AUTHOR OF THE MONTH
LOREN W. CHRISTENSEN
OCTOBER 2004

One of Paladin Press’ most prolific authors, Loren W. Christensen is the editor of Warriors: On Living with Courage, Discipline, and Honor (September 2004), a collection of essays penned by a diverse mix of modern warriors, from soldiers, cops, and SWAT officers to martial art masters to experts in the fields of workplace violence, theology, and school safety. Christensen—a retired cop, Vietnam veteran, and high-ranking martial artist—counts himself among the 37 writers who contributed to this insightful study of the various facets of warriorhood, and he speaks from a wellspring of experience in that realm.

Christensen began studying the martial arts in 1965 under the tutelage of Bruce Terrill of the Oregon Karate Association in Portland. Mr. Terrill taught a Korean style called kong su, a fighting method that resembled Japanese shotokan karate more than taekwon do. In the late 1960s the style became infused with wing chun and other kung fu-like techniques, concepts, and principles. Around 1970 it evolved into wu ying tao, arguably one of the first fighting methods that followed the idea of using whatever works to destroy the opponent, as opposed to being limited by the dogma of a restrictive system.

Christensen joined the army in 1967 and became a military policeman (MP). After attending K-9 school at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, he was sent to the Florida Everglades, where he patrolled with his dog around the perimeter of a missile base. In his free time, he trained in a Japanese karate style in Miami and taught a few of his fellow MPs so he would have training partners. “A year in the Everglades,” he says, “was like 10 years in hell. So I volunteered for Vietnam to get out of there.”

First he was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Washington, D.C. for a three-month intensive study of Vietnamese. While in D.C. he continued to train in karate, mostly by himself, but occasionally with one of the Green Beret students. After graduation, he was promptly sent over the big pond to ’Nam.

Christensen worked street patrol as an MP in Saigon. Referring in his essay “Discovery” in Warriors to the intensity of the chaos he faced there, he recalls, “Dealing with rocket attacks, terrorist bombings, anti-American riots, bar brawls, combative AWOLs, street fights, thefts, drug overdoses, assaults, and murder investigations kept us humping 12 to 14 hours every shift, every day.” It was a “marvelous, intense, enlightening, and horrific time,” he says, for putting his skills to the test and learning what worked and didn’t work in the martial arts. To his chagrin, he found that the “stiff, robot-like fighting techniques” of the traditional styles he’d studied up to that point didn’t work well: “There was no place in a back alley of Saigon or in the Wild West bar brawls for deep, static stances and stylized blocks.” He made some quick modifications to help him survive the year and promised himself that he would spend the rest of his martial arts career studying and teaching techniques applicable to real-life survival.

When Christensen returned to the States he kept that promise. By the time he joined the Portland ( Oregon) Police Bureau in 1972, he was a 2nd degree black belt and karate instructor. Many of Christensen’s karate students were fellow police officers who liked his realistic approach to the martial arts. He was teaching three karate classes during the day before working the evening shift on the PD.

“It was the closest thing to Saigon this side of the Pacific Pond, and I was right back into the chaos again,” he says in “Discovery” of his police beat on Portland’s Skid Row. “Like Saigon, Skid Row was a riot of violence: crowded streets of rage and intoxication, the almost constant wail of police and ambulance sirens, blaring music from dozens of Wild West saloons, and fights . . . virtually every night.”

To contend with the chaos he faced on the job, Christensen disciplined himself to push hard in the martial arts. In 1975, he broke his knee in training, literally breaking a chunk off his kneecap and ripping muscles and tendons, which doctors told him would end his police career and martial arts training and require him to always walk with a cane. With nothing else to do for the nine months it took to recuperate from surgery, he began writing and lifting weights. A year later he published a police defensive tactics book, and two years later, in spite of the doctors’ grim prognosis, he entered the Mr. Oregon Bodybuilding Championships. “I write better than I look in those little posing briefs,” he remarks wryly. He also returned to the police department in 1976, riding a desk for several months before returning to street patrol.

