“Liporada: A Filipino helped Bruce Lee?” |
| Liporada: A Filipino helped Bruce Lee? Posted: 04 Mar 2011 08:36 AM PST (Columnist's Note: I am yielding my space to accommodate Mr. Rudy Liporada's piece about a Filipino who sowed 'Pinoy Pride' abroad long before the Azkals, Manny Pacquiao, Nonito Donaire, etc. ever did. The article originally came out in the Asian Journal which is a California-based paper. With my uncle Rudy's permission, I'm hoping to inspire younger athletes in joining our very own Filipino martial arts.) OFTEN, we know of legendary figures but we never really care who could have helped make them legends. This is like savoring the sumptuousness of a mango fruit but never considering the roots from which flowed the saps from the ground to the trunk, to the branches, to the twigs, and eventually into the fruit of the tree. One such legend is Bruce Lee. We only know of his Jeet Kune Do but not many really know how he developed his method of learning martial art techniques. Even Bruce Lee admitted that his martial art is an aggregation of many combat methods which eventually launched and kept him on a pedestal of stardom. However, no records might exist that Lee have plucked some techniques from, now senior citizen, Cipriano "Joe" Cardenas. While Joe might only be bragging, his kind of empty hand, sikaran (kicking), and Arnis (sword) performance could lay credence to his claim. His being a septuagenarian have not diminished his Bruce-Lee-like stance and speed and we could also say, if Joe's claim is true, that Lee's stance was really Cardenas-like. "Well, I am not saying that he learnt most from me," Cardenas says. "He just picked up some of my techniques." He also says, "We also shared knowledge with Chuck Norris." He also adds Elvis Presley into the mix. "I thought him his fundamental steps in which Ed Parker further built on." We may or not believe Joe's claims about the legendary figures but no one can doubt his Arnis prowess. In his age, where many could only stagger to walk or are on wheel chairs, he could be like dancing while swinging those deadly fighting sticks. Those much younger practitioners than him would have to exert more thunderbolts if they have to keep up with his lightning speed. Arnis up in Northern or Kali in the Southern Philippines uses fire-hardened sticks in combat. The origin of the Filipino fighting art is difficult to trace because styles vary as many as the numerous islands in the Philippine archipelago. The Indonesian, Malays, and Chinese melted in a heritage where combat methods using swords, daggers, and sticks blended. Were it not for the Spanish guns, the foreign colonizers would have been overwhelmed by the natives at any battle with their sticks which the colonizers dubbed as Escrima. Though Escrima was outlawed, it flourished in secret and practiced under the noses of the conquerors. The execution appeared as dances to even entertain the colonizers where in religious plays called 'Moro-Moro', actors dressed as Spanish soldiers with 'arnes' or protective armor worn during medieval times performed in step with the martial art movements. The 'arnes' was soon corrupted to be called Arnis. The art is now recognized in the international martial arts world as a sport. Joe developed his love for the art during his early teens in the Philippines. Evolving his techniques, he found himself teaching and choreographing Filipino movie actors for their film appearances. Roland Dantes of the 1970s fame and who was international known for the movie the Pacific Connection was among them. Joe's art, however, also coincided with his dream of being an airline pilot. Though he did not become one, coming to the US, brought him into the world of aeronautical and electrical engineering coupled with a degree in programming and business administration. His love for the sport did not also diminish and, eventually, he set up his Cardenas School of Arnis where the Hawthorne and Los Angeles Police force learnt their street fighting techniques with their batons. "Students from other schools also honored me by removing their black belts and begin from the bottom of Arnis methods learning from me." Other students included actors Dean Stockwell, James Coburn, Lee Major, Farrah Fawcett, Annette O'Toole, and others. This is also where Joe sparred with the legends and where they learned from each other. Bruce Lee's school was only twenty-six miles away from Joe's. Chuck Norris's was five minutes away. After their class sessions at around 10 p.m. they would conglomerate at Joe's school ("because mine was the biggest and most complete facility") with other martial art teachers and spar and learn from each other. "Sometimes those sessions would last until three in the morning." His engineering brain, however, got more into him. It became very hard for him to resist the power of his tinkering mind and he got immersed into the world of inventions. He has 24 patents under his name and some of them are still in the market. Among the notables of these is an electronic prescription counter which sorts and counts pharmaceutical tablets. One of his electronic inventions involved a wing design that improved the aerodynamic capabilities of an airplane. His inventive prowess and qualifications found him jet-setting to London, Canada, Vietnam and other countries which led him to close his school "as I could not attend to my students full time. It would have been unfair to them." He became a business and technical consultant for various companies. Married twice, with five children, further led Joe to be immersed in the business world in order to take care of his brood. Still married to Lucia from Mexico, Joe shuffles to and fro the border to attend to his businesses in San Diego and Mexico. He has Joel, Tony, Denise, Aissa, and Nikki for his children. Aissa is a black belt in Michigan. Joel is also competitive in the art and is a California State champion and competes in the international circuit. He also gets his stamina from the martial art exercises to roar and became a world champion in motocross races. Tony is currently competing in the boxing angle of the art. All Joe's children study his martial art techniques and are amazed that their dad, at his vanishing hair stage, could still sway like a butterfly and if confronted, could still, surely, sting like a bee. Joe was born in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur in the Philippines in March 8, 1937. He grew up, however, in Bauko, Bontoc, 130-kilometers from Baguio City. "I really learned how to fight when I was still a kid," he says. "I was forced to learn boxing and an Igorot style of wrestling. There was nothing else left for you to do but learn those things to enable you to survive among the tough kids in that region. You had no choice but to develop your inborn instincts to fight back." Still fluent in Ilocano and the Bontoc dialect, he could also be mistaken for a Mexican for his mastery of the language. "I never stopped practicing the art, however," he says. "I still have the passion for it deep in my heart and it provides me the exercise for my well-being. It is my anti-aging regimen." Now semi-retired, Joe is looking for the opportunity to share his passion for the art, his secret for staying agile, to pass on a legacy that is very Filipino. Whether or not he contributed to Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, whether or not he did spar with Chuck Norris, whether or not he provided Elvis Presley's martial art fundamentals (remember how The King executed those high kicks in his last concert in Hawaii?), should not be an issue. Once one undergoes training under Joe Cardenas, one would find not an old man but a man with the skill, the speed, the holistic knowledge that could have transformed one into a legend. Not to mention arresting the aging process with the Arnis regimen though it might be an art centuries old and taught by one who is there but wards off from his twilight years. Published in the Sun.Star Baguio newspaper on March 05, 2011. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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