By Simon Harrison 

Grandmaster Vince Palumbo, Master Kevin Seskis and also the young Instructor John Moore were all invited to give a series of Filipino Martial Arts and Filipino Full Contact Stickfighting demonstrations at the International Wushu Games Competition which were held at the Asia World Expo in Hong Kong from the 11th to 15th of March 2010.

These 3 practitioners of the Cacoy Doce Pares Eskrima system went there to give exciting demonstrations of this martial art style from Cebu City of the Philippines.

They are students of the 90 year old Supreme Grand Master Cacoy Canete of Philippines!

These Australian Stickfighters gave excellent performances in front of a capacity crowd at the Chinese Wushu Games Competition, which had many participants competing from all over the world who came there to the Hong Kong Wushu Games Competition.

Grandmaster Vince Palumbo (He’s a 20 times World Champion Stickfighter) and his student Instructor John Moore (He’s a 6 times World Champion Stickfighter) gave 3 demonstrations of the Filipino full contact stickfighting, and it was Master Kevin Seskis who acted as referee for the demonstrational stickfighting bouts there at the Asia World Expo Center in Hong Kong.

Master Kevin Seskis performed some traditional forms of the Cacoy Doce Pares Eskrima, and he also demonstrated with more intricate skills of the ‘Palusut’ free sparring with a 29 inch rattan cane, he did this with Grandmaster Palumbo.


Big John and GM Vince sparring in the armour!

They both demonstrated how the stick can be used for self defense purposes incorporating the strikes, parries, blocks, locks and throws using the Eskrima stick as a weapon for self defence.

Grandmaster Palumbo and Instructor Moore did 3 rounds of stickfighting in the armor, then they did one round of ‘Kulata’ type sparring with minimal body protection, and they both used the live rattan canes for all the demonstrations.

The Chinese crowd watched in absolute amazement, especially when they saw these two really fine World Champions doing the stickfighting sparring at lightning speed.

When the stickfighters walked out onto the main arena of the Asia World Expo Center, all the 5000+ crowd were a bit unsure as to what the stickfighters were going to demonstrate there, and that’s because this Chinese crowd had never seen Filipino full contact stickfighting before.

When the audience saw that speed and accuracy of the stickfighting being demonstrated by both of the stickfighters present, they were quite amazed with the precision and accuracy, and this is when the crowd just applauded with great approval and support for the Stickfighters.

The crowd gave them a standing ovation, especially after they saw them do ‘Kulata’ sparring with the minimal armor and protective equipment on, and also when when they saw the welts and bruises coming up on the body’s of Grandmaster Palumbo and Instructor Moore.

The Chinese crowd knew that this form of Filipino stickfighting was definitely the ‘Real Deal’.


GM Vince, Charles Zhuang, Instructor John Moore, Master Kevin Seskis

After the demonstrations, many Chinese people came on to the event arena, because they all wanted to get photos with the two Full Contact Stickfighting World Champions from Australia.

It was great to get such a massive and energetic response from a Chinese crowd who had’nt ever seen the Sport Filipino Stickfighting before, and it was obvious that they all enjoyed the Filipino style of stickfighting called Cacoy Doce Pares Eskrima/Stickfighting held there.


Big John and GM Vince doing the Kulata sparring

For more information on Grandmaster Vince Palumbo, visit www.grandmastervincentpalumbo.com

A story from Grandmaster Vince Palumbo during his stick fighting demonstration at the “Adelaide Fringe Festival”.

Hi Guys,

Here is little story for you, a few weeks ago me and my Stickfighters from my school the International Combative Martial Arts Academy did 6 stickfighting demonstrations at the ‘Adelaide Fringe Festival’ just before we went to demonstrate in Hong Kong to do our shows at the World Wushu Games Competition, and on one of those nights when we were there doing our show, the rapper called ‘Lupe Fiasco’ from the USA attended our demonstration.

He was so excited when he watched our ‘Street Stickfighting’ demonstration, and he really enjoyed the show, then he even invited us to his excellent concert in Adelaide here at the Thebarton Town Hall, and he also invited us to go to his after concert party.

Actually, we all had the best time, he was a fantastic bloke!

He told me that his father was a Grand Master in Martial Arts, and he told me that he himself was a 2nd Dan Black Belt in Karate, but he was a very humble fellow.

When I asked him what he was doing there at the Fringe Festival, he told me that someone had told him about our ‘Street Stickfighting’ demonstrations, and he had heard good things about us, so he wanted to come along and see for himself, and he really liked what he saw.

This made me to feel so proud!

Lupe and the boys from his band took out their mobile phones and started recording our demonstration because they liked it so much.

Then at their concert he even gave us a real special mention when he said to the audience, “I wanna welcome my stickfighting homies to this concert tonite, these guys are awesome, and they’re real bad muther fuckers!”

The audience gave us a big round of applause, it was great!

This story makes me to think back when many years ago an old wrestler told me the golden rule when performing demonstrations in front of a captive and live audience, he said to me, “Vince, it does’nt matter if there’s 1 or 1001 people watching in the audience, you always give them a good show, because you just never know who’s there in the audience watching you on that night, so always give it your best!”

I have never forgot this saying, and so this is definately what we did, and what a wonderful surprise we all got, eh guys!

Thanks.
With regards and respect from,

Grand Master Vincent C. Palumbo 9th Degree Black Belt
Cacoy Doce Pares Eskrima World Federation
Cacoy Pangamot Filipino Jiu Jitsu Association
World Champion Pro-Boxer and Full Contact Stickfighter