History of my DeCuerdas training the start of the VEA Martial Arts Academy and Black Wolf DeCuerdas Club.
I was born and raised in Stockton, California, which many recognize as the birth place of Western Philippine Martial Arts (or commonly referred to as FMA). I have been a practitioner of the martial arts for over 20 years. My interest in the arts began at an early age (about 15-16 years old) when I enrolled in the art of “VÕ LÂM VIET NAM Kung Fu”which had its school located off of Lafayette street, in downtown Stockton, on the bottom floor of the Confucius Center. I studied this art for about a year before realizing that I was not yet mentally ready to devote myself to the arts. I first began my study of Tenio’s DeCuerdas in ~1996 under Sr. Master Jorge Magana, training with him for about year prior to meeting GM Art Gonzalez, Sr. Master Jorge would show me techniques within the aisles of the Rare Parts Inc. in Stockton where we both worked, he in shipping and receiving, and I as a maintenance electrician, we would sneak away whenever we had time to train in the darkness of the warehouse, as such our friendship developed. At the time I only knew of a handful of techniques I had gatherd from book, movies, and previous informal lessons with my dad and uncles. I remember the one time I tried to put him in a standard arm bar and he conducted a sombrada, or reversal and throw me to the concrete floor, from then on I was hooked. Although we continued training, he would always tell me and encouraged me to begin training under GM Art alongside him, he said then he would have someone to try this “shit on”, then laughed “right Mikie”. At that time GM Art was teaching out of the Stribley Park community center in Stockton CA, this was about the time GM Art had just come out and started teaching publicly thanks to the encouragement of Sr. Chief Daniel Siazon.
It wasn’t until I was introduced to Grand Master Arthur Gonzalez that my general interest developed into a passion and a way of life, I formally began my training under GM Art in ~1997 out of Guro Terry Joven’s School in Stockton CA , off of Pacific Avenue, behind the old Long John Silvers restaurant. In ~2003-2004 I started up a martial arts program at my place of work for my fellow employees as a Brown Belt, along side my fellow coworkers and martial artists, now Sigung Jimmy Mirador and Sifu Dean Simmons. Sigung Jimmy brought in elements of his Kajukenbo background and FMA and Sifu Dean brought in elements of Kajukenpo (Chinese Kenpo) and Kung Fu training and naturally I brought in DeCuerdas, the name of our joint program was called the Bechtel Nevada Livermore Operations Martial Arts Club (BNLOMAC), or LOMAC for short. This is also the first time that I began to teach more formally and saw the real benefit of cross training and discussion of our arts, this martial period for me was truly amazing, and I cherish those memories dearly as it provided one of the best opportunities for me to grow as a martial artists, Sifu Dean Simmons actually was my very first formal student and very fist white belt and very first yellow belt which I ranked one I had earned my black belt. Eventually the group disbanded as work and life got in the way and attendance of our class shrunk due to employee retention issues with the company. I was awarded my 2nd degree black belt after 8 years of study under the instruction of GM Gonzalez in the art of Decuerdas Eskrima on May 15, 2005, which was awarded at Sr. Master Jorge’s DeCuerdas school, located off of Fremont Street, I had skipped directly from 3rd degree brown directly to 2nd degree black. In September 11, 2010 I was awarded my 3rd Degree Black Belt at a graduation ceremony that I arranged at the Kosho Ryu Kenpo Karate School where I was attending and studying Kosho Ryu Kenpo under Sensei Jason Cortez and Sensei Larry Acaya in Manteca CA, many prominent Eskrimadors from Stockton attended at witnessed the graduation ceremony including GM Richard Tenio the son of the late SGM Gilbert Tenio.
