I think that Rich is probably preparing a statement that will be much more thorough then what I am about to say, so I won't say too much.
I am going to point out 2 inconsistancies for right now, though, and I will see what Rich and others have to say.
#1: The article makes it look like Anciong Bacon Broke away from his instructor, Lorenzo Saavadre, during Lorenzo's lifetime. This is not true at all. The Saavadre's got wiped out during the war, which was what caused the rest of the group to split up, particularly the Canete's moving in one direction with Doce Pares, and Bacon in another. It wasn't until after the war, and until after GM Lorenzo's death that the segmenting occured.
#2: The article makes it look like Bobby Tabimina recieved a "new and improved" form of Balintawak from Anciong, in that none of Anciongs other students knew this form. This is a misunderstanding, or at least, not exactly true. What was left out of the article (although it mentioned that Tabimina's son trained with Velez) was that Tabimina had learned Villisans Grouped form of Balintawak. THis information is important to understand the complete story.
Yes, it is true; Anciong did tell Tabimina that he would teach him "A New and improved" way. However, one must first understand a little about Anciong to put this in the right context. Anciong was not a elequent communicator. He was not literate. And when he would teach, techniques didn't have names...it was "do this one" "Do that one." He showed you...he didn't explain. And since Tabimina was seeking training, he told (and most likely showed) Anciong what he had, which was a little bit of knowledge from Villisans Balintawak. Since Anciong wasn't a big talker, he wasn't about to bad mouth what Tabimina had, or bad mouth Villisans teachings. So he instead said, "I'll teach you new and improved." It was new and improved....it was new to Tabimina and improved from what Tabimina had learned from Villisan. It was not, however, any different then what Anciong Bacon had originally taught.
Now, logical proof that the above is true (outside the fact that I was told by primary sources) is that after Anciong officially got out of Jail, they went to the school where my teacher's (Ted Buot) student (Toro, I believe) was teaching. Understand that Ted Buot was the only one delegated by Anciong to teach his original method, and 2 of Teds students were allowed (by Ted) to teach after Ted moved to Michigan (Toro and Jimboy). And, if I am recalling correctly, I believe Manong Ted Buot was there to witness the incident with Tabimina and Toro. Point in mentioning this is that there are plenty of people who learned, and are learning Anciong's original method; Ted Buot and all his students being the ones to keep these methods alive today. Anyways, back to the story, Anciong told Toro to teach Tabimina. Tabimina replied, "To each his own," meaning that he wasn't going to be taught by a student. So, Toro and Tabimina played, and needless to say, by the end of the day Toro was teaching Tabimina as was expected.
And the rest is history. I don't know how much Tabimina learned or how much time after that he had for training, but I am sure that he is good given however much time he had. He did learn from Villisan, a bit from one of my teachers students, and from Anciong himself, so I am sure he got to be very good. However, it would be misleading to say that he has a version of Balintawak from Anciong that none of the other students recieved.
I explained alot, and I hope I didn't completely steal Rich's fire (hey Rich....come on now, I waited all weekend before I said anything!
) I'll let others fill in any other missing details or inconsistancies.
PAUL
