10/02/2002 - Why they call me Gura. Every now and then, someone will approach me and say, "You shouldn't call yourself Gura. It's wrong. There's no such word." The first time someone told me this, I was incensed. Mostly because I found it to be a personal offense. Why were they questioning, what is in essence, my name?
I was bestowed the title of Gura in 1999. Tuhan has his own reasons for creating and using this term. But when I came to receive it, I realized I had to not only understand his reasoning for the term but also to find my own reasons for using it. How could I truly become Gura without fully accepting its worth?
Gura means female teacher, based on the Tagalog word for teacher, guro. In Tagalog, Guro is non-gender so can be used to refer both male and female teachers. Though based on the Tagalog term, Gura is not Tagalog, nor any other Filipino language. It is a new term, based on old terms. But quite a few Philippine Filipinos are disturbed by it. They see the feminization of the term as Spanish. One critic thought I was bastardizing Tagalog with a colonial language.
As an aside: How many times do Filipinos appropriate the colonized language as their own? Yes, Filipinos speak English but they speak their kind of English that fits their purpose and need. Grant it, Filipino politicians use English to avoid communicating with their constituency; create laws in English that don't make sense to native logic. The way language is used to distinguish class structure or emphasize regionalism. Some of this is really messed up in many ways. But the bottomline is that Filipinos understand language as power. If language is power, then it can be used for both oppression and empowerment.
As I traverse martial arts websites, I am amazed with the number of titles people have created for themselves: Pinakamagaling na Guro, Pinatataas ng Guro, etc. These titles never really existed before. Filipino martial arts had come from the simplest structure of student and teacher. Yet, when I want to embrace a title that has been invented, all hell breaks loose. One critic said that I wasn't a true Filipino and that I was ruining the culture.
I had been speaking with a student in my class about some topic other than kali. I had replied, "I'm not that daring." He answered, "No, you're not that daring. You are only a woman teaching Filipino martial arts in a world that is dominated by men. You're not that daring at all."
There are really only a handful of us out there. In a male dominated martial arts scene, a small fraction are women. Of those that practice in the Filipino martial arts, few of those women are Filipina. An even smaller percentage reach the level of teacher, and even then only a few of us go out and teach. Sure, people will be able to tell I'm a woman just by my name, Michelle. But in a lineage that traces itself to a blind princess in Samar, it is just that much more important to let people know in a single word...Gura.
9/9/2002 - More than a year has passed. And the last time I wrote here seems like a lifetime away. I find that the older I get the fast time seems to go. Let's see, since the last journal. I'm still teaching at Pusod twice a week like clockwork. I'm doing many more demonstrations of kali either by myself or with my students. I got to be a Jedi knight in Episode II. (more on that later).
Nearly one year ago, we turned on our televisions to watch what seemed like the end of the world. Like other days when the world turns on calamity the air always feels new. It was a Tuesday, a kali night. I sent an email to all my students telling them: "yes, there would be class tonight, but as warriors be where you need to be, with the people who need you most." I don't remember what techniques I taught that day. Perhaps it was on giving and receiving, or maybe it was about the balance between chaos and stability. I remember some of my students telling me how they "needed" to do kali that day. I remember that much, because I needed it too.
I find I fall back on my training more and more. In the chaos reach for a familiar structure to help navigate. "Alone we are weak. Together we are strong. Our lives are layed out in concentric circles. This is our clan." The test of this circle is not in happiness or success but in failure and sorrow. That when one of us falls, the rest are here to hold them up or share the burden. I remember needing to come together that day as clan, to remember the things that I would die for, the people who are important in our lives, and why we are warriors. It is now a year later. We still find ways to live in this new world. Still train and wait until our time is called when our skills will be tested. Still keep in mind the world we want to live in and the kind of people we want to become.
I joined a kulintang group. I often do a short Halad to one of the songs along with another member who also does kali from a different school. It's been a fun experience. I always bring out the kampilan. A woman holding a big sword always earns you kudo points from the audience. It's pretty relaxing too. I just follow the beats of the music, let myself go into it. Reactions I've gotten range include, "it looks like poetry," "it's as if you are in a trance," "very powerful." Yet, when I watch video of it, I don't recognize myself. Actually, I don't know who that is up there on stage. Like a different personality that gets turned off and on.
