page_title: Arnis
section_title: Sinawali
hierarchical_section_title: Arnis / Technical aspects / Sinawali
caption_attribution_description: English: Practicing Sinawali activity at Arnis seminar by Terry Lim and Maurice Novoa Ruiz at Marcos Dorta's Essential Defence Academy in Melbourne, Australia
context_page_description: Arnis, also known as Kali or Eskrima/Escrima, is the national martial art of the Philippines. The three are roughly interchangeable umbrella terms for the traditional martial arts of the Philippines, which emphasize weapon-based fighting with sticks, knives, bladed weapons, and various improvised weapons, as well as "open hand" techniques without weapons.
  There have been campaigns for arnis to be nominated in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, along with other Philippine martial arts. As of 2018, UNESCO has inscribed nine martial-arts–related intangible heritages.
context_section_description: Sinawali refers to the activity of "weaving", as applied Eskrima with reference to a set of two-person, two-weapon exercises. The term comes from "Sawali", the woven walls of nipa huts.
  Sinawali exercises provide eskrima practitioners with basic skills and motions relevant to a mode of two-weapon blocking and response method called Doblete. Sinawali training is often introduced to novices to help them develop certain fundamental skills – including: body positioning and distance relative to an opponent, rotation of the body and the proper turning radius, recognition of one's center of gravity, eye–hand coordination, target perception and recognition, increased ambidexterity, recognition and performance of rhythmic structures for upper body movement, and muscular developments important to the art, especially, the wrist and forearm regions. It helps teach the novice eskrimador proper positioning while swinging a weapon.
caption: Practising Sinawali activity at Arnis seminar by Terry Lim and Maurice Novoa at Marcos Dorta's Essential Defence Academy in Melbourne, Australia
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