Like many Black Belt readers, I’m an omnivorous martial arts reader and have amassed a large library of works by numerous practitioners-turned-authors. I’ve consistently found myself picking up books by Loren W. Christensen, a Vietnam veteran, retired police officer, and life-long martial artist. Loren is a guy with a tremendous amount of street experience and one who has lived through the changing martial arts culture in the United States.
I’ve found his writing informative and filled with universal lessons that are easy to apply regardless of one’s fighting system. He was recently included in a list of top 20 martial artists in a Black Belt article (April 2006), written by another veteran street cop, Lito Angeles.
Retired from the Portland (Oregon) Police Bureau, Loren now teaches his fighting system on a private basis and writes full time. He has penned 33 books, authored hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, and produced six DVDs on the fighting arts.
I recently had an opportunity to interview Loren about his 41-year martial arts journey. These candid responses allow us to see a little of the man, the martial artist, and the warrior.
You have written that you had to reevaluate your karate training after your tour as a military policeman in Vietnam. What happened?
LC: I had about four years of training in a traditional karate style before I went to Vietnam to work as a military policeman in Saigon. It was a powerful style, but somewhat unrealistic for what I needed in the ugly streets and back alleys of a war zone.
For example?
LC: The stylized blocks were useless, kicking with the ball of the foot and top of the foot with combat boots was difficult and often led to sprained ankles, and my grappling was poor to nonexistent. Kata moves and stiff robot sparring didn’t work for me because it lacked the flexibility and fluidity needed for real fights. And I got into a lot of them as an MP – sometimes three or four a night - in the streets, bars and brothels of Saigon. To be fair, maybe that style would have worked for someone else. I found it mostly ineffective.
Did you have to change what you had learned?
LC: Easier said than done. Those who think you can train one way then magically change to something else when the heat is on are dangerously mislead. Under the stress of a real fight, it’s hard to think let alone have the presence of mind to modify what you have learned. If you’re a sports fighter, that’s what you’re going to do under stress. If you train only in fancy movements and pull your punches six inches from your opponent, that’s what you’re going to do under stress.
You were one of the first veteran martial artists to write about real fighting.
LC: That was in the early 1990s. Although I had been teaching realistic martial arts for several years, I didn’t write on the subject until pioneers like Marc MacYoung and Peyton Quinn had done it. Once we got the ball rolling, others followed.
What was going on in the martial arts in the decades prior to that?
LC: I began training in 1965. Many of the ranking instructors at that time were guys who had studied in the Orient while in the military. They taught what they had learned, some of which included dangerous exercises, excessive training, and a poor understanding of the importance of proper nutrition, rest, and weight training, critical aspects that prevented many fighters from achieving their full potential. In some cases, these things cut short the careers of martial artists.
Karate tournaments in the 1960s were rough affairs, hard contact, serious injuries, and ugly racial incidents. The latter being part of the times.
In the 1970s, tournaments were plentiful. It was a time when styles were becoming more and more eclectic and there were endless conversations about Bruce Lee and his “use whatever works” philosophy. In the early ‘70s you could look at a fighter’s uniform, know his style, and guess what techniques he would use. By the end of the decade, the lines were blurred as fighters took more and more information from each other.
In the 1980s it was the ninja phase: books, magazines, and lots of people claiming to be experts. I was patrolling a beat then as a street cop and we got many calls from frightened citizens seeing people with swords darting about in the dark wearing ninja garb. None of these people knew anything about ninjutsu; they had simply seen the martial arts magazines and had been caught up in some romantic ideal about living in the shadows. In the ‘70s, we had lots of crimes carried out by people packing nunchuks. In the ‘80s, it was ninja wantabes.
In the 1990s, the martial arts moved into the “real fighting” phase. Instructors began writing books on it and martial artists began asking: “Will this really work on the street?”
A little later in the ‘90s we saw the first full-contact octagon brawls, such as the UFC and others. This got people thinking about grappling and ground work, though I think the ground work issue was overstated. Many were citing outrageous statistics, such as 90 percent of all fights go to the ground. Every time someone said this to me, I asked, ‘Says who? Did someone do a study? Did someone in a white coat with a clipboard track the numbers?’
If so, no one asked me or the cops I worked with. But I did for a book I was working on, and the answers I got were the same as I had experienced. A much smaller percentage of our brawls went to the ground. And I worked some tough areas and got into a lot of fights. This wasn’t a scientific sampling, but no one else had done one either.