And finally, yes, I was a no-name extra on Star Wars: Episode II. In that arena scene, in the back, I'm one of those guys on the top third of the screen. I'm waiting for the DVD to see exactly where I am. But I did manage to spot myself just to the right above R2D2's head. I tried to throw in as many distinguishable kali moves as possible. I got in because they were looking for female martial artists. My friend's wife works at LucasArts. He does martial arts and called up all the women in his book. Fortunately, I was in his book.
All for now. I'll try to be back sooner than later.
6/9/2001 - Yes, still more time on my hands. Tonight I was at a community reception for a new display at Pusod, where I've been teaching for the past month. Interestingly, people would come up to me and say, "I would love to take Kali, but I can't bend down that far, do high kicks, etc." My answer was, "well, don't do it. Your limitation when coming into my class is not your problem," I would say, "It's mine."
My teacher told me that this knowledge, this Kali spirit, was never his to own or control. It was never his duty/right to say who should receive this knowledge or not. And that he must receive each person that enters his door. He is merely a channel for the spirit.
I find that it is my job as the teacher to work with people's limitations. If they cannot bend down that low or do a certain movement, then change the technique. Techniques are merely ways for the spirit to manifest itself, thus there is no exact or singular technique to create the expression. In a martial arts situation we will not always have all the weapons we desire anyway and must find a way to use what we have at all times. Thus, it becomes my job as the instructor to find something that my students can do.
In essense to teach them how to manifest their own spirit. The really incredible and exciting part of it, is seeing it emerge in all the varied and different ways. And in the end we'll both be surprised at what we are really able to do.
6/8/2001 - Boy, it has been a long while since I've written here. Of course, it would take me 3 days being sick from work to get me to look at these pages again. According to this journal, I have been teaching for over a year now! Where does the time go? Since then, I've been to Cebu and back for the World Escrima Kali Arnis Federation International Tournament. I've done Kali basics workshops in San Francisco and Emeryville. We've done a few demos from audiences of a few dozen to a few hundred. And all I can say is WOW!
Grant it I've had students come and go and come. But that's the way it goes. Not everyone can spare as much time as I do to it. And there are always goals and other priorities that we must take care of first.
What's really exciting is that now I have a layer of students who are more intermediate with a layer of beginners. Tuhan has always emphasized the hierarchy of him, the Guros, and the students below and the respect that must be maintained. Not because you want to create power trips or dominance, but that you want to be able to acknowledge people for their skill and labor. Alongside that you must also acknowledge the experience that people bring into the mix, because that too deserves recognition to some degree. I've had to learn to protect all of my students and ensure the there are venues for each of them to express their talents in varying different ways.
And as I teach, the more my skill improves. Of course, so does Tuhan's skills, so there is something always just out of reach for me. Good thing too! I'd like to be doing this for a long long time to come and it'd become really boring really fast if I didn't have anything else to learn. Tuhan is going on 20 some years and keep learning, so I've got a good ways to go.
And to think, I was scared to even teach at all. But like many things I've done in this life, sometimes you just have to close your eyes, take a deep breath and jump.
5/1/2000 - It's been a crazy month. Some of my closest friends have had significant people pass away in their lives. I went to two viewings, said an innumerable amount of prayers for people, visited another friend in the hospital recieving chemotherapy and spent more time at church than I can recall in a while.
I am obsessed with this martial art. Particularly now that I teach classes, I get a chance to do it and think about it more often. I think about what to teach the second I get up in the morning even though the class isn't for another 10 hours. A friend of mine called me an addict. No wait, he called me a junkie, I called him an addict! If I could, I would just train all the time.
But I can't. As much as I would love to practice all the time, there are things in my life that I must take care of, things that I must do, problems to solve, a life to live.
