1979 Cebu Tournament on YouTube

[TuhonBill]

I was cleaning the basement recently and found a real gem; a vhs video tape showing some of the fights in the first national Arnis tournament in the Philippines, held March 24th 1979.
Grandmaster Gaje as able to bring only one fighter to the Philippines from the U.S. that year, Tom Bisio, who at that point had only three years training in Pekiti-Tirsia. Leo entered Tom in the instructors division (6 to 19 years training) and Tom won!
I now have the three matches on my YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TuhonBillMcg

They are marked begining with Tom-Bisio-Fight1, then Fight2 and Fight3.

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

[Banakun]

Thanks for posting that Tuhon Bill! Nice stuff. I also have a copy of the Cebuano Escrima book where the decision for the finals was described as "contested." But GM Uy really looked like he was out of gas on the dying minutes (seconds?) of the fight. Great fighters in a great bout.

If it isn't too much to ask, I know that same tournament had a "Masters" division as well. Would you happen to have footage of that as well? It would be really nice to see the old Masters as well. Our group (LSAI) has been trying to get a copy of that, unfortunately we can't find anybody who has surviving footage. http://fmatalk.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

More power to you and your group!

Manolo
(LSAI)

[TuhonBill]

The tape I have is a copy of a copy. All it has are Tom's fights and three matches in the beginner's devision. I don't remember a master's devision shown on the original tape from which this copy was made (I think I made a copy of GT Gaje's tape more than 20 years ago). I do remember the original tape had a very funny comedy act in between the devisions. If you saw it, you'd remember it as one guy was in a gi and the other in a ballet tutu.

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath

[kuntawguro]

I haven't heard Tom Bisio's name brought up in a long time. I used to train with him back in the 80's when GM Gaje would hit Michigan. This was back when he had the "Mountain Man " look