Moving America Through Martial Arts
For his extensive work preserving and promoting Filipino Martial Arts in the United States, Luis Rafael ‘Louelle’ Lledo, Jr. received an unexpected award from one of the most powerful men in the free world.
President Barack Obama awarded the Arnis master (who is more commonly referred to as Mataw Guro Lledo) the President’s Volunteer Award, for his tireless work of teaching Filipino martial arts to various groups and communities in America.
“It’s a great honor to receive an award from the US President,” Lledo said to reporters in the Philippines where he received the award from a US government official at the Cavite State University on April 14, 2012.
Lledo received a pin, a personalized certificate and a letter from the White House signed by Obama. Part of it reads: “Your volunteer service demonstrates the kind of commitment to your community that moves America a step closer to its great promise,” the Manila Bulletin reported.
For Lledo, the founder of Amara Arkanis and the CEO of the Mataw Guro Association, the award is another validation of the hard work he and many of his fellow Mataw Guros have done to promote Filipino martial arts.
Lledo is one of the best known and renowned Filipino martial arts instructors in the world. A captain in the Philippine Air Force Reserves, he has received several awards from martial arts organizations including Grandmaster of the Year Award of the Filipino Fighting Arts (2003), and Excellence Award in the
Preservation of the Martial Arts (2004).
He has helped train elite Filipino officers as chief defensive tactics instructor of the Headquarters, Philippine Integrated National Police Training Command, and National Capital Regional Training Center at Fort Bonifacio, chief unarmed combat instructor of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and chief combat instructor of the 1st Air Division and the 304th Security Squadron of the Philippine Air Force.
More importantly, through years of experience he created his own form of Filipino martial arts which he called Amara Arkanis.
Family legacy
Born in Zamboanga City in Mindanao, Lledo comes from a family of fighters.
His grandfather, father and uncles all played a role in teaching Lledo various forms of martial arts and fighting.
According to his bio, his great grandfather taught him the European style of fencing. His father, Luis Lledo Sr. (a member of the Philippine Air Force), taught him hand-to-hand combat. His uncles, local boxing promoters, taught him the art of boxing.
Along the way, he also learned how to use guns, becoming an expert in combat shooting. In his early years, he also soaked up other forms of martial arts — including KunTao and Silat, ancient form of Indonesian and Chinese self defense tactics.
It came as no surprise that by the time he was 18, Lledo was already a first-degree black belt in karate under the tutelage of Joe David of the Kyokushinkai style of Karate.
Lledo quickly moved up the ladder in karate and sought out other martial arts masters. During those years, he learned from the best of the best – grandmasters from the art of Japanese karate, Korean Tang Soo Do, Moo Doo Kwan, Chinese Tai Chi Chuan, Filipino Arnis, Kung Fu and many other art forms.
He earned a fifth degree black belt in Modern Arnis, a sixth degree black belt in karate, and flew all over the world to compete and participate in several martial arts events.
Amara Arkanis
By 1980, Lledo decided to combine all of his knowledge into one form of martial arts. He created Amara Arkanis, which he describes as an evolution of his martial arts learning that is geared towards an individual’s psychological and physiological makeup, according to FMA Pulse, a Filipino Martial Arts website.
“Amara means balance (positive/negative). Arkanis is a unification of the armed art of Arnis and the unarmed art of the fist (kamao). Taken together, Amara Arkanis is the art of achieving balance in life through the fighting arts,” said Lledo as told to Emmanuel ES Querubin of FMA. “Amara Arkanis is an on-going, growing, never-ending active learning process. It is an art that evolved from fighting systems that were developed in the battlefield. Like its predecessors, techniques of Amara Arkanis are deadly and fatal. The only difference is the end result.
“The main purpose of the early fighting arts was to kill the enemy instantly,” he added. “In competition where rules have been established, the aim of Amara Arkanis is to win the gold medal. In self-defense situations, the goal is to neutralize the threat, without necessarily permanently maiming or killing the opponent.”
Lledo soon developed a system and curriculum for his style Amara Arkanis. He modernized the art to fit students at all different levels.
Migration to the US
In 2002, Lledo left the Philippines and migrated to the US with the title of Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Department of Tourism’s Office of Philippine Indigenous Fighting Arts.
He settled in New Jersey where he started as a karate instructor, before forming the Sword Stick Society, a martial arts organization.
Since founding Amara Arkanis, Lledo has continued to teach students about Filipino martial arts in the US and Philippines.
Most recently, Lledo has served as an annual guest lecturer for the American Society of Internal Arts (Tai Chi) and holds workshops around the East Coast.
In 2009, Action Martial Arts Magazine Hall of Fame honored Lledo with its Ambassador of Goodwill of the Martial Arts for bridging the gap between the Filipino and Chinese Fighting Arts.
(balikbayanmag.com)
(LA Weekend May 5-8. 2012 Sec. A pg. 10)
Oss….senpai……
Oss….senpai……