The Challenge Fights of Grandmaster Ciriaco "Cacoy" Canete: The Greatest Living Eskrimador - Tapa blanda

“History is written by the victors”. This timeless quote is clearly an appropriate one for the biography of a man never beaten in over 100 challenge fights. This book documents the fights exactly as Grandmaster Cacoy Canete related them to the author. The risk of death or serious injury was ever present in these type of matches, which became known as the legendary “Death matches of the Philippines”. It was common practice for the opponents to exchange waivers that asked their family and friends not to take revenge on the victor’s family, eskrima club or friends. Both players assumed full responsibility for the outcome of their challenge. To be the victor of more than 100 challenge fights one must have a technical base that can deal with any empty hand style and all known weapons systems. Many of the fighters that Cacoy Canete fought relied heavily upon the anting-anting mystical arts, orascion prayers and religious mantra chants to guarantee their success in fighting. These methods had no part in how Grandmaster Canete won his fights against these men. In his own words: “I do not use anting-anting, I rely on my technique”. Always challenged, never beaten, this is the fighting history of Grandmaster Cacoy Canete, the greatest living fighter in the history of Doce Pares.

Tom Meadows began his formal training in the martial arts in 1962 with the study of archery and Kodokan judo in Tokyo, Japan. Twenty-five years later, in 1987, he began his training in the Filipino martial arts under Guro Dan Inosanto. Currently he holds instructor’s ranking under Guro Inosanto in the Filipino Martial Arts and the Jun Fan Martial arts of Bruce Lee. In 1990, he began his study of Doce Pares eskrima as a personal student of Grandmaster Cacoy Canete, who is the current head of the Doce Pares system. He holds a Grandmaster's ranking under Grandmaster Canete in Cacoy Doce Pares. In 1989 as a member of the 21-man United States full contact eskrima team, he went to Cebu City, Philippines and won the superheavyweight world championship title at the First International Championships of eskrima, Arnis, and Kali. In the year 2000, he won the World eskrima Arnis and Kali Federation Master’s Forms championship using the whip and dagger. With the encouragement from his instructors to explore other arts he has also trained in Muay Thai kickboxing, Lucay-Lucay kali, Indonesian silat, traditional wrestling, Brazilian ju-jitsu, and has earned belt ranks in aikido, aiki-jujitsu, judo and savate. As an author, he has published feature magazine articles in Black Belt, Inside Kung Fu, Inside Karate, and Martial Arts Training. In 2005 he published The Filipino Fighting Whip detailing the history of flexible weapons in Doce Pares and other Filipino martial arts systems. Video footage of Tom Meadows’ full contact sparring with the whip, the stick, and the staff can be found on tapes one, two, and six of the “Real Contact Stickfighting” videotape series available through Dog Brother’s productions. Tom Meadows currently lives in Los Osos, California where he teaches the Latigo y Daga whip and dagger system, Cacoy Doce Pares eskrima, and Jun Fan /Jeet Kune Do Concepts.