Nonetheless, the ‘90s and the UFC-type fights encouraged martial artists to expand their arts to make them more inclusive. That’s a good thing for the street.
In the 2000s, much of it’s still about real fighting and mixed martial arts. While there are some great teachers and writers spreading the word about realistic training, there are others who haven't a clue about it, though that hasn’t stopped them from claiming they do.
A prime example are some of the TV news stories about instructors teaching 'realistic fighting' to flight attendants, pilots, and military personnel assigned to airport security after 9-11. Some of what I saw in these stories was discomforting when you consider the students were leaving their brief training session confident that the nonsense they had learned would help them fight terrorists.
In the last few years, we’ve also seen a huge improvement in our knowledge about correct training, dynamic nutrition, and recuperating rest.
When you look at the way martial arts have evolved since you started training, what do you consider the most striking differences?
LC: As I mentioned, tournaments in the 1960s were often brutal bloodbaths that sometimes erupted into racial violence, brawls in the crowd, and serious injury. Read the old karate magazines for accounts of those events.
Was this a good thing for martial arts? Of course not. Tournaments were in their infancy then, safety equipment was just appearing on the scene, rules were loose or not enforced well, and tensions were high as a result of the times.
Tournaments have now evolved to a new place. Kata competition often looks like a gymnastic floor exercise with a punch here, a cartwheel kick there, and don't forget somersaults. Some people enjoy this and train hard to perfect their forms. That's fine, but they need to keep in mind that it has nothing to do to real fighting.
In sparring competition you might see a few techniques that are explosive, fast and strong, but there are far more “bunny taps,” techniques that would leave a street assailant laughing his head off as he removed the head of the one who used them. Sadly, bunny taps and sloppy techniques are awarded points, thus leaving the fighter with the false belief that his skill is effective.
All this is okay and for some, especially young martial artists as it’s part of a natural transition in their study. But it’s critical that they see it for what it is: play fighting that is miles away from real fighting. The problem is that most contestants believe that back flips and aerial kicks will save them on the street.
Do you think that many schools train from just one dimension, like all stand-up fighting or all ground grappling, etc?
Sure, but if I had to guess I would say that not as many do today as did years ago. One of the beauties of living in the U.S. is that we’re a melting pot of martial arts systems and styles. Unless a teacher, because of some ancient rule, won’t allow techniques from other systems, there is no excuse for a jujitsu student not to know how to punch and kick, and for karate and taekwondo students not to know how to grapple.
I think more and more teachers are doing as I do. In the kick/punch arts I include material from karate, muay Thai, kung fu and boxing. In the grappling arts, I teach jujitsu, police defensive tactics, aikido and chin-na. In the stick fighting arts, I teach arnis. The idea is to have material for all distances: hugging, punching, kicking, and long-weapon’s range. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
I wonder what a teacher of a pure kicking art is going to say to a student lying in the hospital after a street grappler has mauled him all over the sidewalk. “Sorry, dude.”? Or what is the teacher of a pure grappling system going to tell his hospitalized student who got thumped in the face by a boxer? “Remind me when you heal up to show you some blocks.”
What are your thoughts about how martial arts is taught and practiced in this country?
LC: I’ve mellowed over the years on that subject. I used to think that if a system wasn’t teaching all it could to help people survive the means streets, it was worthless, or just an exercise. But in the last few years I’ve grown to understand that the martial arts offer something for everyone. There are street oriented styles for people who are strictly interested in survival – cops, soldiers, and citizens who want an edge. There are styles for those who want to compete – point karate fighting and padded-chest taekwondo matches. There are systems for those who want some full contact - mixed martial arts and kick boxers. Lastly, there are arts for those who mostly want to study an Asian culture, philosophy, and ki control.
What about cardio kick boxing?
LC: (Laughs) It’s a good exercise, but I don’t look good in spandex.
Let’s switch gears. You and Lt .Col. Dave Grossman wrote a book titled On Combat, which I understand is now required reading in places like the U.S. National War College. Among many other things, you discuss what happens to warriors in a fight when their heart rates reach certain levels. Could you comment on that?
LC: We devote many pages to this important subject but in brief, it’s about training correctly for the street. Over 2,500 years ago General Brasidas of Sparta said, “Fear makes men forget, and skill that cannot fight is useless.” In a heart-pounding situation, the loss of your fine-motor control and near vision makes it mandatory that you drill on those things that seem simple when you’re calm and collected. In other words, basics.
