I was born in 1974 and have been practicing martial arts continually since 1988.

The first one

that stuck with me was Taekwondo (I go my black belt in 1995), and this is also where I started
honing my instructor skills. However, I have been training in other arts in parallel when there
was a possibility, like my stint in Uechi Ryu Karate Do from 1995 to 1997 and various
(kick)boxing disciplines over the years (Savate, Muay Thai, regular boxing, Sanda) etc. In 2000 I
started my involvement with Russian martial arts, which lasts to this day, so I hold the rank of
senior instructor in Homo Ludens Systema. In 2001 I quit Taekwondo, since the direction that
the art has been taking with focus on Olympics really didn’t fit my views any more.

Namely, I have always been drawn either to a very functional approach to combative training, or
a traditional one. While I have competed many times in various disciplines (TKD, Sanda, MMA,
grappling, arnis), and won some trophies, the goal chief was to gain experience that would be
useful for coaching and understanding training process and methodology. Training exclusively
for professional sport, on the other hand, always seemed to me as leading toward impoverished
version of any martial art.

In early 2000’s (approximately 2002 to 2007) I did a lot of cross-training, including different
expressions of MMA elements, including some intensive studies of Greco-Roman and freestyle
wrestling, BJJ, Sambo and submission wrestling. As a result, I had two MMA fights in 2004, as
my personal celebration of the 30th birthday.

When it comes to Filipino arts, I first started sporadic studies in 1998, but my continual study
began in 2004, during the training trip to France. I was teaching Russian arts in a few seminars
over there, and took the opportunity to undertake some serious study of Arnis Koredas Obra
Mano and pencak silat with Daniel Lamac. I went again in 2005, and brought Daniel over to
Serbia in 2006, and in 2008 I trained with his best student Bruno Cancho in Spain, and went to
France again in 2013 to see Dan. However, in 2006 I started my ongoing study of Lameco
Eskrima under Roger Agbulos, first via the Internet, through regular chat meetings and video
exchange, and then in his annual seminars in Europe (Amsterdam, Madrid, Brussels) including
hosting two of his seminars in Belgrade, Serbia. During that period, I also attended Lameco
seminars of guro Dave Gould, in Frankfurt and Paris.

My interest in weaponry is not limited strictly to Filipino systems, although they are my primary
focus, so during my trips to France I took lessons in classical fencing and their national stick-
fighting discipline (la canne), and I have also managed to undergo intensive study of Portuguese
Jogo do Pau with Luis Preto, who also graciously offered me the instructor rank.

I have been conducting regular weekly classes in Arnis/Eskrima for the past 10 years, trying to
balance the functional training methods of regular sparring and more traditional aspects of the
arts. This is the very reason for my interest in Garimot system, as it seems to bring these two
aspects of the art together, thus offering a very valuable experience to its practitioners.

Sincerely,

Dragan Milojevic