“There is more to techniques than just being able to perform them in correct form and correct sequence. In my recent conversation with my escrima maestro Ireneo Olavides, the founder of Escrima De Campo JDC-IO, he once again mentioned that his mentor, the late juego todo champion Jose Diaz Caballero practiced only very few techniques but retired undefeated as a full-contact escrima fighter. Olavides said that Caballero, a burly man, can strike with devastating power and speed. He added that his teacher always considered conditioning as an integral part of escrima training not just techniques. I told him that considering Caballero’s case, Bruce Lee was indeed correct in saying that the development of attributes (qualities like speed, power, accuracy, timing etc.) is more important than techniques, to my statement, Olavides replied: “Absolutely. Without attributes techniques are useless.”

— Excerpt from my upcoming FMA Pulse article “Memorizing techniques vs. understanding techniques” Perry Gil Mallari