hello. my name is gregory balberan. You have received this email because either
you are a member of a yahoogroup that I am a member of, or you are one of Nong
Larry's eskrido students, or because I got your email addie fom the CC
recipients of the nanka email. My apologies if this email is unwelcome.

it is sad news that I am going to be sharing with you. This is regarding
Grandmaster Gerardo "Larry" Alcuizar, or "Nong Larry" (Nong is short for a
Filipino word Manong meaning older brother/elder gentleman), as I'd call him. I
just spoke to my cousin on the phone, she told me that this morning around 8:30
am Nong Larry joined the Creator. He was just picked up by the Forrest Lawn
Mortuary staff, so viewing will be at Forrest LAwn in Cypress, California.

I first met this great man 2003, Thanksgiving Day. I prepared turkey and he was
one of my "victims" who ate and was OK, no adverse reactions to my
turkey,fresh-from-the-can cranberry sauce, beef stroganoff (ok, not a
traditional thanksgiving item, but hey, the ingredients were there). His wife
Nang Lou told me before, "When you meet my husband, you'd have fun talking to
him, I think he's doing some karate-karate (in my dialect Cebuano, repeating a
word is like minimizing the value of that word which got repeated), i thinks he
is a black belt" He introduced himself as "LArry, bana ni Lou" (LArry, husband
of Lou). so after all other conversation topics were exhausted, we talked about
"karate-karate". Turns out he was not doing karate-karate and he was not... a
blackbelt...he was doing/teaching ARNIS/KALI/ESKRIMA, COMBAT JUDO, KODOKAN JUDO,
TANGSOODO,KARATE, and he was not a blackbelt ONLY, in the other arts he had that
red/white belt for the 10th dan folks, and he had been teaching these arts at
Saudi Arabia for about twenty years! whereas other martial arts practitioners
and enthusiasts would be bragging about the arms they've broken, people theyv'e
choked out, folks they have KO'd, Nong Larry would just be sitting quietly
minding his own business. I remember some afternoons year 2003 he'd teach us
some stickfighting techniques, and the afternoon would be capped with a hearty
dinner of soda, rice, and dinuguan (chocolate pork). He never demanded for money
in exchange for the lessons. My cousins and I would chip in a few dollars and he
always had to be forced to accept the money.

check out this man's resume:

http://eskridousa.com/Grandmaster.htm

i'm telling you, folks, he's the real deal, a master of escrima/kali/arnis,
combat judo, tang soo do, with black belts in taekwondo and Kodokan Judo,
originator of Eskrido, Physical Education instructor, (ha!, i'd be lucky to get
a black belt in ANY of those arts, yes, including Physical Education, hehe). He
was doing MMA yearsssssssssssssss before someone thought of using the term MMA
for Mixed MArtial Arts, even before the Ultimate Fighting Championship's debut,
even before it dawned on martial artists to stop thinking "striker versus
grappler", "kung fu versus karate", "jujitsu versus graeco-roman wrestling", way
before jujitsu master Royce Gracie decided to work out at Fairtex Muay Thai gym,
even before super striker Quinton "Rampage" JAckson decided to "secret"-ly
practice jujitsu, even before professional fighters decided to cross-train in
other ranges of arts, he had already done stand-up fighting, ground
fighting/grappling, weapons training.

here's a request that i would like to make. if you are Cebu-based or
Philippine-based, could you please notify the Doce Pares Escrima Club leaders,
Master Ciriacio "Cacoy" Canete, Master Dionisio Canete, and his students at the
Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT) Durex Judo-Karate-Arnis Club. If you are
US-based and you happen to know any Doce PAres Escrima club, please notify the
instructors too. By tomorrow I would be calling Ferrer Academy where he
conducted a seminar, and maybe I'd stop by Ramon Rubio and Eva Canete's gym.
I'll see if i could find or contact the Tang Soo Do Association in Philadelphia,
see if MAster Jae Shin is available.

Nong LArry, you will be missed!


http://eskridousa.com