Cabales Serrada Escrima
Filipino eskrima of Angel Cabales for close-range fighting with a short stick. His 1966 school in Stockton was, according to Wiley, the first public one in the USA.
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About Cabales Serrada Escrima
Cabales Serrada Escrima is a Filipino system of close-range fighting with a short stick, created in the mid-1960s by Angel Cabales, according to Mark V. Wiley. Cabales was born on 4 October 1917 in the province of Antique on the island of Panay and at fifteen became a student of Felicisimo Dizon, a teacher of the de Cuerdas style. According to Wiley, Dizon taught him the more advanced levels of the style when they met again in the Manila docks. In 1939 Cabales reached California as a sailor and later settled in Stockton. According to Wiley, in 1966 he opened there the first public academy of Filipino martial arts in the USA, with the help of Max Sarmiento and Dentoy Revillar. Green (2001) dates the opening of the first commercial school that taught Filipino martial arts also to non-Filipinos to 1964. Wiley states that Cabales systematized the weapon style de Cuerdas and added an unarmed part that the original style lacked. According to Wiley, Cabales introduced the term serrada, which means close distance or to close. Cabales died on 3 March 1991 and before his death passed the academy to his son Vincent.
History
According to Wiley (1996), Felicisimo Dizon passed on the de Cuerdas style, which arose in the 19th century in Sudlon on Cebu, and was also a hilot healer. Wiley (1994) writes that Dizon died in the early 1970s. According to him, Cabales left for Alaska in 1945, then worked for twenty years as a foreman on asparagus fields in Stockton and taught only a few selected students at home. In 1965 he was encouraged to open a school by Max Sarmiento, his friend, student and business partner. According to Wiley, the school earned Cabales the title Father of Escrima on the Mainland USA and in 2026 the Consulate General of the Philippines in San Francisco called him the father of eskrima in the United States.
How it differs
Wiley (1996) states that Cabales regarded his close-range serrada techniques as an answer to the wide movements of the long-range larga mano styles and liked to call his system all around style. According to Cabales, serrada styles were in decline in the Philippines of his time. According to Wiley (1994), the original de Cuerdas style had no unarmed part, and according to Wiley (1996) Cabales reshaped disarming into locks and throws, thereby adapting the art to the American public.
Technique
According to Wiley (1996), the system rests on four areas, single stick, empty hands, stick and dagger, and dagger alone. The basis is twelve angles of attack. According to Wiley (1994), the stick is usually 21 to 24 inches long and its length is measured from the armpit to the wrist. Green writes that Cabales, 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 100 pounds, used a stick 22 inches long to get close to the opponent, and that a serrada practitioner attacks with one hand. In a later excerpt Wiley states that each of the twelve strikes has its own combination of feints.
Training
Wiley (1996) says that after the fifth angle is introduced the student learns exercises sangga at patama, a reflex lock-and-block drill, and sumbrada, a counterattack-on-counterattack drill. According to Wiley (1994), in Lock and Block the student defends with one stick against an opponent attacking with stick and dagger, and from the tenth level learns unarmed basics. Among Cabales's students Wiley (1996) lists Dan Inosanto and Richard Bustillo, known students of Bruce Lee, Graciela Casillas and Leo Fong.
Ranks and progression
According to Wiley (1994), Cabales built a uniform grading on the twelve angles of attack and each angle was one level. Whoever passed all twelve received the basic instructor level, followed by the advanced level and the hardest master level. Wiley (1996) gives the names pang-unang guro, pangalawang guro and pangulong guro and writes that Cabales promoted about sixty people to pangalawang guro and sixteen to pangulong guro. According to him, the first basic instructor was Dentoy Revillar.
Today
Wiley (1994) writes that after cancer was found in September 1990 Cabales passed the academy in Stockton to his son Vincent. In June 2026 the Consulate General of the Philippines in San Francisco presented a recognition in honor of Angel Cabales at the Legacy Filipino Martial Arts studio in Daly City and states that his son Vincent Cabales continues teaching. We have not verified that the organization Cabales Escrima Academy Association of America, which Cabales founded in Stockton in 1966 according to Wiley (1996), is active today.
Did you know
According to Wiley (1994), the system's motto three strikes and a man will fall came from Cabales's fight on a ship. Wiley states that in the 1970s Cabales made two teaching films for Koinonia Productions, appeared in the film Tiger's Revenge, and that over two thousand people passed through his academy in Stockton in 24 years of public teaching. According to Wiley, in 1991 he was posthumously inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame as Weapons Instructor of the Year.
Frequently asked questions
What does the word serrada mean?
According to Wiley (1994), the term was introduced by Cabales and means close distance or to close. Green links it to the Spanish cerrada, closed.
When was Cabales's school in Stockton founded?
Wiley (1994, 1996) states the year 1966. Green (2001) dates the opening of the first commercial school of Filipino martial arts for non-Filipinos to 1964.
How long is the stick in Cabales Serrada Escrima?
According to Wiley, usually 21 to 24 inches, and its length is measured from the armpit to the wrist. According to Green, Cabales himself used a stick 22 inches long.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.