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A Filipina is coming to the lineup of Tekken 7, and she’s such a cutie!

Josie Rizal, Tekken 7's New Filipina Character!

According to Bandai Namco Games‘ Katsuhiro Harada, her fighting style specializes in eskrima and kickboxing.

Now, I’m little familiar with kickboxing, but I didn’t know anything about eskrima–so I researched a bit and came up with these quick facts:

Eskrima (also spelled escrima) is a Filipinization of the Spanish word for fencing: esgrima
It was an art usually practiced by the peasant or commoner class (as opposed to nobility or warrior classes)
Although eskrima combines native fighting techniques with old Spanish fencing and other influences, a degree of systematization was achieved over time, resulting in a distinguishable Philippine martial art
Eskrima students start their instruction by learning to fight with weapons, and only advance to empty-hand training once the stick and knife techniques have been sufficiently mastered
Many eskrima techniques have Spanish names, because Spanish was the lingua franca spoken during colonial times among the natives who spoke over 170 different dialects

Can’t wait to see this eskrimadora in action–and maybe in our Tekken keybie collection!