In 1969 at sixteen years old I accompanied my Dad to Uganik Bay, Alaska to work as a fish slimer in a cannery for the New England Fish Company. It was one of the adventures of my life. The salmon cannery that I worked for was located upon the Island of Kodiak. Kodiak Island is the Island that is famous for among other things, the Kodiak Bear. I got to fish, hang out in the real wild, walk, swim and shoot any time that I wasnt working. I got to do the things that any sixteen year old kid would find hella fun and hella fun it was. I still love Alaska to the bottom of my heart to this very day. It was a great Summer. We had two Tonys that worked as bosses for the Filipino crew. We called them Big Tony and Little Tony. Big Tony and Little Tony found themselves at opposite sides of the fence somewhere in the middle of the Salmon Season. Both of the men were Escrimadors. They were both going to fight. You could sense it. Some of the guys that I had met that Summer had told me at the time that Big Tony had a reputation of having killed more than a few men in fights. The fight between the men didnt transpire, because Little Tony had decided to shoot Big Tony if any trouble had started. Shooting someone does quickly settle issues between men and Tony had warned that this was the way that it was going to go down. Little Tony had a German Luger that he started sticking into his pants fully loaded. Sadly I cant divulge to you if Big Tony had killed his foes from challenges or having fought during the WWII, or even for Philippine Independence. Big Tony had the swag and the look and bearing of a man that had been there and had done that and had came back having handled himself just fine. This would have been my first opportunity to have seen two good Escrimadors battle it out. I think that it would have been a battle to remember, because Little Tony also had a reputation, but everyone liked Big Tony more. My teacher the late Angel Cabales had one of his more famous battles while he was also working in a fish cannery in Alaska. Alaska is a place that is populated by rough and tough men. Theyll shoot your ass in Alaska if you arent careful and bury you ass in the wilderness, which can be a hundred feet from your back door. Angel Cabales had been having trouble with the Fisherman at a fish cannery. Fisherman have hard and dangerous jobs. They are really tough and independent men. Now days its hard to understand the depth of the problems that various races had between each other back then. The Alaskan Natives usually had little love for a whole lot of White Alaskans that thought that Alaska was theirs and theirs alone. Native Americans in Alaska wanted to be able to fish unimpeded like they had for centuries and just wanted to be left alone and especially by the Government. The Whites looked at Alaska as the last of the great American frontiers and that it really belonged to whomever had the guts to get out of Alaska whatever they could. A lot of White Alaskans are a tough breed of men who fly their own planes in order to get to places. Men drawn to Alaska are the last of the American Frontiersmen. Filipinos were looked upon as just workers and who would go back to the mainland after the various fish seasons were over. A lot of this shit was etched in stone. We had several bullets that whizzed by the various groups on several occasions. The first thing that I did was weasel a High Standard .22 pistol for plinking and protection. I had to enter manhood a little early that Summer of 69 so long ago. I became pretty good with that little .22 pistol. So when Angel Cabales said that he had to fight in Alaska with the Fisherman: I completely understood. Its just the way that things were in those days. The why of Angel Cabales fight is now lost to my memory, its been a long time, but Angel Cabales wasnt the kind of guy to get to easily back down from a fight. When his blood boiled someone was most likely going to get hit, hit hard and hit several times. Dan Inosanto related in a now defunct book on Filipino Martial arts that Angel Cabales had taken a Christmas Tree and had shaved the branches off to make a stick when he fought the Alaskan Fisherman. This might be true, but when Angel Cabales told me this story this was left out. I may have just forgotten about the tree part. I kind of remember him saying that it was chosen pieces driftwood that was on the beach that the Fishermen chose to fight with, but like I said my memory is fuzzy on this point. But the fisherman did try to hit him with something. Angel Cabales did say that he caught the first hit from a Fisherman with a certain cross-block that he taught all of his advanced students. In this form of advanced cross-block you simply brace the stick firmly against your trailing rear leg and absorb the hit on your upper leg and hip, making sure that you got your legs into a position to absorb a hard hit. Its a rather unique way of blocking that he considered an emergency block. It works very well when properly performed. Even a baseball bat can quickly and reliably get blocked with this emergency cross block. Ive performed this emergency block before in training against bats, but I have taken the edges of the bat that didnt quite get fully blocked and it did hurt like hell, but the pain was bearable and I did absorb and pass the power and I was still in a good position to flip my stick from the cross block and I could have immediately ended a fight. I watched a video today on my facebook Page of Angel Cabales and Dentoy Revillar. Both of these men are fabulous-fabulous Escrimdaors and both of these men have forgotten more than Ill ever know. I am always proud to see Serrada Escrima performed well. I am putting what little I know into a new book. I have completed my Serrada Escrima book and I am now working on a new book that deals with the history of Escrima in Stockton, Ca. and some of the many stories and other things that a lot of people dont yet know about, but might find very interesting. I hope to put a lot of Angel Cabales stories into the book like the story about the fight that Angel Cabales had in Alaska in more detail and also other fights in other places that he had as well. I need to talk to Vincent Cabales to make sure that I wont step upon his toes, because he is also writing a book. Well, until then just sharing. From Ground Zero this is me to you. And my book that Ive finished? I am not sure that it is good enough to publish, but I might still put it out with the video that I hope to make that will go along with the book anyway.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 03:17:33 +0000
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