The ways of the blade and balila (sword-club, fighting stick) comprised the dueling and sidearm skill of these Luzon fighters - archery, spears and muskets would have been the main battle armaments. Kabaroan, pronounced (Ka-bar-wan), is the arnis/escrima of Iluko (Ilocano) peoples and closely related to the fighting arts of Pangasinan. Today, the Luzon methods of escrima / arnis are largely fading. Those who can afford good educations do not want to concern themselves with the lower-class or provincial fighting arts. The clans who have such skills often keep it in the family, thus lineages often keep their fighting skills a secret from the general populace. Modern stick-fighting formats do not cater to the Luzon way and the general audience for so-called tactical systems shies from hard physical work. That said some practitioners remain, and parts of Luzon still have their stylized forms of gentlemanly stick dueling.

Vincent Tseng’s main kabaroan teacher is Virgil Mayor Apostal. He is an Iluko (Ilocano) cultural torchbearer and his Didya 'Kabarwánan (escrima system) is formulated from the various Iluko elders he learned from and his immersion in the culture, history and healing practices of his homeland. One of Vincent’s mentors is Franz Jundis, whose teacher has learned from various old timers in the homeland as well.