The GGM Is Assumed To Be Dead
The GGM Is Assumed To Be Dead!
By Senior Regional Chief Instructor Knut Peacock
When the GGM was a young man, he was expected to work in the sugar cane or pineapple fields as did most Filipinos when they arrived in Hawai’i. However, working the rest of his life doing hard labor was not something that appealed to him: “I am not going to work like a mule” he told us.
He was a very good gambler and made his living for decades using this talent. After leaving the Big Island, he caught a fishing boat to Oahu and lived as a professional gambler. Remember, this included the years of the Great Depression in the 1930s; these were extremely hard times in Hawai’i. The plantation workers worked long 10-12 hour days and the men were driven by the Luna (field bosses) to the point of exhaustion; the pay was low, barely enough to survive on.
So, the GGM would show up when the men got paid and gamble with them, most of the time winning and taking their money. Imagine being the worker’s wife when he got home only to find all that hard work had been gambled away! Needless to say, there were many upset wives each week.
On one particular occasion, the GGM had taken a worker’s money who was furious that he lost. He waited in the shadows one evening around the corner of the building. (Everyone knew that the GGM was an excellent Escrimador and no one would ever challenge him to a fair fight.) As the GGM approached the hiding place, the man jumped out with a large knife and stabbed the GGM in the stomach, ripping a gash ten inches long and opening his gut. The GGM grabbed his guts, which were spilling out, and before the attacker gave a second strike, the GGM knocked him out.
He knew he was probably going to die and this man had sneaked attacked him. With the attacker’s knife in hand, he thought, for only a moment, he should kill him. Then his philosophy of never “finishing off” a defenseless opponent took over. He dropped the knife and soon passed out.
When he awakened, he suddenly felt very cold; he was lying face up, naked, on a slab at the morgue! He sat up and, seeing a nurse said “Whoo da cold in here! Can I have a blanket please?” The nurse freaked out and ran away screaming “Aaaaaaaaaa!!” thinking she had seen a ghost.
The GGM was rushed back to the hospital and eventually recovered.
The GGM never pursued an attempted murder charge; he immediately forgave the man in his heart. Years later, the man who stabbed him approached him begging forgiveness. He said he couldn’t sleep since that day and his life was miserable. The GGM forgave him on the spot.
From this experience, the GGM strengthened his belief in self-defense and only going as far as you have to stop an attack. Never “finish off” a defenseless opponent. This is one of the key philosophies that the Pedoy’s School of Escrima is based on.