Bogota Judo

 

“Thuma…Thuma…Thuma.”

“Throw…throw..throw.” The sensei chanted it like a metronome. I ran the mat, with an uke on either side. Each time I reached uke, I threw him with the assigned throw, and then turned and jogged–well, trundled, really, to the throw-ee on the other side of the mat. The exercise was meant to shape and chisel throwing technique so that good technique could challenge exhaustion. And pain. And, apparently, hypoxia.

Bogota averages more than 8,000 feet above sea level. I felt like my lungs were heaving like bellows just to grab the few rare oxygen molecules that might–or might not–be available. I didn’t know if the trembling in my muscles and the narrowing of my vision were due to hypoxia or exhaustion, or a combination thereof. I continued the drill, even though my vision had gone tunnel, and in the back of my mind, I was afraid of the mental announcement that “Elvis has left the building” and hit the mats unconscious without even being thrown.

“Theo, mate. Bien. Descanso y agua.” Rest and water. Roger that. What if I passed out drinking water and drowned myself? At 8000 feet ASL? Funny or tragic?

I walked to the edge of the mat, bowed to sensei and the other judoka, and stepped backward off the mat, picked up my steel water bottle, and took another step-and-a-half back, felt my shoulders hit the wall, and slid down gracelessly until my butt hit the floor. I took a couple great gulps of “air,” to prevent that whole drowning-at-8000-feet thing, then a couple of water. I watched Sensei Morales pick two more three-person groups, each containing one thrower (tori) and two throwees (uke).

When I got the word to head down to Bogota for six months–nope! That’s wrong. I got the word to head down to Bogota for 179 days. If it was six months, that would count as a deployment. But 179 days meant that my status was “on Temporary Duty” (TDY), and TDY didn’t count against our deployment ratio of one day at home for every one day deployed. So, on day 179, I would fly home, “reset my clock,” debrief for an hour or two every day, then get sent home early every day, hopefully for a conjugal visit, and after a week or two get pushed back out. Maybe I’d go back to Bogota, maybe I was needed elsewhere. Do a couple 179ers back-to-back and the wife can get a little…peevish. Usually took me some time, charm and effort to put the conjugal into conjugal visit. Knock her up at the tail end of every second or third 179er, and it seemed like all my time home was spent on charm and effort. She had no sense of humor at all when I quipped, “Well, if it’s so darn inconvenient, why don’t you synch-up your menstrual cycle with my TDY schedule?” More time. More effort. More charm.

Thing is, too, fear and anger always raise their hoary heads. She’s home slaving away with the kids and work and (every lucky now and again) yet another pregnancy. I’m out–apparently–living the life of Riley. She didn’t always know where I was, but she could tell by my load-out where I was in general. Mostly tactical gear and kit? Probably the Middle East or Africa, and that left her scared. Suits, ties, and judo gi’s? Probably somewhere cushy, where (she imagined) I would spend my time swanning about to cocktail parties, seducing women named Svetlana (Hey, baby, I didn’t want to do it, but this was a matter of national security), and that made her angry. Leaving my beautiful wife with the option to be scared or be angry probably wasn’t the best way to nurture a marriage. The tacti-cool outfits–cargo pants, ball caps, ruggedized civilian footwear and polo and fishing shirts, and my workout clothes–told no tales, because that went with me about everywhere. She’d gotten to the point where she could guess, in a roundabout way, what region I’d be working in. Hand-made suits, shirts and trench coat all made by Mr. Song Won Lee, of Tong Du Chon, S. Korea? That bastard will be partying in S. Korea, Malaysia, or–damn him!–Thailand. Tailored suits from Arturo Calle or Camisa Eglise, both in Bogota? That bastard will be partying in the Andean Ridge, probably Ecuador, Colombia–damn him!–or Brazil–double damn him! ‘Course, “swanning” wasn’t really in my job description. And overgrown guys with broken noses and scar tissue under their eyebrows aren’t known to be “gets” for cocktail parties. Well, maybe if I went out and got a manicure. Be damned if I ever get a manicure.

