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Rating: 
Summary: Wiley should be sued, for this trash
Review: For all his supposed knowledge, Mark Wiley didn't have the diplomacy to not disrespect his seniors, including the Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr. The martial arts community seeing the Grandmaster in the Photos, may think that he is agreeing with what went into Mr. Wiley's book, but that is not the case. An incident at the photo shoot precluded further discussions and Mr. Wiley left early for the East Coast. On page 17 Mr. Wiley shows a photo of Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr. and addresses him as Vincent Cabales, yet he lists Daren and Jerry Perciado as Masters. Jerry Perciado, has studied Serrada, for many years, off and on, but has not received his Master Degree, yet both books lists Jerry as Master. A photo of Jerry receiving his Advanced Degree has captions that it is Jerry getting his Master Diploma. Jerry has not completed his Master training. Mark Wiley in the first book list of masters omitted #16 Master Stanley Wells, because Stanley is loyal to Grandamster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr. At the photo shoot for the second book, I listened as Master Stanley Wells confronted Mr. Wiley about the inaccuracies in the first book. And I listened as Mark Wiley, promised to include Master Stanley Wells in the master list in the second edition. Master Stanley Wells, began training before Master Jaime Cabiero started in the early 70's. As for the Filipino culture, Mr. Wiley included in the book the language of Tagolog, rather than English or Vissayan as Grandmaster Angel would have preferred. The contributing articles that most of the people wrote were ridiculous, and should have been omitted also. Mark claims that he got the list of Masters from Angel at his kitchen table, but the information that Mark Wiley used for the lineage list was obtained from Master Frank Rillamas. Frank did the caligraphy for all of the diplomas after Diploma number five, so had kept a list, and that is why the book made a mistake on who got Diploma number one. Master Frank Rillamas, told Mark that he thought Master John Cabales might be the oldest. Angel would not have made that mistake. During Angel's life he mentioned that he wanted 12 true disciples. He is well remembered as an honest and caring man. He had 12 disciples and he knew who they were. Angel spoke of his disciples hundreds of times and Daren was not one of them. It was sometime after Angel died that they called themselves 'Angel's Disciples.' If they were true disciples they would reflect back to when Angel was alive, and appointed his son Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr., to take over the Serrada Academy as his main last wish. Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales, actually took over the responsibility of the academy in 1990, a year before Angel died. If they were disciples of Angel they would help out, regardless of differences. I do not recommend Mr. Wiley's books on Serrada. Mr. Wiley has put out a lot of effort in the wrong direction, listening to Jerry Presiado and Daren Tibon. Jerry did not recieve his Master diploma and Daren's is no longer recognized by the Cabales Serrada System and Accademy. Mark Wiley needs to contact Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr. when he writes about Serrada. Actually he did contact the Grandmaster for book number one promissing that if he could go through with the book with permission from Grandmaster Vincent Angel Cabales Sr. he would give some of the money to Angel's kids. Grandmaster Vincent Cabales said to give his part of the money to Tess, Angels wife for Angel's small children. Mark said that he would have Vincent proof read it before it went to print. But one day it was published without Vincent looking it over before it went to print. There was a note in the front of the book that Daren told me that his wife wrote and had Angel sign. I believe the note was never signed by Angel! Angel would have refused! We would have missed the second photo shoot if I hadn't caught Mark Wiley and Tony Somera going right past the class at Gong Lee's after visiting with Daren Tibon. The Grandmaster could have answered a lot of questions, if Mark Wiley would have asked. Both books are absolutely worthless! So I highly recommend against them.
Train hard and have fun!
Rating:
Summary: I'M LOST W/ THE CABALES STORIES.
Review: Hello everyone. I hope this message gets to the write person. I was taking escrima serrada in San Francisco from IESA. They have since broke into two factions. I just don't know what the deal is since I've been gone so long. I was in New Jersey and stumbled on one of his books and all my memories of studying came back to me and I long to complete my training in escrima. Does anyone know of anyone teaching in NJ/NYC area? I do go back to the bay area once in awhile and if i must continue training there then I will start again. I am also looking for a master to train with in the Philippines if you know of anyone. Thanks very much for reading!
Rating:
Summary: Not a good martial arts book!
Review: I knew Mark 10 years ago at the Degerberg Academy in Chicago. At that time he was there to study Escrima and various other arts. I bought the book and am glad he got a chance to write a book about something he enjoys. Mark always worked hard at the art and did a fine job in providing pictures and showing movements. Congratulations, Mark!
Rating:
Summary: Wiley should be sued, for this trash
Review: Mark Wiley is to be congratulated/encouraged for at least writing about this art of which there wasn't much info around. Mark does make some mistakes when he shows the basic counter routines, specially with the check hand sequence. In some photos every position is incorrect. The story about Guro Cabales and his anecdotes also is not really correct. Yet, I will keep the book as an important source of some information and a promising presentation. The next version is supposed to be out in coming months. Initially, in order to prepare for this story, Mark should have spent some time training in Stockton with Serrada's top Guros. He did not allow them to contribute to the book. This next version "Secrets of Cabales Serrada Eskrima" is supposed to ammend all mistakes.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful introduction to Cabales Serrada Escrima!
Review: The foreword of the book was personally written by Grandmaster Angel Cabales who tells why he personally chose Mark Wiley to present his art to the public. As it clearly stated in the book, Grandmaster Angel Cabales read and approved the manuscript before his unfortunate death in 1991. In this introductory book, Mr. Wiley purposely exaggerated the movements and distance of this short range fighting style to help the photographer and give the reader a clearer view of how the techniques are performed. Basic concepts and techinques were explained, but as with any martial arts book, it was never intended to be used as a means to learn the art without a qualified instructor. It is also admirable that Mr. Wiley focused on presenting the art form of Grandmaster Angel Cabales and did not digress into tales of his training that do nothing more than boost his own image like so many other martial arts authors do. The author's qualifications to teach, write about, and demonstrate this art are impeccable. Mark Wiley received his Master's Degree (Pangulong Guro) in Cabales Serrada Escrima in March of 1990 by Grandmaster Angel Cabales. Mark Wiley has written for and edited numerous martial arts publications and regularly travels to the Philippines as well as other parts of Asia to do research on and continue his study of the martial arts.
Rating:
Summary: glad I didn't buy it
Review: Unfortunately the book can only be as good as the practitioner and this one is not that good. He underestimates his readers by simplifying the concepts and techniques of his art, generalizing cultural and spiritual aspects. (BTW, he doesn't really do any better in Filipino Martial Culture.) The stories that he relays about the lineage are haphazzard. He picks and chooses which legends/stories he wishes to believe and uses that argument to counter other stories to the point where he essentially calls Dizon's boyhood training partner a liar. This is just bad research and bad oral history. He is not arrogant enough to say "this is my training experience" outright, but he serves the injustice of claiming this is real "research," when it seems he's only stepped as far as his back door. He may be an instructor, but it doesn't mean he understands his art to its very depths.
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