Around 1980, Christensen began training in the Filipino martial art of arnis. He figured the emphasis on fighting with the rattan stick and knife wouldn’t traumatize his bad knee. He was right. In fact, the stances and stepping drills strengthened the muscles around the weak joint more than two years of physical therapy had. Within just a few months of training in arnis with Professor Remy Presas and Professor Leonard Trigg, Christensen was able to again kick and move almost as well as he did prior to the injury.

Making up for lost time, he studied tai chi, jujutsu, kung fu, Muay Thai, kenpo, and bits and pieces of many other fighting arts. He gave tournament competition a try in the mid-1980s, winning more than 50 trophies. “It wasn’t about collecting those gaudy plastic and marble trophies,” he says. “OK, maybe it was a little. But mostly it was about testing myself and facing my fear.”

Over the four decades of training, teaching, and writing on the martial arts, Christensen has earned seven black belts in karate, two in jujutsu, and one in arnis. “My ineptness is all mine,” Loren says. “Any skills I have can be attributed to my instructors over the years—Bruce Terrill, Rick Alamany, Remy Presas, Duke Moore, Wally Jay, Tim Delgman, Leonard Trigg, Wim Demeere—and a host of fantastic students and training partners.”

Just as Christensen’s perseverance and dedication had enabled him to defy the odds with regard to martial arts training and study, so too did they serve him in his law enforcement career. Over the years he worked street patrol, gang enforcement, dignitary protection, juveniles, and training. He retired from police work in 1997, having served 25 years on the Portland Police Bureau, for a total of 29 years in law enforcement.

Now a full-time writer, Christensen has published dozens of magazine articles in all of the major martial arts, police, health, and bodybuilding magazines. In addition, he edited a police newspaper for nearly eight years and often contributed to others. He is currently working on his 28th book. His books cover a wide range of topics, including nutrition for fighters, street gangs, martial arts training, kidnapped children, prostitution, the warrior life, workplace violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, Christensen has starred in five martial arts videos produced by Paladin Press.

His two most recent books were published almost simultaneously in September: Warriors: On Living with Courage, Discipline, and Honor and On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, (PPTC Research Publications), which he co wrote with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former West Point psychology professor, professor of military science, U.S. Army Ranger, popular lecturer, and author of the influential book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

War veteran, police officer, and martial artist, Christensen has been in the trenches. Today, he is often called a warrior scholar because of his ongoing commitment to impart to others, through his writing and teaching, the way, the repercussions, and the rewards of facing the dragon.

Q & A

PALADIN: How did you get the idea for Warriors?
LWC: It was a combination of two things. First, I was in the second year of writing On Combat with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, so the concept of warriorhood was in the forefront of my mind. Second, I had been approached by a publisher to contribute to a book he was compiling on NYPD Blue. He was getting writers from law enforcement, psychology, sociology, and a host of other fields to write about the show from the perspective of their area of expertise. I turned him down because I was already overcommitted, but a couple of months later I awoke in the middle of the night with the idea of taking that same approach—gathering an assortment of experts, in this case from the warrior community, to write about warriorhood.

PALADIN: What inspired you to write Warriors? What do you hope readers will take away from reading it?
LWC: I’ve always been fascinated with, for lack of a better word, “subcultures.” That is why I have written books like Skinhead Street Gangs, and Hookers,Tricks, and Cops and have touched on various subcultures in many of my other books. I find it fascinating how they have their own mores, norms, rules, folkways, taboos, and values, and how they are mostly misunderstood by those outside the culture.

As I noted in the Introduction to Warriors, the word “warrior” has become a buzzword in the last few years. In my opinion it’s used too frequently and sometimes erroneously. So I approached some of today’s top warriors from law enforcement, the military, and the martial arts and asked them to explain in their own words what warriorhood is. I didn’t want the book to be a collection of war stories; I wanted the writers to define what being a warrior means to them, to tell us about their personal journey, what makes them different from other people, why they do it, and why we need them. I wanted them to talk a little about their training and tell us how they deal with fear, what it’s like to kill, what it’s like to be the child of a warrior, and the importance of their families.