But it’s not like the beautiful Kathleen–Kat, my wife–had suspicions that were unfounded. She’d seen enough operators blow up their marriages through bad choices. She’d also seen enough wives blow up their marriages because of spite, anger and vindictiveness, so she knew, intellectually if not viscerally, that IEDs were implanted on both sides of the Marriage Highway. She knew she wouldn’t blow up the marriage, so obviously the detonator was in my hand. And me, I can only take so many accusations of (imagined) adultery and misplaced suspicion before my attitude became, “Whatever. I’ve sucked up enough. This is your issue, babe.” Which is every bit as maritally debilitating as 179ers. Dang it. I coughed up water laughing when the thought hit me, “I’ll probably never get laid again.”

Bogota is especially seductive, if you’re in a rocky part of the path of marriage. Bogota will make a strong man weak, a good man bad, and a faithful man stray. As one of my bosses used to say, “Bogota is a rope factory. If you’re determined to hang yourself, it’ll be in Bogota.” So, discipline up front. Just like you have to save your money at the beginning of the month rather than save what’s left at the end, you have to budget your free time so that your spending it in activities that don’t leave you vulnerable to Ol’ Nick scratching at your will. So, about a month-and-a-half earlier, when I had arrived in Bogota, I internetted Judo clubs in Bogota. I’d sent out a couple of emails, looking for a place to train, to keep me free from distraction, and to leave me too exhausted to do anything stupid after training.

The judo school that replied and looked like the best was the team that trained in the Movistar Arena. Deep in the bowels of the arena, the school had a huge, rhomboid-shaped room, with a floating floor and world-class mats. I had been invited to attend training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I figured out pretty quick that this was the Colombian National Judo Team, and Tuesdays and Thursdays were their technique training nights; it was good training. After two weeks, I was invited to train on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as well. I figured out pretty quick that these were the conditioning, hard-fighting training sessions. Amongst the team, the judoka that had competed in the Pan American Games or the Olympics kept the competition numbers on large patches sewn to the back of their gi’s. The number of elite competitors was impressive. The training was outstanding.

Sensei Morales was a force of nature. Most people think of martial arts aficionados as “Black Belts.” True, as far as it goes. First degree black belts have proven enough proficiency to earn a voice in the conversation, a seat at the table. Moving up through the degrees, though, required truly mastering the art and the ethos and then successfully teaching the same. Black belts entrusted to teaching the art are called “sensei,” meaning “teacher.” A ninth degree judo “black belt” actually wears a red and white belt. A tenth degree “black belt” actually wears a belt of pure red, and is addressed as “O Sensei,” “The Teacher.” Sensei Morales wore a barber pole-striped belt.

He looked like a piece of rawhide made human. Short and wiry, clipper cut salt and pepper hair. He was of mixed ethnicity. I would’ve guessed latin and oriental; maybe Colombian and Japanese? He didn’t often participate in randori, the Judo version of sparring, but when he did it was awesome and awe-inspiring. I had rolled with him twice, and each time was beneficial to my Judo. Sensei rolled and threw and submitted students in a casual way that exposed the students to their own weaknesses. His expertise was such that he could use any throw or submission that he wanted. But each of his offensive moves were done using the technique that would show a student a flaw or weakness in his game that an opponent far less proficient than Sensei Morales would be able to capitalize on. No point in guessing his age. His brush-cut hair was well-salted with grey, but he could’ve been anywhere between 40 and 65. The twisted gristle and muscle that was Sensei provided no clues as to his age, beyond “adult male, harder than woodpecker lips, going grey.”

Of the six people taking their place on the mat, one of the tori was Paola. Two weeks ago, I’d watched her test for her sandan (third degree black belt). It was a thing of beauty, and brought me to tears. Looking covertly to my right and left, I’d seen a bunch of free-flowing tears from all my fellow judoka. The “throw drill” that had just put me on my butt, wondering whether to pass out or just skip the middle man and die? That had been (probably, by my internal clock; sensei never told us how long we would be executing the drill, nor how long it had been when it was over) eight minutes. During her test–for which, Judo luminaries had been brought in for oversight and assessment–she had done that drill for thirty minutes. And that was only part of the three hour test, the final part. At the end of it, she was shaking and trembling, but a little less than I had been after a mere eight minutes. She was awarded her sandan at the end of the three hour display of mastery and proficiency that informed me on just how much I had yet to learn and master about the Gentle Way.

