Okay folks. Bare with me. I have a few martial ranks through the years, (like a FMA, guro BB test in Manila). So, this is a joke but not a joke. I have a joke-meme I’ve passed around for years with two loaves of cut-open bread, a “white bread-brown bread” meme.
The idea is that “Joe Jones,” white boys will hardly ever achieve respected status in FMA. (I know a RARE few are, yes, yes, but most people look to and seek, foreign sources, certainly Filipino in FMA, but often settle for any American in the states with a “Spanish sounding” name. Or at least foreign sounding name. Exotic. Same is true for the rest of the planet. Think about it. Make a list and really think about it.
“The ‘hierba’ (grass) is always greener….”
And bland, white, Joe-Jones-Gringos (like me) take a back seat. This is not new, it’s a martial arts “universal.” Who wants to learn BJJ from a white boy from Finland? NO! Brazil! Or at least have a cool Hispanic or foreign surname! I’ll fall for that!
Eventually you will have to settle for a …”Gaijin” in your neighborhood. He or she may be fantastic, just not as well known, (and will remain unknown, which is actually the whole point of this essay).
All this is just the subliminal (and overt) marketing of life and what we seek out, like Chinese food, or Italian pizza and who makes makes the best cars? Germans or Japanese? Are ex-cons the best street fighters? Do the Israelis have the best military fighting system? Is Silicon valley the best source for all things tek? Why pick the Marines over the Army? People should recognize natural and man-made…”lures.” Who has the “best” story for what? And why? What then, catches our fancy? What do we gravitate to?
In fact, when I think about it, I have felt like a white boy (and-or wrong religion) outsider in most martial arts I’ve ever down, with all the real leaders always from elsewhere, Japan, Philippines, Indo, Russia, Israel, China, the sewers of Spain (gag)…the popular systems and arts are always from elsewhere. And me? Always the…gringo. This though I expected, it’s just an observation on martial life.
Anyway, there were numerous viewers of that “bread” meme on various pages, some very smart and substantial folks, and they laughed and liked it when I half-joked that I might therefore just call myself “El Gringo,” as part of an FMA business nickname, (I still teach FMA here and there around the world along with mostly combatives.) Just a fun, name-game and partly a bit of satire on all those grand, tuhon-guro-supremo-GM master titles that keep inching up like bamboo. For 26 years now, I just tell everyone I teach to call me “Hock” and remain on an equal, friendly footing as I believe system-head-worship is confining and not good for evolution. Bad for some of my business, but good for your evolution and freedom.
Some attendees-students still insist on titling me. It’s a tradition, you know. If you must call me something? Truth is, I’m just a gringo, a white boy, outsider from Texas who knows a few tricks of the trade. Tongue in cheek? A satire on the name-game? For FMA…call me…”EL GRINGO!”
“Out of the night, when the full moon is bright, comes the stickman known as Gringo. This bold renegade carves a “G” with his blade, a “G” that stands for Gringo.”
(Sung to the Zorro TV theme with apologies thereto. I realize the great young, unwashed has never heard the Zorro theme song. Never saw the old show. Too bad. Then feast! Feast on this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnle_3KuOE
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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com
Check out the PAC-Filipino page, click here
Jedi? Star Wars? The timing for such lingo was perfect, as the army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were looking into any and all ways to enhance soldiers “brains” and performance. The book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, which I read years ago was described as – “a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army’s exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them and stopping their hearts.” But, known by most folks, this storyline was satirically covered in the movie version with George Clooney. This was an era for insider, mind-expanding stuff. NLP seemed like one of the magic paths, especially with the underway, “goat-army” connection. 
I knew at the time Wynne was teaching here and there. I saw him in some training films, but I just…I just didn’t care as many of us were also “looking around” at science, sports, medical and psychological incorporations for fighting and performance. For others, Wynne seemed to be their introduction to progressive ideas, which was a good thing. Everybody learns stuff from somebody else. Plus, Wynne had an engaging personality (which that in and of itself is NLP-ish). Then his popularity seemed to shrink away into a, not-quite oblivion through time, as will we all. And after all, he survived a serious near-death cancer back then, taking him even further “from the scene,” for a time. I am pretty sure Wynne moved on from NLP. Anyway, his death brought all this up from my memory. You “rookies, young-ins” will find some martial folks and firearm old-timers lamenting his passing and now you know why.