PALADIN: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced on this project?
LWC: Other writers will probably hate me when I say this, but it wasn’t really much of a challenge. It was definitely hard work, but good work.

I wanted people who were or had been entrenched in the warrior community and who had writing skill. I knew several of them personally, and Paladin’s executive editor, Jon Ford, provided me with several names, as did Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Dr. Alexis Artwohl. Then the people they told me about provided me with other names. I was familiar with many of the writers from having quoted them in On Combat. I even got E-mails from a few who had heard about the project and wanted to be involved. My initial uneasiness about contacting many of the well-known people turned out not to be a concern at all. All were gracious, willing, and anxious to contribute to the book.

I was their first editor and then Karen Petersen at Paladin was their second. Some of these writers have been published authors for years. One has written more than 40 novels, others have had national bestsellers, and one wrote the script of a popular movie. I wondered how they would take having their work edited, but again my worries were for naught. All were enthusiastic about our efforts to make their writing as highly readable and powerful as possible.

PALADIN: Warriors is organized into several sections, each of which addresses a different aspect of warriorhood. How did the contributors decide what to write about?
LWC: I sent out two letters to each person. The first explained what the project was about, and the second, which they received when they agreed to contribute, provided them with a list of topics (sections). They then contacted me and relayed which topic they wanted to write about. Sometimes the writer created a new section, one I hadn’t thought of. In a few cases I contacted people—like popular police trainer Tony Blauer; famed lecturer Lt. Col. Dave Grossman; my son, Dan, who has a doctorate in theology; and Black Belt magazine Hall of Fame recipient Melissa Soalt—and asked them to write on a specific topic. We ended up with 14 sections, which I think cover the topic quite nicely. Some sections contain only one essay; others contain as many as five.

PALADIN: As you compiled the essays, did you begin to see a common theme or themes emerging?
LWC: Many of them talked about how it’s the warrior who moves toward the danger while everyone else runs in the opposite direction. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman says in his presentations that a warrior moves toward the sound of gunfire while everyone else flees from it. Some variation of this theme was repeated throughout the book, and I believe it serves as an allegory in a way for others who don’t wear uniforms and carry high-tech weapons yet still perform warrior like deeds.

There are probably some warriors who would disagree with me, but I think a single mother who lives in a high-crime neighborhood and is fighting to keep her kids safe—picketing drug houses, confronting gangbangers, and working with the schools—is a warrior too, as is the old woman who is the only passenger on the bus with the guts to stand up and tell off a group of cursing, loud-mouth punks.

One time I was standing in front of our downtown police precinct when around the corner marched one of our judges, a guy who stands five foot five and weighs about 140. This diminutive middle-aged man was half dragging a young street punk by his collar and the seat of his pants, a guy who stood six feet tall and weighed 180. The judge had just caught him breaking into a car. Everyone else on the sidewalk had scurried by, pretending not to notice what the thief was doing. Not the judge. He moved toward the danger.

There is one other definition of warrior that I like: "One who does what needs to be done." That theme runs through Warriors too, and it ties in with the concept of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. That’s the subject of an essay Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and I cowrote, and it’s referred to by many of the other writers.

Basically, it states that the world is populated by three types of people: sheep—kind, gentle, productive folks who can only hurt one another by accident or under extreme provocation; wolves, who feed on the sheep without mercy; and sheepdogs—warriors who live to confront the wolves and protect the sheep. If you have no capacity for violence, then you are a healthy, productive citizen: a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you’re an aggressive sociopath: a wolf. But if you have a capacity for violence and a deep love for your fellow citizens, then you’re a sheepdog: a warrior, someone who walks the hero’'s path.

PALADIN: The contributors to Warriors come from diverse backgrounds, ranging from law enforcement to military service to martial arts and beyond. What are some of the characteristics they all share?
LWC: They have all been there and done that in some form. Some still are in the battle as SWAT officers, Blackhawk helicopter pilots, Special Forces, police chiefs, and high-ranking martial artists. Those who have retired are still involved as trainers: teaching in academies, giving seminars, lecturing around the world, and writing books and making videos.