After the test, and her promotion, we had all gone out to a popular–but low key, for Bogota–bar to toast the world’s newest sandan. After more than a couple beers, and numerous shots of aguadiente, I’d exited the rear door of the bar, into an alley, and called Kat.

“Honey, you only call on schedule, is everything okay?” Fear. “Are you alright?”

“Baby, I’m fine. I just saw the most amazing Judo, a test for sandan. And…I think I’m in love.”

Aw, honey, you’re drunk again. I’m so proud of you.”

” ‘M not drunk, baby, just caught up in the moment, dagnabit.”

“Mm-hmm. Have fun, with your Judo friends, honey. Just don’t get too caught up in the moment. I’ll skip the divorcing part and just move straight to the killing part. Claro? as they say down there?”

Claro, baby. I’ll call you this weekend.”

I watched Paola once again perform as tori, with two other black belts her uke‘s. One of sensei’s training principles was that one learned as much from getting thrown as throwing, if one were alert and discriminating. Paola took to the mats and began jogging between the two lesser black belts, throwing them with a precise insouciance that was pure art, if one knew what one was looking for. I knew the two uke, and figured out pretty quick that sensei had instructed her to throw these guys with techniques that would inform their own sense of Judo, if they were paying attention. If you were even admitted into Sensei Morales’ class, chances are you paid attention. I watched Paola move with the crisp execution of technique and economy of motion that made me hold my own Judo cheap.

Strangely, I met Paola through Judo, but then through work. There was a professional intersection. Paola was a fiscalia, a federal prosecutor. In the world of Colombian law enforcement, she was a holy terror. She brought a zealot’s energy to making the rule of law a substantial underpinning of Colombian civil society. Rebel insurgent, local reactionary militia, drug producer, drug mover, she worked tirelessly to put them before an honest judicial system (Corrupt judges? She went harder after them than anyone).

I was in Colombia working with the Colombian National Police, specifically to help them with the fusion of operations and intelligence. It’s not that the US was patronizing the poor, benighted CNP by sending down a guy that could show the Colombians how the gringos did it. Colombian intel-ops fusion is pretty sophisticated. Instead, I had been a by-name-request by the CNP, based on some of the work I had done with them before. The US Ambassador had been a little leery, but the endorsement of the Agency’s Chief of Station–with whom I’d worked a coupla/three times before, although not in Colombia–had sealed the deal. My only requirement, which made State Department personnel on the country team go pale white and shudder in horror, was that I got to go on the terminal side of the ops that I designed. I had sold this concept to the Ambassador by claiming that, in order to be a competent targeteer, I needed to be on the ground in order to read the braille and see actions on the ground in order to ensure that my ops-intel fusion was reality-based, and not just a product of my imagination while I sat in a cubicle putting the jigsaw puzzle together. To a large extent, that was true. Okay, no. That was mostly malarky, but the CNP studs busting down doors would have a whole lot more confidence in my analysis and assessments were I willing to put myself on the objective with them. Also, I just love bringing the Good News to Bad People.

Paola Lopes-Frias had been the fiscale representative for some of the CNP ops that I’d designed and participated in, and had seen my work first-hand. From a Colombian legal point of view, she’d taught me what was irrelevant, what was nice-to-have, and what was need-to-have when it came to post-op legal proceedings, and I’d adjusted planning protocols accordingly. When we’d been introduced to each other, professionally, there was an initial shock that registered between both of us; we already knew each other already from the dojo.

