Tournaments - FMA Informative

In order to get an understanding of Balintawak, we decided to attend a few
sessions of a Balintawak class. Fortunately, there was no need to go to Cebu because Bob
Silver Tabimina, one of the top students of Anciong Bacon and one of the most respected
Balintawak teachers around, holds classes in manila.
Tabimina is one of the few Filipino martial arts teachers alive who has an actual
fight record – a fight record that has made its way through the collected mythology of
Filipino martial arts. Believe it or not, there are martial arts teachers out there who know
the techniques but have never been in a fight, much less full-contact matches.
So when we finally met the man, we just had to ask: What kinds of injuries were
sustained in these matches, and did anybody ever really die in a match?
“Well, some of the injuries were serious,” Tabimina, says. “Some fighters got
knocked out, got bones broken. One time, a fighter’s eye supposedly popped out and
dropped to the ground.”
Whoa. So the scenes where Daryl Hannah’s character in Kill Bill-2 ended up
losing both eyes in two separate fights – first with Master Pai Mei then with Uma
Thurman’s character – might have some real basis. Let’s make it clear, though, that the
eye-popping incident was only told to Tabimina by Anciong Bacon.
So the question remains… did anybody ever die?
“You know, not all stories about fighters getting, killed are accurate,” the master
says. “You have to remember that most of these so-called death matches were a matter of
ego. Ego drove the challengers to pick a fight, and ego made those who were challenged
agree. A lot of times, even though a losing fighter needed to go to the hospital for
treatment, the fighter would refuse to go because of pride. Of course, among the fighters
going around with untreated internal injuries, a few would die some weeks later from
internal bleeding, etc.”
Tabimina said the fighting culture was very different during the 1950s until the
1970s, when a gentlemen’s agreement could free a winning fighter from legal and other
obligations in the event that a losing fighter got seriously injured or even died as a result
of a full-contact match.
“People became a lot smarter in the 1980s. For one thing, the fighters and their
relatives had become more aware of the rights and of the legal questions involved in a
full-contact fight. So eventually, nobody would agree to such full-contact matches.”
Tabimina explains.
The ambush attack that ultimately landed
Anciong Bacon in jail, however, is no myth. In fact,
Tabimina learned Balintawak from Anciong Bacon
in Camp Crame, where Bacon served part of his
sentence and taught his fighting art to
members of the Metrocom. It was Tabimina
who took care of Bacon’s personal needs while
Bacon served his sentence. In return, Bacon taught
Tabimina the many modifications in Balintawak that the
old man had created.
“Bacon had modified Balintawak, refining it
more in his old age and while he was in prison,” attests
Tabimina. “To be honest, I thought I was a formidable fighter before I met Bacon. I had