All have a genuine love of their fellow warriors. Though their wars are different, their criminals have different names, and their opponents are different, these men and women all share an understanding of what it’s like to bring forth their personal warrior and face the dragon before them.

I saw a movie the other day in which there was a character, dressed in civilian clothes, who had just returned from Iraq. Another character, dressed in an army uniform, was walking toward him. As they passed each other, their eyes met, and, though they weren’t acquainted and they never said a word, each gave the other a slight nod of recognition. Former Navy SEAL Harry Humphries says this in Warriors: “The professional warrior internalizes combat experience and prowess. . . . I can usually smell the real deal through his body language and silence.”

There is a sense of all these characteristics as you read what each of these writers has to say about warriorhood.

PALADIN: Several essays touched on the issue of whether warriors are “born or bred.” What’s your perspective on that?
LWC: I believe we all have within us a warrior spirit. Our personal warrior spirit might be aggressive, intense, and easily unleashed, or it might be quiet and rarely show itself. Within some people, it’s buried deeply, as a result of profound religious beliefs, psychological factors, or other influences. Others carry theirs just under the thin veneer of today’s societal graces. These people are soldiers, police officers, martial artists, street thugs, athletes, hunters, corporate executives, politicians, mothers, and fathers. Some are good people, and some are not. Some express their warrior spirit with words, laws, and money, whereas others do it with fists and weapons.

Professional warriors—cops, soldiers, and martial artists—train to bring forth their warrior spirit to do good for their fellow man. By virtue of their training, they are instilled with discipline, a critically important element that prevents 99 out of 100 of them from doing harm with their skills.

PALADIN: Do you have a personal favorite among the essays in the book?
LWC: Oh man, you’re trying to get me beat up or bring down a rainstorm of hot lead on my house. Let me take the safe route and say that there are two or three essays that make me teary-eyed every time I read them, a couple that make me angry but at the same time proud of what our warriors have to endure (with little to no thanks from outside the warrior community), and some that inspire me to want to rejoin the military and the police bureau. All of them make me glad that I was able to have a part in informing others as to who these marvelous people are, what they do, what they have done, how they feel about it, and the impact it has had on them. I do have three favorites of those that I wrote in Warriors. In “When Cops Kill,” I revealed for the first time what it was like to write Deadly Force Encounters with police psychologist Dr. Alexis Artwohl, in which we interviewed brave warrior cops who were forced to kill in the line of duty, some of them two and three times. A few of these officers were still suffering during our interviews, and listening to them was often a gut-wrenching experience. In “Fire, Blood, and Paint,” I told the story of Nho Nguyen, a Vietnamese man I contacted after reading an article about him in the newspaper. Nho used his art, his painting, to help him mentally survive the horrors of war in the war-ravaged village where he lived as a child, then later in the bloody trenches during his years in the South Vietnamese army, and during six oppressive years of imprisonment by the North Vietnamese. In “Warriors’ Kids,” I wrote about what it’s like as a cop and a soldier to see child casualties and then go home to your own sweet children. The essay ends with a heart-wrenching letter that a teenage girl wrote to her father after being informed that he had been killed in Iraq.

PALADIN: You are one of a handful of the warrior-writers in the book who draw from experience as a soldier, a cop, and a martial artist. Which of these has influenced you the most as a warrior, and why?
LWC: I’m no psychologist, but I’ve often thought I got into each of those aspects of warriorhood as a result of being bullied as a child. I was in the second or third grade when a couple of adult males and a woman chased me down, cornered me between two buildings, and taunted and knocked me around for a couple hours. I eventually escaped, but the incident—the horrific feeling of being helpless and weak—haunted me for years.

A few years later, two guys—they were in a car and I was on foot—chased me down several streets and all around a large field. Several times they tried to run me down, but I was able to leap out of the way. On one of the passes I hurled a large stone through their windshield, distracting them long enough for me to flee between some houses.

