Monday, August 1, 2011

The Forbidden and Secret Training Manual of the Black Dragon Fighting Society and Other Classic Mail Order Fun

   True Subculture Mystique, the kind that stays forever in your memory, is a rare thing these days.  Don't get me wrong: the Internet is my friend, because it allows me to revisit, in a touch, many awesome items from my past.  Still, though, beauteous as that is, it cannot fully rekindle what was.  


   Let me give you an example:  mail order print advertising, particularly those found in comic books, detective magazines, and a host of other subculture venues.  There was an intrigue there--a glimmer of great promise.  And something else, I am sure--a strange sense of community--knowing that others like you were reading, with unique understanding.  Knowing that in a way, without necessarily even meeting them, you had Found Your People. 



   Back then, starting around the late 1960's, I had as many of those groups of people as I did interests, but the one that stuck clearly in the forefront (at least, so much as anything outside of my endless quest for sexually related material) was anything to do with karate (most of us called anything in martial arts "karate," and then later, as Bruce Lee continued to rise in presence, distinguished a second area, Kung Fu).  The pickings were vast here--mail order self-defense courses had already gone through a makeover, and were experiencing a Renaissance.  You can really trace these things back to Charles Atlas ads, because there are always scrawny dweebs and there are always jerk-offs that kick sand in their faces.  Eventually, the ads toughened up.  Dan Kelly wrote an excellent article about the entire subject here:  Martial Arts Ads in the Comics .  In this toughening, the sinister, secret nature of it all was emphasized.  Kelly: 

"Largely though, self-defense was shifting to total offense, and the ads began to appeal to potential students' bad-boy sides. Since day one Charles Atlas, the martial artists and other self-improvement ads made a point of all but accusing the reader of still having their mother's milk on their lips, which is no way to do business. Then came along Count Danté, his Black Dragon Fighting Society, and their training manual (really another taster) World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets  who figured you could draw more flies not with vinegar, but with a fist to the throat and a punctured eyeball."


Black Dragon Fighting Society Advertisement

   Whether or not you were (as I was) engaged in actual, hardcore training, this sinister secrecy was just icing on the cake--a darker facet of the Zeitgeist.  

   Now here is a point, and it involves principle.  The first "secret" about just about anything you want to learn how to do properly goes like this:  "Secret Number 1:  There Are No Secrets."  In any, any kind of hand-to-hand combat, the primary targets remain:  the eyes, and the throat, preferably in that order.  This is simply because no matter how strong or skilled you are, it is very fucking difficult to hurt somebody if you can't see and can't breathe.  Not so ironically, it requires virtually no skill or force at all to poke someone in the eye or chop them in the throat--a child can do it.  The problem, of course, is getting there.  This is all very distasteful business--messy, unsportsmanlike, and not really all that interesting to watch, either.  You don't see a lot of it in karate movies.  And you will never see it in places like the UFC, or any other mixed martial arts programs because it is permanently damaging, lethal force.  This is one reason so many other skills are required in those matches:  the primary targets are illegal.  

   As someone who was there starting at and and running through the peak of this period, I can say with assurance that this simple principle was not withheld entirely because of the fact that teaching people how to poke eyes and throats is dangerous, but at least equally because it would have been bad for business.  The person that threw the biggest, baddest monkey wrench into all this was, of course, Bruce Lee:  and he did so not only without ruining the romance, but enhancing it as it had never been enhanced before.

  But fear not, lovers of secret fighting cults--it remains with us, it will always remain with us:  the only difference now is, for the most part, the packaging, which tends to be centered around promising to show you how the Special Forces, bodyguards, and other military-type groups get it done (a lot of which still means poking eyeballs and throats).  It is true though, beyond doubt--the great days of it are done, and I never got my Black Dragon Fighting Society Patch.     


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