About a year prior to this, I had began to formally teach DeCuerdas privately out of my home in Manteca where I had moved a few years prior. Due to the continued pestering of a former co-worker Travis Pond, now Guro Pond; what started with just one, then two students, quickly grew to over have a dozen simply from word of mouth. It was also about this time that Sensei Larry found out that I was an FMA practitioner, I had kept this private during my early belts of my Kenpo training but one evening during my practice he asked, ok what else do you know because you don’t move like a yellow belt. He and I quickly became friends as Sensei Larry was usually the instructor working with me to help prepare me for my upcoming tip testing and belt testing. It was based on his recommendation that I come visit his daughters cheer school, where he was teaching a kids Kenpo program, and he suggested that I run my Eskrima program from there as well, in his words, “I cant have you and your guys training outside in the rain”. Out of respect for the school owner and director, Amy Acaya I gratefully agreed, but decided to make it a joint venture between Amy, Larry and myself and named the martial art program, and school, the VEA Martial Arts Academy, the VEA stands for Victorious Elite Allstars, and has nothing to do with martial arts but is in honor to Amy Acaya and her institution. With the assistance of my friend Sigung Jimmy Mirador, he helped me create our VEA School emblem, and the rest is history as we have been operating under this banner ever since, with Sensei Larry in charge of the Kenpo program and I running the FMA portion as well as logistics of events. I currently hold the rank of Fourth Degree Black Belt (Master Instructor), which I was awarded on June 14th, 2014, by Grand Master Arthur Gonzalez, and which was witnessed and signed by Professor James Muro, GM Vincent Cabales and GM Michael Giron, my certification contains one other signature which unfortunately I cannot decipher who it may be. I will note, that early on from the late 1990’s to about 2002 we didn’t have a belt ranking system, we simply trained in sweat pants and a t-shirts, then we went from sweat pants to a formal school shirt, I still can vividly recall the day that GM Art walked into class with a bag full of martial art belts and threw different colored belts at us based on where he believed we might rank when compared to more traditional systems, I had a blue belt thrown at me which I still own, the purpose for transition to the belt system was because GM Art was bringing in other guest instructors of more traditional systems and theses instructors said they couldn’t tell what our experience levels where when we crossed trained with them and they considered this a safety issue. The original DeCuerdas Eskrimadors who were around during these very early years where Daniel Siazon, Jorge Magana, myself, Terry Joven, Justin Hensley, Jimmy Blevins and Dave Epperson (Big Dave) who started showing up regularly at our school off of Fremont Street, I consider these gentlemen my original family and brothers.
It is under the over twenty-year tutelage of GM Gonzalez that I was able to learn effective offensive and defensive combative concepts rather than typical systematic techniques found elsewhere. It is through these concepts applied to my additional martial training that I have utilized to further develop responsive movements to numerous assault scenarios. I have crossed trained with organizations such as the Kilohana Martial Arts Association and Jujitsu of America. I am currently employed as a Work Planning Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I have attempted to mesh my years of martial arts training and my formal academic background to develop quality instruction and collaborative workshops that I hope will continue to serve and benefit for the entire martial arts community, law bidding citizens, and students who become part of the Black Wolf DeCuerdas Eskrima Club. I formally announced my separation from GM Art Gonzalez in March of 2019, we had reached a few conflicts of interest that became irreconcilable. Regardless of this split I am grateful for the instruction I received from him, without these lessons or positive impacts of the FMA training that was brought into my life I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have had the courage to continue my academic education or overcome other hurdles requiring mental strength. While we are now formally separated, there is no denying that essence of DeCuerdas that I teach came from GM Art, the root and base of my knowledge, the DeCuerdas FMA curriculum I teach at the VEA was developed by me from my numerous notebooks and memories of our early lessons prior to when I began actively taking notes. Because our system is primarily concept based, it would be too difficult and for unyielding to capture everything in our art, therefore I developed a belt system that focused on our fundamentals and essence of our art (as I perceived it to be). Within a week of our separation I changed the school logo and our name for our FMA system to Black Wolf DeCuerdas Eskrima Club.