Camp-fire old? Many experts (and little-ol’ me) believe that your world – as in your personal predilections, and our world as in history, governments and religions, are totally built on, and re-enforced by, fiction and non-fiction stories. Mine was. Is. Story-telling from the campfires to the upcoming “Metaverse” has shaped and is shaping the world. And these stories are made up of single script lines…single sentences. Phrases even. Verbally, spoken, these sentences are bolstered by intonations, gestures and facial expressions. Lyrics without music. Poems with or without rhymes. How somewhat engaging they all are, somewhat hypnotic…how…NLP-ish sounding, but not NLP.? 
But I have thought a lot about this and very quickly answered, “the assassination of Martin Luther King.” An answer I think that was off most people’s charts. But, I think King’s universal message is/was vital, and the perpetuation of him alive and over the decades would have added a great benefit and value to the country. 
And the best book on the assassination I’ve read would be “Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin.” This is the deepest of dives into the despicable James Earl Ray you’ll find anywhere and it is an unusual, engrossing tale, which reads more like a true-crime, police procedural and not just a history book. 
been looking for the best most realistic arts and systems through those decades, hunting for the next best thing, but for the first half of those 51 years, for about 25 years, I’ve done so rather poorly and confused. Mixed up.
“punch is just a “punch,” a “kick is just a kick? I recall Bruce Lee doing some Zen paraphrasing from the famous Zen Buddhist – “ Qingyuan declared that there were three stages in his understanding of the dharma. The first stage, seeing mountain as mountain and water as water. The second stage, seeing mountain not as mountain and water not as water. And the third stage, seeing mountain still as mountain and water still as water. Bruce modernized the phrase a bit, then replaced the nouns with “punch” and “kick.” He did this name-game switch often from Buddhist sayings.
but they were not. I was also a PFS Paul Vunak instructor back in that day and Paul was very much on mission for the one blend idea. He only used FMA for skill developing methods, but he was trying to blend everything into one thing, one approach. Vu was a pioneer in his own way, a real shock treatment to late 1980s martial arts. I was all in.
days, every six city blocks, some at worst from just very quick certification courses. But Nick Hughes is a lifelong, skilled, multi-system trained, articulate, former military Legionnaire, international body guard, very smart, talented and also a champ kick boxer and boxer. He can teach any martial subject very, very well. All this wisdom and experience is the real deep foundation of his version of…Krav Maga. All this time and grade makes him irreplaceable. Depth. He has…an expert’s “eye.” and is several cuts above almost all the rest. I have often said, “If I ever had to build a Dirty Dozen? Nick Hughes would take up two slots.” There is indeed a savvy-wisdom you attain by toiling in the trenches for decades. But I worry that most people be around that long, they won’t dedicate decades of obsessive interest. How to we reach the most with the most? The needy with the needed?
Hand fighting! Lord knows football takes from us and you’ll see Chinese, JKD and Filipino hand drills are used to develop what football already called “Hand Fighting,” (To the left, Tim Tackett is showing Cowboy great Randy White some classic hand drills decades ago. Tim is one of the earliest martial artists showing the NFL these types of work-outs.) You’ll also recognize some of the hand drills in the below videos I’ve listed. There’s also a drill in Football called by many, the Karate Drill, where one player tries to strike the chest at random of another and the other guy tries to slap the attempt away. One or two hands. 
To me the offensive and defensive line of scrimmage, football battles cover some Aikido (because they are dealing with real powerhouse collision energy) on up to the UFC and MMA…and…yes, within it, ”trapping hands.” Trapping exists. I get a kick out of a lot of people dissing trapping because I guess they watch too many Jackie Chan movies? I don’t know. But the 
As with Football, line collisions are violent, with very quick trapping hands within. In the boxing, MMA-UFC world there are arm clearance, raw, ugly traps. Since I am obsessed with mixing-blending hand, stick, knife and gun wherever possible, I prefer to call them “invasions,” or invading____ . Like, “Invading Hands,” “Invading Sticks,” “Invading Knives” and, “Invading Guns” ( pistol and long gun). What pinning, passing, pulling or pushing of arms work in those realms. How are they alike? How are they different?