I had seen that she was as much a tiger in law enforcement as she was on the Judo mats. She had seen, or at least heard about, my performance during some CNP raids–and, having picked up her tutelage on what was and wasn’t important in post-op legal battles, I’d made her life easier and helped her reputation as the go-to girl for the CNP to navigate sticky wickets. This had lent itself to Paola and I having a natural affinity for each other. And attraction to each other. Not helpful. She knew I was married, and so our interactions were always very formal, and never did any of the joking around that I experienced with all the other Judo players on the team–including the females. We were so careful, and so formal around each other that, ever since her sandan promotion party, I had kind of peripherally noticed a nudge-nudge wink-wink phenomenon going on with our fellow Judo players. If the attraction and the nudges and winks kept growing, but especially the attraction, I might have to find another stay-out-of-trouble pastime. Which would break my heart, and maybe Paola’s, but the mission was to keep Kat’s heart intact. Stay on mission.

This whole topic lay heavy on my mind, as I watched Paola execute the drill with surgical precision, because Paola and I were closing out tonight. First couple times I’d gone to the Arena for training, I’d taken cabs to and from. My Colombian acquaintances–now my friends and teammates–had insisted that my transportation plan was insane, for this part of the city. They were doubtful of Uber, too, so they insisted on giving me a ride home every night. The way it worked out, I stayed late every night, and helped the other single volunteer from the team mop down the mats, and then that volunteer gave me a ride “home.” Mopping the mats after every workout is essential for hygiene; nothing like losing the whole team for two or three weeks while they battle the various staph infections guaranteed to inflict Judo players rolling around on nasty mats. Tonight, Paola was closing the place out with me.

I’d send a private, secure text both to my boss, and to Kat, when I left, detailing who was driving, the license plate number of the car, and the ETA back at my USG-contracted apartment. Then when I actually got there, I’d send another stating that I was warmly ensconced back at my abode. When I say secure text, I mean secure. I know this because when I’d queried an NSA guy about my app, he’d said, “Yeah, we got nothin’ for that.” More importantly, though, if whomever was driving me and I got in an accident, or got robbed, or got kidnapped (kidnapping still being a robust cottage industry in Colombia, despite vast improvements over the past five to seven years), I didn’t want Kat finding out I’d been alone with a female in a car when it went down. Bad juju. I’d just ask the kidnapper to shoot me, rather than face the wrath of Kat. I don’t know if telling Kat I was getting a ride with a chica was a great ameliorative, but it was the best I could do. A couple times, I’d texted Kat “home. In for the night” and gotten back “Home and alone, right?”  Dammit, woman! Sometimes, it was easier being in Iraq or Syria, knocking the snot out of Isis.

Since Paola was going through the drill, my eyes were naturally drawn to her. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but she was striking. Tall, and lean like a razor blade, she had the high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and India-ink hair that bespoke a heavy Indio heritage. She moved with a grace and economy of motion running back and forth, throwing the uke with skill and precision. For someone so lean, she had a great rack.  Oops. Bad Theo. Knock it off. Knockers? Ah, jeez, cut it out, man.

Training finally ended, all the students lined up and bowed out to Sensei Morales. While the other students packed their bags and chit-chattered about that evening’s class, Paola and I went to the utility closet on the far side of the rhomboid, and broke out the mops, wheeled squeezer buckets, and the cleaning solvent. We filled the buckets so that they were soapy and foamy, and began mopping down the maps. Paola ddstarted on one end of the mats. I started in the middle. That way, I’d be cleaning away from her, and there wouldn’t be any awkward meeting in the middle. Long, slow sweeps of the mop on the mats, ensuring that every square inch got a taste of the solvent, killing any malevolent coodies. Doing the job right took about 45 minutes. When we were done, we wheeled everything back into the utility closet, rinsed out the buckets and the mops, squeezed out the mops, then hung them over the closet door, so that the individual fronds of the mops could air dry, and not get nastified.

Then we each packed up our own gym bags in preparation for leaving. I laid out my kimono, neatly folded the sleeves over the chest. Then I put the trousers of the gi in the middle of the kimono. Then I folded the long axis of the kimono so that the outer edges met with the center-line, then folded it half, then folded the whole thing in half and cinched the tight bundle with my belt. the result was a nice, neat little lozenge that kept the whole contraption tidy. Also, back in the bad old days, old school Japanese jujutsu guys would assault Judo guys as they left class; the lozenge acted as a field expedient shield.