About the newly formed “Black Wolf Pack DeCuerdas Eskrima Club. The new school crest represents the new path and chapter I will be embarking on, the use of the black wolf comes from my Spanish Heritage and represents a major symbol on my Cardenas family surname coat of arms, which is actually two black wolves facing each other. I also like this image and symbolism because I know that my train of thought is slightly different than my other DeCuerdas brothers, this is not a good or bad statement, we each may havea different approach to looking at things. As Sr. Jorge Magana pointed out, this is ok and normal, as DeCuerdas serves as a vehicle to make you the best martial artist you can be, based and derived from your training and from your experiences drawn elsewhere. As he once explained to me the following, when someone reaches the rank of black belt in DeCuerdas and when they open up a book explaining what it means to be a DeCuerdas black belt, the first thing they will see when thy flip the page is a mirror, reflecting themselves, signifying each observer as a unique Guro and practitioner of DeCuerdas. With each bringing their own interpretation of the art, strengths and weakness. Out of respect for GM Art we immediately began removing the school logo he developed from our VEA Martial Arts Academy School and our FMA program. I will continue to propagate the DeCuerdas art from my interpretation and do what I can to benefit the entire FMA community as well as others from the more mainstream and traditional arts.
Out of respect for other instructors that I have trained and collaborated with, on more than one occasion, I have listed them below:
Vo Lam Vietnam Kung Fu, unfortunately I cannot remember the name of my instructor (~1 + yr of study)
Guro Jim Collins of THE KAMATUURAN SCHOOL OF KALI, Livermore CA.
Sifu Jim Mirador, Kajukenbo & Eskrima (He is also an Adjunct VEA Academy Instructor)
Sensei Jason Cortez, Kosho Ryu Kenpo Karate (White-Purple Belt)
Sifu Dean Simmons, Kajukenpo
Kosho Ryu Kenpo under Sensi Larry Acaya of the Mitose Lineage in Manteca, CA.
I am currently Studying Sijo Emperado's Kajukenbo System under Professor Dennis Peterson at the Lawrence Livermore Lab Martial Arts Networking Group (Hold the rank of Brown Belt)
Currently studying Brazilian Juijitsu at the JG Academy in Manteca CA. Began Training in August 2022.
Community Involvement:
San Joaquin Office of Education, North Central Valley STEM Center. Executive Board Member 2015-Current
San Joaquin Delta College Puente Club, Mentor. 2006 Mentor of the year Award.
San Joaquin Delta College Puente Advisory Board, 2006, 2007 Advisory Board Chairman.
San Joaquin Delta College Math Engineering Science and Achievement, advisory board member, 2003 & 2004.
League of United Latin American Citizens-2007 Youth Leadership Conference, Guest Speaker.
University of The Pacific Multicultural Engineering Program, advisory board member 2003, 2004.
Clark County School District, Las Vegas Nevada E-Mentor, 2007
Weber Technical Institute, 2008 Senior Project Judge.
Pleasanton Unified School District Science Fun Fair Judge, 2000 & 2004.
Educational Background:
AA, San Joaquin Delta College: Technical Education
BS, ITT Technical Institute: Electronics Engineering
BS, Charter Oak State College: In Concentration: Management & Leadership
MA, Ashford University: Teaching & Learning with Technology
Technical Management Certificate: University of California Los Angeles
Supervisory Certificate: University of The Pacific
Graduate Certificate, Northeastern University: Leadership
Hobbies (outside of martial arts):
Spending time with family, fishing, mentoring, hiking, electronics, exercise, gardening, home improvement projects, reading, & college coursework.
My interview with Kali Konversations Organization. Part 1-4
Part -4 of my interview on Kalikonversations. Demonstrating some DeCuerdas Diestro Fighting Systems Principles
Pacific Avenue Dojo, Stockton CA.
Circa 1996
CERTIFICATIONS OF RANK NOTED BELOW
2nd Degree Black Belt Awarded on 5/15/2005 (As noted above, Fremont Street Dojo, Stockton CA.)
3rd Degree Black Belt Awarded on 9/11/10 (As noted above)
4th Degree Master Instructor Awarded on 6/14/2014 (As noted above)
Above Photo: My Kajukenbo Brethren, Brown Belt Test Day. June of 2019.
