that gives a great importance to the correct movement represented by triangles (male, female, neutral, ritirada, urong-sulong). They represent the whole system heart, without which no system-method could be applied. Before applying and co-ordinating these movements you’ll be taught exercises called «bituin», that means “star” in Philippine language; you move your body following the cardinal points, as in the middle of a star. Once you have acquired this nimbleness in movements, you’ll be able to move yourself as in a sort of dance as the “sayaw”, that Philippine people used to do to hide their fight strategies to their invaders. Triangles represent a movement method, but actually they teach you to lose and to get your enemy’s strength in favour of your advantage (one of the common principle of a lot of martial arts). We can find the same concept in some Taoist theories, especially in the yin yang one, but it’s a pure coincidence; actually kali doesn’t refer to any particular philosophy.

From principles acquired by weapons studying, another sector is represented by bare hands usage. During ancient fights, if warriors lost their weapons, they had to be able to fight just by using their body. Sticks, kinives, machetes just represent arms extensions; that’s why losing them couldn’t be a problem. Our “natural weapon” (fists, elbows, knees, kicks) have the same characteristics of common weapons: they can split, cut, kill. Besides, they have a greater sensitiveness, since by bare hands you can perceive enemy’s strength. In this way you can learn “suntukan” (Philippine boxing); the 14 attack angles, already observed in weapon sector, are now studied using bare hands and by adding elbows and guntings. Sikaran, techniques by kick (frontal, lateral and circular with shin-bone) and knee on a medium and low line. A basic kali strategy learned through guntings is breaking enemy limbs both in attack and defence phases, with an arm movement similar to scissors. The expression “breaking a tooth to the snake” is born from these breaking techniques. During a fight, the most common tendency is to hit enemy’s head. In kali everything represents a target you have to hit, especially enemy’s limbs; that’s why getting these zones out of use could be decisive during a fight. In a similar way, during a weapon fight there’s a tendency to hit the enemy armed hand with whipping strikes. During a bare hands fight, strategy doesn’t change: by using hand knuckles and elbows enemy’s limbs are tried to be broken as by using a stick or a blade.

It’s easy to understand that’s a very thin line that shares the attack sector from the defence one. An attack can be diverted through a wakly (techniques coming from weapons), feeling the pressure of the attack and absorbing enemy’s energy to give it back to give it back; otherwise you break his arm through a gunting. In the same way, in bare hands sector, sensitiveness is well-developed through hubud-lubud exercises on the 14 angles seen before, and to combine together attack strokes and guntings while 10+10 bis kabisidado will be used again to combine together attack strokes, obviously through bare hands. Triangles system continue having a great importance.

At this point, let’s confirm tha kali is a percussion martial art; since it concerns every different aspect of the fight, let’s consider now the “less percussive” one, but however mortal at the same level:  trang kada and dumog. Trang kada are articular levers applied after a percussion or during a hand-to-hand fighting phase; here enemy assumes a particular position that let him do a lever simply following his movement. In this phase triangles get a greater relevance and sensitiveness, of the whole body, is fundamental to correctly apply techniques. Everything must be executed in a fluent way, without opposing strength against strength; it’s enemy that “drives” techniques that have to be executed; who executes them just has to follow movements, paying attention since a lever attack could be transformed in a received one and back again. Through this levers and against-levers scenery we get into the dumog phase.

Dumog is a fight both on one’s feet and overall on the floor; it’s important to underline that’s not an “antigrappling” style, but a real grappling. Kali’s objective is not to floor someone, but to end a fight on one’s feet and in less time possible; however, during a fight, you may floor accidentally, so you need to get on. It’s similar to other floor fighting styles, such as for example Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Sambo; it follows the same principles, such as the pelvis usage and male triangle usage, the only one triangle that we can execute on the floor since the obvious movement limitations that we have on the floor compared to on one’s feet. Obviously, kali is less codified and more succinct than BJJ or Sambo; in fact, floor fighting must last less time possible since on the floor you are an easier target for your enemies. During ancient fights staying too much down on the floor you could be an easier target for your warrior enemies. Even on the floor percussions are basic: besides getting a lever or another subjection techniques, in dumog one of the main aspect is to get a dominant position , better to hit enemy. Besides, finger-pressure techniques have a great relevance; during a fight (both on one’s feet and on the floor) the most common tendency is to push with fingers or elbows weak points (eyes, throat, intercostal, genitals, articulations joints). One of the most relevant aspect of dumog is fighting using weapons, both on one’s feet and on the floor; in fact, starting from the principle discussed before (where weapons are arms extensions) it will be possible to execute trang kada using a stick or a knife, or to execute a lever with a hand without using a weapon and hit with the other armed hand.

In kali fighting is “total”; during the fight the purpose was to kill in a very short time and to limit all the damages received; so every single part of a weapon will be used; even the handle called “punyo” will be useful to hit, hook and disarm. So, the other hand will be always ready to hit and control. In case of blades, control will be kept through the back to avoid wrist veins exposure and possible cuts. All this, together with techniques of kicks, knees, levers, strangulations…so it’s easy to understand that there are no rules…except to save his own life.