Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner

It's not my intention to post music videos, since they're everywhere-- but here goes.
This is from the late great Warren Zevon, and I love almost everything he's done. His music is often understated, with tons of social overtones. From "Lawyers, Guns and Money" (getting caught in a bad drug deal in Central America) to "Carmelita" (heroin addiction), his songs were covered by other artists from Linda Ronstadt to Prince.
"Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner" is one such epic piece; European mercenaries steered into a double-cross hit by the CIA, with Roland's wandering ghost seeking revenge-- eventually ending up in the famous bank robbery by the SLA and Patty Hurst. Enjoy....

Born Losers

As a "prequel" to my Billy Jack post, here's the trailer for Laughlin's first movie, Born Losers. Gotta get my hands on a copy of this one, a review will follow.

The Significance Of Billy Jack

"You think your Green Beret Karate tricks are gonna' save you from all these boys"?
That's how this breakthrough movie scene begins. Unfortunately the clips I reviewed for this post don't show the complete fight scene, which includes a great spinning heel kick and a nice Hapkido defense against a club attack.
I cannot overstate how much this movie influenced me, sitting in the theater when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. It had everything; cute young hippie chicks, evil rednecks, horses, Jeeps, Corvettes, motorcycles and some of the best fight choreography ever.
While actor-director Tom Laughlin was the hero Billy Jack, Hapkido Master Bong Soo Han did all the most complex fight stunts. I read a review of this in a magazine years ago, and a few of the stunt rednecks got hurt pretty bad in this scene.
The movie was a spin-off of Laughlin and wife Delores Taylor's original flick "Born Losers", which I am tracking down. That scenario was Billy Jack vs. evil bikers. The big follow-up was of course, Billy Jack, which is still a cult classic.
Billy Jack treaded on many social taboos of the time: exploring murderous prejudice, alternative education and communal living, rape and revenge, and the most controversial aspect-- using violence to stop violence.
The movie is steeped in the paranoid culture of the late '60's and early '70's, touching on the assassination of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, racism and the unknown territory of alternative lifestyles. This film is so much more than a Karate flick, it's loaded with questions about ethics and honor and pride.
I know friends who go nuts over Jet Li movies and the like, but have never seen the pure simplicity of the fight scenes or social commentary of Billy Jack. There are also some famous supporting actors, like Howard Hessman from WKRP in Cincinatti.
Tom Laughlin has remained politically active, even running for Congress several years ago. He and wife Delores Taylor have been working on a sequel (Billyjack.com) that is filled with events of our time, such as the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
For those who have never seen the movie, or need a good recharge of 1960's-'70's energy, watch it again -- I highly reccomend it...

Backwoods Bagua

It's fun and challenging to train on rough or slick ground.

Ice Age; Part Two

Snow blows in the outhouse,
it nips my frozen toes
with every gust a drift blows in,
my bowel movement slows.

We never thought we'd need a door
For want of privacy
for in the woods we've solitude
to take a dump or pee.

And now I am reminded
with every drift and gust
how pleasant it must surely be
to sit inside and flush.

Urban Combat Training

I love this guys stuff.
It's not polished, it's raw. He goes by the name B.T., for Black Taoist, and hangs with a bunch of other cats that are really into internal Chinese arts, specifically Bagua and Hsing-I.
In other videos, their forms are crisp and uncomplicated, and they put a lot of emphasis on reality-based training, something not always found in the "heady" and theory-infused world of Internal Martial Arts. His website is listed at the end of the video.

No-Touch Knockouts??

Jack Hogan Demonstrates A "No-Touch Knockout"


There is probably no technique more controversial in the martial arts as the phenomenon of the "no-touch knockout".
For years I have seen video and actual demonstrations of pressure-point knockouts, mostly performed by George Dillman and his students of Ryukyu Kenpo. While the theory for these light-touch knockouts has a foundation in the Chinese five-element science and meridian pathways of the body, there are also explanations by western medicine. There are obvious "release points" on the body, as when the doctor hits below your knee with the rubber hammer and your leg moves. So there is no suprise that when you jerk a persons body one way, even with a minor strike, and slap a point on the head, driving it the other way, something's gonna' give. Bruce Everett Miller describes in his book "The Complete Book of Light Force Knockouts", how even a subtle movement of the brain rebounding from one side of the skull pan to the other will cause a knockout. There are also techniques that can send overload signals to the brain, which shuts down as a matter of self-protection. This is also done when an internal organ is affected with a sharp impact, which may be a light-touch if directed expertly. The blood is forced out of the organ and the nervous system senses a sharp rise in blood pressure. The strike is withdrawn, and blood rushes back to the organ causing a drop in pressure. This mixed signal again shuts down the brain, causing a knockout. Don't try this stuff at home, kids. Despite mystical explanations, much of this can be understood.
No-touch knockouts are a whole different thing. They occur without any contact at all, and I have witnessed several great examples. I have also seen some miserable failures.
No-touch ko's border on shamanic mysticism, hypnosis and sometimes hoax. I myself have dabbled with pendulums and dowsing rods, and can find buried electrical and water lines. I have no doubt that we are capeable of sensing things that are not otherwise evident to our eyes, ears or cognitive thinking. Likewise, humans have been involved in inducing trances since the dawn of time. This was brought to the west in the early 1800's by Franz Anton Mesmer, hence the term "Mesmerism". Mesmer practiced his art as a healing mechanism, but I have seen old drawings depicting him performing "no-touch ko's". Many of us have also seen evangelical preachers get a crowd wound-up and someone will pass out, "touched by the hand of god". Whatever...
The point is, despite some attempts I have witnessed that have failed, something is going on. I spoke with Jack Hogan (pictured above) after a seminar several years ago. He had demonstrated the ko pictured above, and detailed an experiment by George Dillman that he had recently witnessed. Dillman and his students hooked people up to medical equipment such as ekg's. Blood pressure, heart rate and other body functions were measured. Serious, serious effects were regestered, and the most severe were due to no-touch ko's. Dan McCusky told me That the wife of one practitioner complained that her husband pissed blood after every no-touch ko that he performed - on other people! The inference is that this practice has an effect on the person performing the knockout, and of course the kidneys are the root of certain energies in Chinese theory.
There is another interesting book on this subject; "The Men Who Stare At Goats" by Jon Ronson. In it, Ronson details how the U.S. military has experimented in this technology. I have also read accounts about the Russians getting really deep into this stuff. You can bet there are things going on out there in the field of psychic warefare that we have absolutely no idea about.
Like anything, if you believe in something, that is your reality. Can non-believers remain unaffected by induced psychic trauma? Perhaps.
But who really knows what is guiding the whirlwind of events that shape and form our lives, in a world where quantum physics is proving that everything is indeed...connected.