My name is Rick Cable, I'm a 50 year old, 16 year US Navy veteran, returning to martial arts training after a 30 year layoff.
I began my training at the age of 5 in San Jose, California back in the mid 70's in a very brief intro to Kung Fu with some Chineese gentlemen who were new to the US and pretty hard core. My parents put me in the class at the urging of my brother who had trained a bit and I was a big fan of the TV show Kung Fu with David Carradine at the time (Gee I'm old). My parents quickly found out I was not ready for it.
I did not pick it up again until the age of 12 or 13. I trained in Arnis, Filipino stick and blade fighting, with Grand Master Norlito Soriano for about 7 months in his home studio. My nephew was good friends with his son who I'm still good friends with today. In my 7th month, I had a back injury from bad throwing technique that had me out for 6 months.
Post injury and still in Junior High I started training in Ed Parker Style Kenpo from Scott Miller who is the son of Bill Miller who was one of Ed Parker's initial Kenpo "Deciples" who went out and spread his style in the early days. Ed Parker was Bruce Lee's roommate in SOCAL back in the 60s.
While training Ed Parker Style Kenpo with the Miller's I attended a big Karate tournament in San Jose, California where Ernie Reyes's West Coast Demo Team did a fantastic demonstration that had me on my feet.
A month later I was training at West Coast Taekwondo under Ken Barrett and Tony Thompson. I wanted nothing more in the world at the time than to be on the West Coast Demo Team. I ate, slept and drank Taekwondo to obsession. Six months in to training at West Coast I hounded and pestered Tony Thompson in to submission until he gave me an audition for the Junior Demo Team.
I was honored and thankful for the opportunity to be part of the prestigious Demo Team. I can't thank Ken Barrett and Tony Thompson enough. I competed under the West Coast flag and was an active member of the West Coast Junior Demo Team for about a year. It took an amazing amount of persistence of which I will tell in much greater detail in my blog.
In addition to my extracurricular training, my high school offered Judo which I took every semester for all four years of high school. 4 years of Judo training with John Sepulveda, who is not the same John Sepulveda of Kempo fame, and no belt. [Frownie Face]. My good friend Kyle actually took our high school training then continued all the way to Olympic tryouts.
In 1985 I joined the US Navy and proudly served for 16 years. I'm honored to have had the opportunity to work, train and PT with Navy SEALs as an embedded support team member. In my last tour I received Aikido training used for pain and compliance in US Navy Corrections / Law Enforcement.
Stories? I've got'em. I've been fortunate to have had opportunities to kickbox in Thailand, backfist a dude in bar in Hong Kong (Good story I'll save for later that involves a Hong Kong martial arts actor from Blood Sport who was also a casting agent).
During my time and travels in the Navy I managed somewhere along the line to start a family and my Sons, Matt Cable and Scott Cable, today are both studs in their specific sports and train very hard and set fitness goals as a way of life. I would like to think they got it from me.
In 2014, my oldest son, Matt, who is in the military and just 60 days from an overseas deployment was diagnosed with AML leukemia. After a hard fought battle, Matt has been in remission for 2 years.
I was with Matt in his darkest hours in the ICU fighting for his life in a coma for 11 days. He fought his way back and is bigger and better than ever today inspiring everyone he meets. My son's fight with cancer inspired me to get back in shape and inspire others.
This is the first of what I hope many blog posts that will help me document my journey back into Martial Arts training. I will be training in Kang Duk Won Korean Karate as well as Filipino stick and blade fighting, Arnis.
In future blog posts I will share some of my related military stories and many past martial arts training experiences with various styles as well as my experiences on the Ernie Reyes's West Coast Taekwondo Demo Team and Tony Thompson on the West Coast Junior Demo Team.
Stay tuned for some exciting stuff.