As we left the dojo and began to wend our way through the bowels of the coliseum to exit, Paola murmured, “It was a good training day. You did well.”

Hai, Sandan.” Yes, li’l Miss Third Degree Black Belt. She laughed and punched my arm. We exited the building and headed for the chain-link fence that separated the arena grounds from the parking lot.

They hit us after we got through the gate.

Five guys, obviously laying in wait, jumped out and streamed through the parked cars. Each had a raised machete. Paula was on my right side, two attackers were to my left, one center line of me ‘n’ Paola, two to her and my right.

I threw my little gi lozenge at the center guy, and had to rely on Paola to react appropriately to the guys on the right. The two to the left were almost in line, so I charged the first guy. Just outside of machete range, I dove and hit the ground and barrel-rolled. That took the lead guys feet from under him; he was down but not out. I stopped rolling right at the feet of the trailing guy, and could see his machete sweeping up for his hack. All his weight was on his lead leg, so that he could really cut me deep and hard. Good. I put my left hand behind his heel, cupping it to keep it stationary, and slammed my topside, right elbow into his leg, just below the knee. The knee bent backwards, I heard a “Gwarck” from the guy and he started collapsing to the ground; he was down and out. When he’d gotten hit and his leg was turned wrong way over, his flinch reflex made him drop the machete. I caught the machete by the hilt as it dropped down and I came up to my feet. The first guy, barrel roll boy, was just beginning to try to get to his feet. He had his blade in his hand, both his hands were trying to push him up off the street.

I stabbed him in the chest. The blade of my machete sank to maybe half an inch, and then the blade bowed, signifying there’d be no deeper penetration. I don’t even think I hit him on a rib. Just the intercostal muscles were enough to stymie the less than 1/8ths inch blade. Machete. Slashing weapon. Right.

I feinted at his eyes and then went low, with two fast slashes at his calf, stepping around him so that the second hit his Achilles. Without the tendon, his leg couldn’t bear weight and he immediately started dropping to the ground. I got two more good slashes in on his way down. Down, maybe out, watch that guy. I stepped around him and headed for centerline guy. He was slashing at Paola, and she was blocking with her gym bag. The two guys to the right hadn’t arrived yet, but they’d be on Paola’s flank in a fraction of a second. So far, we were about two seconds in.

Centerline guy oriented toward me and hacked. I met the edge of his blade with the flat of mine, slid mine down toward the grip, and caught him in a bind. Then, with my off-hand, I slugged him in the throat, hard, twice. That disoriented him a bit, so I relieved the bind and stabbed straight up. Through the soft pallet of the jaw. The blade bowed again, but only because the tip of the machete had stopped upon impact with the inside top of the skull. I twisted the blade, and withdrew. Down and out.

I turned and saw that Paola had taken the first of the guys on the right, brought him to the ground and broken his shoulder. Probably, I assessed in the moment, with an Americano arm bar. She was scrabbling for her gym bag, and the second right-side guy was almost upon her.

I’m mostly ambidextrous but usually a southpaw, and couldn’t bring my blade around in time to block a cut at Paola. Instead, I just dove forward to cover Paola, and crooked my right arm at my head to protect the both of us. The machete hit, and I felt lightning arc up and down my arm. That whole thing about not feeling a wound until after the action? Yeah. No. Been wounded a coupla/three times and felt all of it every time. I stood up, with my right arm dangling and the machete in my left hand. I could feel the red hot welts of the wound across my forearm and along both biceps and triceps. I flexed my right hand. Then the whole arm. Despite the blood I could feel cascading out of the arm, my hand seemed to have full function, and I felt like I could rely on the arm. Blood loss was going to be an issue, soon, though, so we needed to finish this engagement off fast.

I deflected two machete thrusts, and was just starting to feel light-headed as my antagonist approached again, when Paola directed, “Theo, down!” I took a knee and heard three fast pops, and saw three itty-bitty wounds blossom. Two in the antagonist’s chest, one in his head. He wavered for a moment and then crumpled. He’s down. And out.

I turned to guard against any of the others recovering enough to be a threat, and watched as Paola dwalked amongst the fallen, coolly putting a round into each head. I took a knee and then sat down hard. I knew it might put me into shock, but I looked at my arm. Eesh.

