GM Amante Marinas Sr has written many books on FMA’s and made videos and published many, many magazine articles. His writings are always full of information concerning FMA’s instead of just talking about himself, although I would really enjoy an auto-biography on his life.

His book Pananandata: - History and Techniques of the Daga, Yantok, Balisong, and Other Traditional Weapons of the Philippines published by Paladin highlights many different aspects of the FMA’s. GM Amante Marinas Sr gives us an account of history in the Philippines from 1521 -1974 aimed at FMA practitioners and cleverly explains the usage of many weapons in Escrima that are not widely practiced. His own system of Pananandata incorporates an extensive knowledge of FMA weapons (and unarmed skills) that truly keep alive skills that may have been forgotten without his wide-ranging knowledge and the sharing of his expertise to the benefit of us all.

He has been a great influence and mentor to many FMA martial artists with his widespread skills in weapons from East and Western sources - he totally understands the concepts of weapon skills from our past to today’s society backed up with research from the first book written on Arnis by Placido Yamboa to western manuscripts by George Silver and books by authors such as Joseph Swetnam.

His analytical approach to research and training over many years is why his system of Pananandata is very popular and to our luck resulted in many books.

If you want a good read on Pananandata and the weapons they use this book is a must buy book as it is well written, easy to digest with complimentary photos and at the same time thought-provoking to all who train in FMA’s as we may realise we train in specific weapons of the Philippines not all the traditional weapons available.

Published by Paladin Press ISBN 1-58160-287-1