This past weekend marked a milestone in KunTao Silat: the 2024 Family Gathering. This event saw Pendekar Steve Gartin present the 3rd Generation of KunTao Silat to the world. Dr. Jonathan Pyndus, Guru and Keeper of the Lineage, brought several of his core students to New Mexico for their first visit to Catron County so […]
Author Archive | Dr. Jonathan Pyndus
Happy Birthday Pendekar Steve Gartin!
Happy 75th Birthday to Pak Steve!
Confusion Over Self-Defense
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on January 1, 2024 in Applications, Forms, General, Informational, Knife, Teachers, Training
Confusion over Self-Defense The subject of self-defense, “real fighting”, & or whatever you call it causes a great deal of confusion in the martial arts world. Discussions over which style is best, what techniques work & which don’t, the usage of force multipliers, & legalities many times dissolve into the hell of one or […]
Testing Resumes
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on May 5, 2023 in Applications, Forms, Health, Informational, Inner Circle, Knife, News, Teachers, Testing, Training, UpDates, Video
Greetings to everyone in KTS, With Pak Steve’s release this weekend we will be resuming online testing. However, to streamline the online testing process for everyone in the Distance Learning Program and the Guru Certification Course tests will now be conducted via live video conference using FreeConferenceCall.com, FaceTime, or FaceBook Messenger. If you are wanting […]
BIG NEWS: Pak Steve to Return Home and More
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on April 27, 2023 in Informational, Inner Circle, Teachers, Training, Uncategorized
Greetings to the KTS community, My apologies on the website having technical issues. While they are far from fixed, you should be able to access this page now. If it says, “critical error,” just refresh your browser. In order to do more complete repairs, we need Pak Steve’s passwords, which he cannot remember unless […]
The Importance of Reflex
Touch a hot stove real quick. Notice the involuntary withdrawal reflex? It is unconscious and tied into your sympathetic nervous system which controls fight or flight response. These reflexes come from the spine, which is a shorter signal distance than the complex skills of the motor neurons in our brains. So if I punch you unexpectedly […]
Bela Diri – Self-Defense
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on February 3, 2023 in Applications, Informational, Teachers, Training, Uncategorized
Many readers may or may not know that there is an epidemic of homelessness in the United States. Many major cities have large populations of individuals living on the streets. A significant number of these people suffer from mental illness and/or addiction. I bring this up as a lead in to this week’s subject: teaching […]
Family Ties: A Comparison of Filipino Martial Arts and KunTao Silat
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on January 27, 2023 in Applications, Forms, Informational, Teachers, Training
Recently, a member of the Distance Learning Program asked me about the similarities and differences between the Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) and KunTao Silat. As there is much crossover culturally and technically across the Southeast Asian martial arts, and many KTS players have a background in FMA, I thought this would be a great topic […]
Gauging “Success” of a Technique
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on January 20, 2023 in Applications, Children, Informational, Training, Uncategorized
A frequent source of online martial arts debates (as these questions could be easily resolved in person) is on whether or not a particular technique or even whole style “works.” That the functionality of any endeavor ultimately rests in the effort of the individual notwithstanding (because who wants to take responsibility for their actions), these […]
Training Theory: Eccentric Contraction and the Martial Power of Flexibility
One of the hallmarks of many classical or Pre-WW2 martial arts, regardless of culture, is that a practitioner typically finds a sophisticated physical training theory and specific conditioning exercises as part of the curriculum. Whereas many “modern” systems make good use of the widely available strength and conditioning tools and approaches available to the modern […]