Thing about blade wounds is when you’re adrenalized and your blood pressure is through the roof, so that you can fight, any cut that goes just past skin deep causes the muscle to erupt out of the wound. My arm looked bad, It looked like a Basque ETA-planted IED had gone off in a Spanish meat packing plant. I steadied myself knowing it could be put back together. Probably.

Paola slipped her weapon into her waistline, grabbed my neatly folded gi lozenge, and tore the belt off and shook it out. Then, she grabbed a knife from her gym bag, and began cutting one of the sleeves off of the Kimono.

“Hey, that’s my favorite gi,” I protested weakly.

Cutting the sleeve free, she said, “Yes, and I am sure that that is your favorite right arm.”

“Well, it’s the best one I’ve had so far.”

She pursed her lips as she cut my gi belt in half, wrapped the newly liberated kimono sleeve around my upper arm, and then secured it with half the belt. Then she cut the other sleeve free, wrapped it around my forearm, and secured it with the belt. Because the arm was bleeding, but nothing was spurting, I figured the improvised pressure bandages would be good enough.

Paola’s wound tending taken care of, she got on the phone and started making calls.

In short order, police and ambulances started showing up. Me ‘n’ my gym bag got loaded onto a gurney and into an ambulance, as the EMT’s started to close the doors, I shot Paola a thumbs up, hoping it didn’t look as wan and feeble as it felt.

At the ER, they gave me a tetanus shot (my shot’s are all up to date, Doc; good, then consider this a booster) and they carefully irrigated, debrided, then irrigated the wound. I didn’t know who our assailants were at the arena, who paid them, or whether the primary target was me or Paola, so no pain meds. This made the whole debriding evolution just special. I also noted that pipe-hitters from the CNP started showing up and taking discreet security positions in the ER. I saw Ignacio, an absolute terror for bad guys on the objective, take up a position about 15 metres away, where he could see me and keep overwatch over the central aisle that anyone wanting to get to me would have to traverse. His head tracked left and right lamping the aisle, and when I fell within his gaze, he impassively shot me a wink. Security is on board. I thought that, with the pipe-hitters on station, it might be time to take some of the pain meds the staff kept offering. Then I watched impassive Ignacio’s eyes track the passing, very comely butt of a cute nurse. Nope. No pain meds yet.

They wheeled me back to a surgical suite and irrigated the wound yet again. A doc came in and began putting prolene sutures in deep, to hold the muscle together while it healed. Also, not long after emplacement, the prolene would swell, knitting the muscle together even tighter. ‘Course, it was in there forever, but I didn’t mind so much if I got full function back in my arm. After emplacing dozens of the prolene sutures, the doc started to close up the skin with regular silk sutures. 39 stitches between the upper arm and the forearm. As the doc was finishing up, Al Maxwell, Chief of Station Bogota came in.

“What in the wide, wide world of sports have you gotten yourself into, young man?”

I shrugged. And that hurt. “‘Stay out of bars,’ they said.’ ‘Do something productive with your time’, they said. Feeling pretty betrayed by Karma here, Al.”

He leaned on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Near as we can tell, the target was your girlfriend–“

Not my girlfriend, Al.”

“Your hot tamale?”

“Nope. That’s not even Colombian, you Mexican chauvinist.”

“Your chica bonita?”

“You’re going to feel silly getting whooped up on by a one-armed man wearing a hospital gown that lets his butt stick out.”

“Okay. We think the target was the vivacious, young fiscalia. You’ve been on the ground and generating effects, but haven’t been here long enough to engender someone building a target packet. So, it’s not you, it’s her. Probably.”

“Copy. Next steps?”

Al said, “We get you on the first thing smokin’ out of here, as soon as you’re fit to fly. Do not pass go, do not collect any more machete scars. You’re not even going back to your apartment; we’ll pack up all your stuff and mail it to the unit. We’ll have security at your place until everything is boxed up, and I left a bag at the nurse’s station with some travel clothes in it, but you’re done in Bogota and out of Colombia ASAPedly. If you hung out, there would almost certainly be a retributive op, just because you chewed them up so bad.”

