shakran

Actually, the real focus of the art is on the machete. For those who are giving blank stares, you may have heard of it referred to as arnis or kali as well. It's a Filipino martial art, and it's effective as holy hell. You train with, as mentioned, bamboo sticks, mainly to keep you from cutting each other's hands off. The art will teach you to effectively use a stick, a knife, a machete, a bottle, pretty much any weapon you pick up.

And you are not focusing on 12 points on the body. You are focusing on 12 angles of attack. Basically attacks can only come from one of 12 angles (actually they really can only come from one of 9 angles. Angles 10, 11, and 12 are variations of angles 1, 2, and 5). An angle 1 can hit anywhere from the head to the ankle and still be an angle 1.

You do learn which points on the body to strike, but there are more like 107 really effective ones, not just 12

It can be somewhat difficult to find a pure kali school. They're certainly not readilly available in every city. A good clue: If they don't hand you a stick on your first lession, they're not a pure kali school.

I learned kali at a mixed-martial arts school. I tend to think this is actually better training than pure kali, as the other techniques I learned can flow to and from kali techniques to make a much more effective fighter.