Once upon a knuckle-dragging time I was a grocery clerk working the midnight shift in the city with a bunch of brain-dead individuals; no, not individuals, but a cluster of barely sentient growths on the body economic. Other then interviewing the local fauna concerning their myriad violent experiences, I had no conversation, nothing to even challenge me intellectually until I went home to play army men with my five-year-old son. Reading Black Belt Magazine on my break kept me sane, even if many of the articles were not so good. At least one always was, and the lousy ones inspired me to write my own.

I see this journal as a chance to give back that positive energy, that enthusiasm for the combat arts, that I shared alone at night with fellow fighters often a world apart. Once, after I turned down my seventh offer of a promotion, my befuddled boss—a fairly bright and fairly good man—cornered me in the aisle in front of the mandarin oranges, “With the opportunities open to you here, why would you go out there and risk your health fighting, when there is no money in it?”

I said, “You know how it feels when you walk in here and realize that you are the only person that cares about what is happening here; the only person—besides the smartass antisocial white trash dude that won’t accept your well-considered offer—who cares about excellence?”

He took of his glasses as if he had been hit in the stomach and nodded, “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Well, when I step out onto the blacktop to stick-fight or get into the ring to box a guy it is not nearly as lonely as it is here. At least that dude who is trying to knock me out cares about what he is doing and cares that he is doing it well.”

After nodding in agreement he informed me that since I would not accept the grocery manager position or the additional $2 per hour, I would be taking on the grocery manager’s duties without the promotion, or I’d be getting transferred halfway across the state.

Thanks Bob.

So, fellow fighters, I am, like Bob the retail Food Brigadier General, offering you a chance to commit excellence on behalf of the rest of us for free! The copyright is yours and the fame is everlasting—just ask Achilles. Feel free to send an article on your favorite topic from MMA commentary to training notes or self-defense discussions.

It would be nice to log on and see somebody else’s bi-line in the lineup. So long as you can come up with a title and at least one paragraph we should be good to go. If you are not confident about the execution just e-mail Charles a request for me to proof it before he posts it.

James LaFond, November 17, 2012