For a long time, I’ve been hearing tales of Leo T. Gaje Jr., the grandmaster of the Pekiti Tirsia system of Kali—perhaps the most controversial figure in the Filipino martial arts.

Over the years, I’d had the opportunity to discuss the man with half a dozen of his senior students and an equal number of colleagues and acquaintances, but until recently, I’d never met him. So when my friend Ahkmed Boouraca invited me to a Gaje seminar he was hosting in New York, I thought I might finally get a better understanding of him.

Trying to understand Gaje is reminiscent of the Japanese story Rashomon, wherein every character recounts the events from a different viewpoint, with no one agreeing on the facts. Opinions vary wildly, with some loving Gaje and some loathing him. The one thing almost everyone agrees on is his incredible martial arts skill.

Boouraca calls Gaje “the truth” and said he owes everything he has to the man. But another longtime student of Gaje once described him as “pure evil.”

When I finally met him, he seemed more a genial, grandfatherly figure, puttering around in a baseball cap and a baggy “I Love Texas” sweatshirt, than the personification of darkness. Then he took the floor to teach the Pekiti Tirsia style he learned from his grandfather, Conrado Tortal. Gaje began a simple knife-fighting technique, then suddenly dropped to his knees and proclaimed, “Now we pray—for his death!”

Possessing phenomenal grace and agility for a man in his 70s, Gaje swept his foe to the ground and mounted him before dragging his training knife across his neck in a casual throat-cutting motion. Then he smacked him across the face, jabbed the tip of the dull knife into his carotid, jammed his other hand under the fellow’s nose to shove his head back, and once more cut his throat before summarizing: “Enjoy it—drink his blood!” At that point, he made a sucking noise.

Welcome to the world of Leo Gaje.

Born in Negros Occidental in the Philippines, Gaje began training in the martial arts at age 6. His grandfather drilled him in nothing but footwork for three years before moving on to the striking aspects of the system and schooling him in the use of knives, sticks, and various other weapons. The boy also learned the empty-hand tactics that make up the Pekiti Tirsia curriculum. But like everything surrounding Gaje, the nature and origins of many of these techniques are mysterious.

Some have claimed Gaje borrowed moves from other styles and incorporated them into Pekiti Tirsia, while others have stated he’s continually modified his teachings over the years. Gaje insisted there’s no truth to any of this.

“Everything I teach is the traditional art that I learned,” he said. “Why would I change anything when it was all there already? It’s just that people have only seen parts of the system, so when they see something new, they think I’ve made changes. But these things have always been there.”

Whatever he’s teaching, Gaje’s methods seem to work. His students read like a who’s who of Filipino martial arts luminaries, including world arnis champion Tom Bisio, Dog Brothers co-founder Eric Knaus, Sayoc Kali head Chris Sayoc, and Pekiti Tirsia expert William McGrath. Beginning his teaching career in New York with Boouraca and these others back in the early 1970s, Gaje skillfully built a style that’s now practiced around the globe.

Renowned for his expertise with edged weapons, Gaje is a sought-after instructor with military and law enforcement organizations and has served as a close-quarters combat instructor for the Philippine Marines.

But always there were rumors of his dark side. One hears bizarre stories, such as how, when he first moved to New York, he used to ride the subways late at night with money hanging out of his pockets, looking half asleep in hopes that someone would attempt to mug him so he could practice his martial arts. Surely this can’t be true. …

“Oh yes, that’s true,” he said. “I wanted to see if my techniques worked. What’s the point in practicing this stuff for all those years if you never get to use it?”

Bisio once told me about the time he got on a subway train with Gaje while Gaje was carrying three knives, a sword concealed inside a cane, and a ball bearing embedded in the palm of his glove. Exaggeration?

“I remember that,” Gaje said. “I always want to be prepared for what comes up.”

He still carries three knives at all times, but he has a logical reason for it:

“I carry two for me and one for my opponent. That way, if I give him one and kill him, the police can’t say I killed an unarmed man.”

Gaje offered many of these comments with a gallows humor that made me think he was joking … perhaps.

“You have to have fun and enjoy what you’re doing,” he said. “You can’t be so serious all the time, especially when you’re doing martial arts and teaching people kill, kill, kill!”

So was he joking or was he serious? Is he a martial arts messiah or the devil in disguise? Gaje, characteristically, prefers to remain mysterious.

“People online have called me a madman,” he said. “I’m not a madman—but I am crazy. I’m misunderstood. But to be misunderstood is to be great.”