Speaking of chases, I might add here that a high percentage, arrest-fight problem for law enforcement is chasing. Foot chasing suspects and tackling them down. Virtually no police academy or training covers or practices a Footie-Rugby-USA Football, chase and tackle. In my Defender-Police Judo course I do, but rarely because I need a matted runway and the “suspect” suited up for safety. And still, chase tackles are crazy and it is not very safe, especially due to the lack of conditioning and physicality missing in today’s new or even established police officers. Cops who’ve played, and still play with contact sports are better cops at this.
When pivoting to the rear, one could pass on the ubiquitous rear bear hug. Instead maybe try a whole variety of rear hits, kicks or takedowns where we might remain standing or at least knee high. I bring this topic up here because there are great, rough defensive line drills that use things like the “D-Line Chop,” (a trap) instead of a grabbing arm drag. In the movement there’s a follow-up shoulder hit, and quick pivot to the rear. And these are practiced in football-game-“hike”-tough drills that martialists should investigate. And, batting, zipping past, and around folks are also handy skills versus multiple opponents, where I add “imagine you are a running back” advice…(okay, okay, enough on rear bear hugs, that’s another big subject…)
In the world of “block-don’t block,” what about “over-blocking when it’s not needed or dangerous? Yes, this is sold to you too. Briefly on the Batman-turban-head-wrap-block. While there is a “doomsday block” as a last resort move, reserved for the cornered, or the floored pummeled. Sure. But, must you constantly wrap your head like 
(Soros has been falsely accused of many things, but not these donations.) 
I have zero cool stories to tell about the whole “Fall of Vietnam” episode, as I was a young and foolish kid, but years later when the bestselling book was published, I devoured this Fall of Saigon book that fully described the surrounding chaos of the fall. Wow! Another one came out, different author with a much longer title and more of an overlook history than just the “Fall” itself. 
I recommend both books. Perhaps there will be a similar book on Afghanistan coming out? Same sad story. As they say, history repeating itself, repeating itself.
replaced within weeks by a whole MP company from Fort Hood, Texas. We had to return to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. The relief from Ft. Hood arrived! A whole company of MPs, with gear and equipment in a long convoy. This is a news photo from there and this is also exactly how I remember their arrival.)
Through the following years, many refugees were processed though Chaffee and condition improved as they were quartered in the old Army style barracks as seen in this photo. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. From 1975 to 1976, Fort Chaffee processed 50,809 Vietnam War refugees, including Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and Hmong people. Many were granted permanent, legal residence in the United States as political refugees. One story on this… 
Flip flops abounded in the era though. There was a terrible problem of “trench foot,” later called “foot jungle rot” to be sorted out back then with some powders, and sunshine with flip-flops. This was a diagnosis given those poor bastards, the “booney rats,” cast out in the jungles for days, weeks at a time.
When I was a patrolman and investigator in the Army and even in Korea, I was never far from civilization and a drawer full of socks. But we were in boots (except of course my plain clothes investigation days). Day and night. Boots. We ran, we chased bad guys, climbed, we leaped over buildings…ah, not buildings – fences actually… in a single bound! We battled criminal soldiers and I always thought, wouldn’t life be lighter, faster, better in athletic shoes?
Enter my follow-up decades in Texas police work. There were footwear traditions there too! On patrol we should-could wear black cowboy boots or to a lesser, social approval, black, no design, lace-up, shoes in the 70s. It was Texas and there was the subliminal insinuation that we should wear black cowboy boots. Black with dark blue uniforms. (Other agencies had differing colored uniforms and the various colored boots were A-OK.) But I immediately found the lightest pair of black plain shoes I could find at K-Mart! Whereupon I continued the fine police tradition of running, chasing, leaping over stuff, climbing stuff and wraslin’ and dukin’ it out with bad guys in lighter “rubber’ shoes. Life was so better, faster, smarter in cheap shoes.
