VAC Systems
Visayan Athletic Club is comprised of three major systems - Balintawak, Tat Kun Tou and Gokosha.

Balintawak
Founded by late Grandmaster Venancio Anciong Bacon in the 1940's, Balintawak is quickly gaining its reputation and popularity as an effective and practical self defense system.

The Balintawak is a close range fighting system which employs the most versatile and combative techniques. Based on 12 strikes and 12 defense including counters, it eliminates fancy twirling and wide footwork. All movements are to be as natural as possible conserving energy with short steps (similar to walking) and using the body core to generate a dynamic striking force.

Techniques and drills found in this system include stick striking patterns, striking the limbs and pressure points of the body, counters, locking, baiting, tripping, pushing, pulling etc. There is no such a thing as foul shots in Balintawak, any strikes, kicks, elbows, eye jabs are fair game. Balintawak's goal is to finish the contention quickly.

Students of Balintawak develop keen intuitive awareness and response, from the practice of these techniques and drills.

A typical Balintawak practice are always with a senior student from the basic 12 strikes and defense with counters to random attacks. Groupings (sets of technique) are then introduced to even broaden the student's cognizance to various situations.

The skills learned from stick drills may be directly applied to unarmed self-defense situations. This means that a practitioner of Balintawak is quite capable of defending him/herself without the use of the practice olisi (stick) even if the aggressor is holding any hand weapons.

Tat Kun Tou*
Tat Kun Tou is a modern martial art with Balintawak and Ngo Cho Kun origins. It was created by late GM Jose Go in the 60's. This style of unarmed combat based mostly from Balintawak Eskrima.

Grandmaster Go combined the knowledge of the many traditional systems of combat along with his lifetime's experiences of street fighting to create this unique system.

Similar to Balintawak, Tat Kun Tou utilizes the skills of striking, joint locking, kicks etc. It avoids all non-practical moves for direct and combat oriented ones.

A distinctive feature of this combat form is the two person drills that enable its practitioners to gain realistic perceptions and practice of the offensive and defensive techniques of the style.

Although many benefits in health, strength and self-confidence from its practice, Tat Kun Tou maintains its original focus and objectives, the functional aspects of self-defense.

The style's curriculum is structured in a graduated and progressive manner and thus its practice is suitable for both genders and for people of all ages.

*Tat Kun Tou is also spelled Tat Kon Tou

Gokosha
Gokosha is a style developed by late Grand Master Jose Go. Deemed as an abstract system of martial art because of its lack of parry or blocks, it relies heavily on distance, centerline and broken rhythms.

The foundations of Gokosha are:
• flexibility of torso and contraposto (counter posture)
• shifting of the body weight
• agile footwork

Practitioners of Gokosha labeled this system as cerebral fighting or "conscious" style of fighting.

Robert will cover Gokosha to advanced students of either Balintawak or Tat Kun Tou.