Saturday, March 29, 2008

Legend

By way of the Belmont Club, I came across this story of a Filipino eskrimador master and famed guerrilla fighter in the Phillipines.
Grandmaster Illustrisimo lives in one of the toughest sections of Manila, near the docks. He was a merchant seaman for 35 years, and has spent his life in this same area. As an example of the respect these people give to this legend, the story is told of a gang fight between a local Manila-born gang and a gang of men who had come from the Visayan Islands for work. At the height of the melee, with many men fighting, Tatang walked through the middle of the place, and everyone stopped fighting until he had passed. He is one of those rare men whose reality justifies the legend.
Cheesy youtube video here of him demonstrating his art. He was probably 80 plus years old when this video was made.

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