Think of those cold mornings when your fingers aren’t working. That is vasoconstriction caused by the cold, but it can also happen when you’re under adrenaline-induced stress. Say an assailant is threatening you as he moves into your comfort zone. Your heart accelerates to around 115 beats per minute (bpm) where many people begin to experience a loss of fine-motor control. Around 145 bpm, the average person begins to lose complex motor control. When it climbs to around 175 bpm and beyong, the effects of vasoconstriction on your body can become catastrophic. The blood pumps from your heart through your arteries, but just before entering your capillaries, it constricts.
By the way, the accelerated heart rate you get from cardiovascular training like jogging and fun sparring isn’t the same as a fear- and adrenaline-induced accelerated heart rate.
At low levels of vasoconstriction, the little capillaries shut down, causing some loss of fine-motor control. As the vasoconstriction becomes more intense, the blood flow to the complex motor muscles begins to shut down. It’s common to lose your peripheral vision, that is, you get tunnel vision. The more stressed you become, the narrower the tunnel you’re looking through, so narrow you wont’ be able to see the assailant’s buddies. You’ll lose depth perception, meaning that the assailant looks closer than he really is, and you’ll lose your near vision, meaning you’ll have trouble seeing close things. You literally become so scared you can’t see straight.
Above 175bpm, your techniques pretty much deteriorate. You can run but you will probably fall down a lot. Can you apply fancy hand techniques? Nope. Do a tornado kick? Not even. Most likely you will just latch onto your assailant and hang on as the two of you bang off walls.
So what’s the remedy?
LC: High-repetition training. Don’t stop at three sets of ten reps, but do 10 sets of 10 reps, and do them every possible way you can: standing, sitting, lying, getting up, falling down. It’s all about ingraining the technique.
Stress training. Practice the technique against two to four opponents coming at you. Sign up for a model mugging class, one in which you’re forced to function under high levels of stress.
Competition: What is good about competing is that it forces you to deal with your fear. It’s scary in the ring, but in time you will learn to function with a fear-and adrenaline-induced accelerated heart rate. Just keep the negative aspects mentioned earlier about competition in mind.
Of the nearly three dozen books you’ve written on various topics, twenty of them are on the martial arts. Others are about the warrior life and some are on various subcultures, like street gangs and life on skid row. Why do you write them?
LC: The quick answer to why I write is because I have to. My drug for the past twenty-five years has been my absolute need to write.
How I choose a topic is three-fold: there’s a void in the market, I know something about the subject, and I want to learn more about it.
Sometimes there’s a void for a reason: not enough people care about the subject for a publisher to risk money on it. But when you’re lucky, the void exists because no other writer has done anything on it yet.
It helps to know something about the subject and to admit that you don’t know everything. I wrote my first few martial arts books off the top of my head. But with all the others I’ve done research and talked to my martial arts buddies around the world. I give everyone who helps me named credit in the books because not only is it the ethical thing to do, I don’t want them doing a ninja attack on me in the middle of the night.
What are the similarities between writing and the martial arts?
LC: Writing is a continuous process of improving weaknesses, hiding those you can’t fix, emphasizing your strengths, trying new techniques and methods, searching for the most effective ways to have impact and, through it all, striving for the discipline to do these things.
The Japanese word sanchin means “three conflicts:’ the body, mind and spirit. Every time you train or write, you face a body that wants to snooze on the sofa, a mind that wants to vegetate in front of the television, and a spirit that wants to take the easy way. Facing these three conflicts is tough, some days really tough. Learning to fight them, learning to control them, and learning to conquer them is part of what being a writer and a martial artist is all about.
What have the martial arts meant to you over your long career?
LC: I have been blessed to have trained since 1965, to have seen the fighting arts in different parts of the world, and to have met some great martial artists and human beings along the way. The martial arts have saved my hide a few times and made dealing with bad people a tad easier during my 29 years in law enforcement. Like anyone who has been around for sixty years, I’ve had my share of ups and downs but through it all, the martial arts have always been there for me. Besides self-defense, I’ve used the arts to relieve stress, get into shape, make a living, and learn things about myself I wouldn’t have found out any other way.
Any regrets?
LC: Of course. When I was younger there were times when I used more force than was necessary. In my twenties, I hit a guy in the chest so hard that he had a heart seizure. It was a long night waiting to see if he was going to live. It was self-defense, but there were other ways I could have handled the situation. I’m ashamed of it, but I tell my students about it as an example of how we’re all responsible for our actions. My life would have been different had he died and so would the lives of his loved ones. His would have ended. What we do affects a lot of people. As martial artists, we must be responsible for the weapon we possess.