TAPI-TAPI & ARNIS DE MANO

"TAPI-TAPI" is perhaps the 'essence' of ARNIS DE MANO, sometimes spelled as: ARNIS DI MANO, ARNES DE MANO, and sometimes as ARMAS DE MANO. "Tapi-Tapi" can be considered the 'essence of arnis' just as the strikes can be considered the 'SOUL' of Arnis. This is because Arnis De Mano translates as 'HARNESS OF THE HANDS' and the term refers to the fact that Arnis is a hidden art, that is, openly done in the past under the very noses of the Spanish Conquerors and rulers in the Philippines, where Arnis is now being revived and resurrected by many groups. ARNIS was hidden or 'encoded' in themethods of harnessing horses,carabao(Kalabaw),etc. to carts or placing the elaborate trappings, halters, saddles, etc. on horses,especially for pageantry and fiestas,etc. While some consider that the term refers to the protective gauntlets worn upon the wrists,which are/were useful,no doubt, especially in European countries, in hot tropical countries such were not used too greatly by the general public probably. Many of the tactics and maneuvers of Arnis were perhaps concealed,of course, in pageantry, plays(dramas) and theater etc. especially in celebrations of a religious nature, which fiestas were. Arnis,despite the fact that 'the strikes are the soul of Arnis' is considered to be a 'defensive' art especially in it modern form(s) and the basic substitution of the stick for the blade,though many may take a good deal of exception to this notion, off the battlefield, Arnis tends to be this" defensive,even if vigorous in nature.