I’ve always hated bullies. I think that is what first led me into weight lifting, later into the martial arts, then into the army as a military policeman, and after that into the Portland Police Bureau. My involvement in weight training and the martial arts was to keep my bullies at bay, and my involvement in police work was to help other victims of bullies.

PALADIN: What is the current focus of your martial arts training?
LWC: The quick answer is that it’s always street survival. I always work the basics no matter what, because those are what you rely on in a real fight. In addition, I like to focus on different aspects of the fighting arts for a few months at a time. For example, I might concentrate for a while on building explosive power in all my basics. Then I’ll concentrate on enhancing my speed. By the way, you’re never too old to improve your speed and power. I’m 58 and still improving.

When I’m preparing a video for Paladin, I concentrate on the subject for a few months. For example, when I was readying Vital Targets: A Street Savvy Guide to Targeting the Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Throat, 95 percent of my training revolved around plucking eyeballs and smashing Adam’s apples.

For the past several months, I’ve been analyzing Muay Thai and regular boxing techniques and adapting aspects of them to my style, that of street self-defense. These arts contain some extraordinary techniques and concepts, but the trick is to figure out how to modify their sport aspects so that they are street applicable.

PALADIN: Remy Presas, Wally Jay—you’ve trained under some of the most respected names in the martial arts. Tell us a little bit about how some of these martial arts greats have shaped you as a martial artist.
LWC: Remy Presas, may he rest in peace, was in Portland a lot in the early 1980s because some of his top students live here—Dan Anderson and Fred King, to name two. I was able to train with him when I was just getting back into the fighting arts after recovering from a broken knee. Not only did I learn the basics of arnis from him, but I also learned a new way to teach. I was brought up on the Japanese way of teaching, that of giving the student one technique every four months, and when he has that one polished, he gets another. But Presas would initially inundate you with dozens of techniques and then work with you to polish them. I liked that approach and have used it ever since.

Wally Jay introduced me to a new way to think about applying force (pain) through a principle he calls small circle. Instead of just pushing at a given point, he teaches to push it but to also pull from another point, thus doubling the pain effect.

Two other less well-known instructors have also had a tremendous influence on my training. Tim Delgman, who was recently promoted to 9th degree black belt (he’s my opponent in four of my five videos), taught me 85 percent of my jujutsu knowledge and was the head judge in my promotion to 1st degree black belt in jujutsu and later to 2nd degree black. He is a traditionalist, but he was open to my modifying some of the techniques to make them fit my street style.

Wim Demeere and I have written two books together, Timing in the Fighting Arts and The Fighter’s Body, both published by Turtle Press and both available on my site. Wim lives in Belgium, where he is a personal trainer and national fighting coach. He has won several European full-contact titles. He’s only 32, but his knowledge of the fighting arts is that of a person much older. Besides polishing some of my techniques during his annual visits to the United States and through our daily E-mail communication, he has, unknowingly caused me to be less accepting of information that has always been considered gospel in martial arts circles and to take a more scholarly approach to the why and how something works.

PALADIN: What do you believe is the most important quality or qualities for a true warrior to possess, and why?
LWC: A warrior loves his fellow man. He loves his family at home, and he loves the warriors fighting on his left side and on his right side. Warriors die for these people; they do it every damn day.

There are a couple of quotes that I think answer your question. There are several variations of the first one; my favorite is this: “I don’t want to fight, but if I have to, it’s nice to know how.” I also like this one that scholar Ryusaku Tsunoda wrote in Sources of Japanese Tradition in the early part of the last century. “Outwardly, he stands in physical readiness for any call to service, and inwardly, he strives to fulfill the Way. . . . Within his heart he keeps to the ways of peace, but without he keeps his weapons ready for use. ”

For more information on Loren W. Christensen, visit his Web site at www.lwcbooks.com.

WARRIORS
On Living with Courage, Discipline, and Honor

Other books and videos by Loren W. Christensen