Managing Director - Adam Canning , has been Authorized by Tuhon Mel Tortal to teach , organise and spread Pekiti Tirsia Kali to the Military , Law Enforcement , Executive Protection and to Select individuals . It encompasses a wide range of traditional weapons and tactics, namely:
• Single stick (single sword)*
• Double sticks (two swords)*
• Single knife
• Double knives
• Espada y Daga (long
blade and knife)
• Sibat (spear)
• Empty-handed techniques and grappling (dumpag and dumog)
* Sticks are used in training in place of swords
The Pekiti Tirsia Kali strategy is based on mobility, counterattacking and triangular movement and clearly comes from the era when when it was common for Filipino men to carry swords and knives. The system originates from the provinces of Panay and Negros Occidental and was created by the Tortal clan. The family patriarch and Grandmaster of Pekiti-Tirsia, Grand Tuhon Conrado B. Tortal, passed the system to his only grandson Grand Tuhon Leo Tortal Gaje, Jr. Tortal, like the other family leaders before him, further developed the system through the testing and the research of technique and strategy. Practicing within the family, duels with other systems and actual combat continuously honed and validated Pekiti Tirsia as an effectives and deadly fighting system. The current headmaster of the system, Grand Tuhon Leo Tortal, inherited the system from his grandfather Conrado Tortal. Grand Tuhon Gaje began to study the system at the age of six and eventually learn it in its entirety. Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje inherited the system at the passing of his grandfather. As with family tradition, he practiced and kept the system within their clan. When Grand Tuhon Gaje immigrated to the US in 1972, he realized the potential of sharing the family system to others and began teaching the system to a select number of martial artists. From those early days to the 1990s, Grand Tuhon Gaje taught Pekiti Tirsia all over the United States and the world, becoming a leader in promoting and teaching Filipino Martial Arts and gaining a reputation for technical excellence and hard training. His efforts helped make the Filipino Martial Arts highly appreciated within the Military and Law Enforcement communities for its combat effectiveness. The system became a favorite of many Law Enforcement agencies, with Grand Tuhon Gaje’s creation of Safety Baton and Edged Weapon Awareness/Strategic Knife Defense programs, which reduced the liabilities of officers and departments by teaching officers to target areas of the body that would be incapacitating and yet minimizing the risk of civil liability due. Grand Tuhon Gaje was later appointed National Training Director for the Justice System Training Association and the U.S. Police Defensive Tactics Association and eventually became the Technical Advisor in the highly acclaimed police training video for edged weapon strategy and tactics "Surviving Edged Weapons". Grand Tuhon Gaje returned to the Philippines in the 1990s and began teaching and promoting Pekiti Tirsia. His efforts culminated in Pekiti Tirsia becoming the only Filipino Martial Art system recognized as part of the official doctrine by the Armed Forces of the Philippines. In 1998 Pekiti Tirsia became the official close-quarters combat system of the Force Reconnaissance Battalion, Philippine Marine Corps. The system is now being taught to other units of the AFP and the Philippine National Police. The Philippine Force Recon Marines have trained US special operations forces and other combat units in close-quarters combat, demonstrating the effectiveness of the system. Pekiti Tirsia has now gone full circle, from its roots in Visayas, to its spread around the world and its fame as an unparalleled edged weapons fighting system, and now as a preferred close quarter combat system for the modern Filipino soldier and law enforcement officer.