The name of this school, the Kamatuuran School of Kali, rings to my core being. Kamatuuran is a Visayan word for Truth. And for me, it is truth. I can't say if it's everyone's truth. But I can say that it is my truth. I have tried going to class just to distract myself from the problems going on in my life. But it never worked. If anything, it made me come to terms face-to-face, the problems that I needed to deal with. The more I focused, the more I could clearly see what needed to be done.
At first I ran away from this, because I thought I was weak for not being able to clear my mind and focus. But then I realized that by running away, I would be running away from my core beliefs, my truth. Running away would be the true lie.
Each day tests what I believe. My belief about my higher power, my beliefs about this martial practice, my beliefs in myself. Each test will either make me reform my belief or reaffirm it.
As a teacher, I can only show my students where I was able to find my beliefs, and hope that maybe there is some left for them there too. Maybe, maybe not. As a teacher, I can show them what I believe, and they must ask themselves if they believe too. I cannot make anyone believe. I am only a guide. The rest of the path is up to them.
3/4/2000 - So here I am, almost 5 years since taking that elevator 6 flights up to where the San Francisco class practiced. It's all kind of crazy and exciting for me now in a way that's hard to explain. I knew after 6 mos of training, that I wanted to become a Guro and eventually teach this. And now I am. (Thanks Corey and Marirose for being my guinea pigs, er, students!). I have a WHOLE lot more respect for what Tuhan does several days a week for the years he's been doing it. It ain't easy!
In the weeks prior, I felt a great deal of anticipation and not just from me. It was as if there were people waiting for this day longer than I had been. And I suppose they have. Finding a Filipino martial art for you is hard to do. Finding a Filipino martial arts school that supports female students in a genuine way is really hard. Finding a Filipino martial arts school with a female teacher is almost damn near impossible. I know, I've looked. But, fortunate for me, that when I looked, I was able to find everything in this one school. (And for this, I am eternally grateful to Tuhan and the clan for making this experience possible, and not only possible, but a casual, normal experience.)
I've gone to events that were all female martial artists and to events that were all Filipino martial artists. In the all female one, I think I was the only one out of 250-300 women who did Filipino martial arts. In the all Filipino event, I was one of maybe a dozen women, most of whom were from someplace really far, out of hundreds of competitors.
I guess I shouldn't be so surprised when I tell women that I'm a Gura in Filipino martial arts and they get this kind of "wow" look in their eyes as if they have wondered if anyone like me existed and only now got their answer. You should see how impressed they get when I say there's three Guras in the school!
And now that I'm teaching, it's more challenging, fulfilling, fun and exciting than I would have imagined! (And I've only taught one class!) I don't know what the students who come to me think they've found. I just hope I am the one that they've been looking for.
2/5/2000 - I am Gura Michelle Bautista. That's me up there on the right. I've been practicing Kali since Summer 1995. Wow! Has it been that long? This school and this art have been a very good match for me. So much so, that's it's really a part of my life now. I really can't imagine a time when I wouldn't be practicing Kali.
There was definately something different about it when I first watched Tuhan and Guro Ira doing a demonstration at Cal State Hayward. There was enough of something there for me to drag a few (big guy) friends of mine to the class that used to be in San Francisco. [You'd take a few big guy friends with you too, if you weren't exactly sure where the class was.] So, I guess, after that day I was hooked. Can't really describe what it was that hooked me. I think it was mostly about the people and the instructor. For the most part, they've been the ones to make it an interesting, fruitful and fun experience. And after a few months, I was a bonafide Kali-addict.
Am I good? Well, I know I do impress alot of people. You should probably ask them. It's always hard for me to "judge" myself, since I don't usually watch me and I usually look for more things to improve upon. I have a long way to go and I look forward to that future. Many people think that once you've gotten your black belt that you've learned it all. On the contrary, you've only just opened the door to a lifetime of learning.
I've come to really enjoy a lot of the aspects of Kali. As a writer, I love the story telling and the theater of it. I enjoy the intellectual and spiritual challenges. I love how the art is based in the female energy. I love the fact that even when you think you've got it there's always something new.
Quite a few people ask if I teach classes. I do sense their desire for a female teacher. Unfortunately, I am not currently teaching. But I hope that will change in the very near future.