An abridged recollection of a morning conversation. Redacted some 45 minutes on knife use, legalities and carry options.
The Operator: “Mister James, sir, thank you so much for setting me up with that instruction. These guys definitely know their stuff, techniques, drills. But, I got this sense that, well, outside of the drill format I was already on their level—that they weren’t you. I mean, they know their stuff but they don’t spar, we don’t bring it, it’s all course work without a test at the end, if you know what I mean.”
The Crackpot: [I explained the history of FMA training being integrated in Korean and Japanese American schools where non-contact stop action training is the rule and how the FMA people had to choose between flow drills or stop action contact in order to purvey their art in America.]
“So, combat training in America, being pay to play retention oriented enrollment schemes, naturally gravitates into a hypnotic and sympathetic pattern. If you ever get to go knife to knife with a guy trained in FMA, that is not one of our guys, then you threaten the hand to lock him into his training focus, then do a pass lunge and cut his throat off of that feint to his hand. His focus, checking the enemy blade hand with the empty hand, for you, that is what you do after you kill him so he can’t take you with him.”
The Operator: “Okay, so you just halfway answered my next question, in that although these were great guys and I’m going to do some work with them in the future, they seemed to be put off by me. I thought it was my association with you, but they speak very highly of you.”
The Crackpot: “You’re an animal. The sheep don’t know if you’re a dog or a wolf—all the same to a sheep who is meat for either breed. But where you are into combat because you like it, they are in the business of studying it, isolating it, sanitizing it and controlling it. You, showing up at the dojo with a directly stated purpose of tooling up for trouble, that kind of pierces the vacuum that is the dojo.”
The Operator: “Okay, so should I just keep with the Kenpo drills and the bag and footwork drills and wait for you to get back, or should I call Erique.”
The Crackpot: “My recommendation is to train with Erique once a month. He will spar with you, and when he does something that you don’t deal with well, you say, ‘Hey, could you break out the portion of a drill that comes from, then you’ll drill briefly and go back to sparring. He’s a good coach, he’s got gear for you, and he fights. Now, Brett he’ll show up with his gear—you bring your own, then he’ll politely tool you up, pick you off the floor, dust you off, ask if you’re okay, and then take you a part again. He’s a stud. He won’t hurt anything but your ego, and since he learned as a kid, he knows the little guy angle you need, even though he’s now a specimen.”
The Operator: “So what about the grappling. I work, I’m a thin older guy with back injuries, and I still wanna be there for the young girls, if you catch my drift. I don’t want to be rolling a ound on the mat getting hurt...”
The Crackpot: “You remember the stocky neck tattooed guy?”
The Operator: “The Bronx guy, a good guy.”
The Crackpot: “Well he wrestled for a decade and did BJJ at Mat Serra’s club. He does not see himself as a coach, but he can break down and explain grappling well. Plus, he’s been doing knife for 20 years. I can’t get a clean cut on him any more. He can go over the grappling tells with you and he knows that grappling is a waist of time for a skinny guy your age, that once you’re on the floor you’re done, unless you stab him or shoot him from your back.”
The Operator: “I like it, good guy...I remember him, Set it up, can he get down here to Baltimore?”
The Crackpot: “Look, I thought of him before, but sent you to the other guys because its an hour drive for him to get to you and, well, he hates cops, and you were a cop.”
The Operator: “Oh, shit, so he’s got a history. I mean if he’s done time I understand, wouldn’t hold it against the guy. You know what, really, the only reason I became a cop, being an Irish guy from Boston, was because I had family members, you know, uncles, that were in there. I had done some bull shit jobs and I wanted some action. I was either going in the military, or police, or on the other side of things. It might sound funny coming from me, since I made captain. But, I wanted to do something that had some kick to it. If I hadn’t become a cop, I’d a probably gone the other way.”
The Crackpot: “Believe me, he understands that! I’ll talk to him. If its okay with him and I give you his number, do me a favor and break the ice like so, ‘Hey Chief! You don’t live around here, do you Chief? Your Grandma live around here, Chief? Don’t you belong over in Sheepshead Bay, Chief?,’ and then say, ‘On behalf of the NYPD, Chief, I’d like to apologize for those bigger micks givin’ you a hard way to go.’”
[laughter]
The Operator: “I gotcha, I know, you know, that when the cops get their hands dirty, its rougher on the tough guys and having punched my ticket over in Essex, I know the guy that’s gonna kick your ass is the one whose dad works down at the point, not some skinny black guy gonna be calling for rights and mamma and Jesus to get us off of him. So, I know, I can see why him—and you, I appreciate you working with me after the shit you’ve been through—Okay I’ll apologize for the other cops!”
The Crackpot: “Okay, I will be back in May. But I have to work with a boxer in Missouri on the way back, so let’s call it May 10. then I’m in Tennessee getting knockout for the last time on May 20, then back in Maryland, PA and Jersey for the summer. When we train, there are some other local guys I’ll bring in so that you have regular sparring partners. Look, you are going to get better sparring with one other dude that is enthusiastic than training under some guy that knows everything. Next time I leave town I’ll make sure you have a training network. If Chief isn’t in to working with you, I have a Jamaican, and if there is money on the line, he will be there.”
The Operator: “Great, great. Look, I’ve burned up half your Sunday already and I’m really sorry. But I needed to get this straight in my head. When we had lunch, I recalled our training a few years earlier actually, and it clicked in my head—‘this is the guy. Mister James is the real deal and he understands me, maybe because he’s a little like me, or maybe just because we’ve both danced with the same devils.’
So, brother, when you get in town, we’re kicking it. I like it! You know, the other knife people, they know their stuff, but, but...”
The Crackpot: “But they do not share your predatory sense of the blade.”
The Operator: “Yes, yes, absolutely, thanks for saying it. No wonder you write books. You know, people talk about nature and nurture. But when I was a little kid I collected knives. Now, as an old dude, who packs heat, whose got something for your ass, I still collect knives. I love knives. There is something about the knife that connects with my soul—that connects us! I’m really of the opinion, that as much a case as can be made for nurture over nature and all of this social conditioning, which I used to buy into, which every body whines about, that how you jump out of the cookie, whatever you are when you jump out of the cookie and hit the ground running, that that’s pretty much what you are. My friend, it has been a pleasure and I am sorry for eating into your day.”
The Crackpot: “No problem, Captain. And thank you for your generosity. Because of you I was able to buy some groceries for my friend’s boys.”
The Operator: “Mister LaFond, get back here in one piece. You have people to train. Take care brother.”
I just got my copy of Cracker-Boy. I've been wanting to get it for years and it's everything and more than what I was hoping for. It's huge. Gigantic. Well thought out and incredibly researched. This is bomb. Wow.
Now I have the handbook to say what I want to say. Just the back cover talking about Asians in Maryland in the 1700s is an eye opener. Reparations indeed! We ALL deserve them. Keep on keepin' on, James and Lynn. What a public service you provide that will sadly be more appreciated under the lenses of history than the cucks and snowflakes riding the horses of the Apocolisp will ever make of it.
It was here all along. Future historians making acorn soup in a land with no electricity will marvel that this was swept under the carpet while they deplatformed anyone save the Ukie lovers, antifa, and BLM and swept us into poverty in the charnel house of history.