“Why’d they use machetes, man? Just two guys with nine mils would’ve ENDEXed us both.”

“Some type of message. We’ll figure it out and I’ll send you the answer.”

“Copy.”

“Now, young machete fighter,” Al reached in his coat and pulled out an iPhone, my iPhone, “I recommend you call Kat and tell her you’re inbound.” He grinned at me, “After all, you need to give her time to make sure the toilet seat is down.” I gave Al the finger with one hand while I took my phone with the other.

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  1. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Excellent, Boss.

    • #1
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    You do know how to tell a tale, Boss.

    • #2
  3. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Some guys will do anything to stay out of trouble.

    • #3
  4. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    My just-turned sixteen year old is about to test at his karate dojo for junior black belt this weekend, where they take it seriously. He’ll be testing for 7 hours Friday and 4 more Saturday. I bet he will love this story as much as I did if not more — I plan to share it later this morning.

    • #4
  5. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Funny or tragic?

    Yes.

    • #5
  6. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    He laughed at all the right places and enjoyed himself. “This guy is pretty cool,” was his laconic reply.

    Thanks Boss man.

    • #6
  7. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    You know, if you are going to get a job as a thug you might want to stop and ask, “Who exactly are these people you want us to attack?”

    • #7
  8. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    CB Toder aka Mama Toad (View Comment):
    He laughed at all the right places and enjoyed himself. “This guy is pretty cool,” was his laconic reply.

    There is no higher praise.  Thanks Mama Toad.

    • #8
  9. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    @bossmongo … you are a great story-teller. You set this one up magnificently.

    And you do have stories to tell. And you are a bad ass who can tell real stories, not made up ones like the fictional writers. Which make them even more compelling.

    And lastly … about that “real” part. This one was real in a man’s man way. And I don’t mean about the judo or the machete fight way. I mean in the inner man way. There ain’t one of us who hasn’t fought the demon inside. The lure of the temptation to “distant intimacy.” Life is seductive and it can “make a strong man weak, a good man bad, and a faithful man stray.” Bogota is life on steroids, but the seduction is the same at its core.

    And so your great story also has a great message within … “So, discipline up front.” Your personal discipline in staying true to your vows (“the mission”), whether “caught up in the moment” or not, is authentic, honest and a great witness to men on how to do the same.

    Make sure that Kat reads this. This is sincere and powerful and why she too has stayed on mission herself throughout an environment not necessarily conducive to marital bliss. 

    Sensei Morales would bow too toward this, I think. I do.

    • #9
  10. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Columbo (View Comment):
    I mean in the inner man way. There ain’t one of us who hasn’t fought the demon inside.

    @columbo, Thanks.  Fighting the demon inside was the gist of it.  Machetes are easy.

    • #10
  11. Dave L Member
    Dave L
    @DaveL

    Thanks Boss, I am still waiting for the book?

     

    • #11
  12. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Boss Mongo: I’ll skip the divorcing part and just move straight to the killing part.

    I have heard those exact words from my lovely wife. She is only 5′ 2″ but with an Irish temper . . . I don’t want to find out if she is telling the truth.

    • #12
  13. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    On a serious-ish note…

    Well, first: well done, Boss.

    Because that temptation is real, and not just because Bogota is a rope factory. High-intensity experience is a rope factory. One of the reasons I love doing critical incident debriefs is that I get to witness the bond that is formed when a bunch of guys (mostly guys) go through something difficult, painful or dangerous together.

    EDIT: And the bond excludes. “You wouldn’t understand. You weren’t there.”

    This is a kind of passion—I love you, man— and since passion=passion, it’s not at all difficult to translate one sort into another when one of the guys isn’t a man. And sure, it’s even easier when she’s got a nice rack or, from her perspective, he is @bossmongo

    The obvious and time-honored solution to this  is to separate the sexes, but  Boss describes and demonstrates the alternative. Mindfulness, humility, self-knowledge and self-control; this is what those marriage vows are all about.

    • #13
  14. Clavius Thatcher
    Clavius
    @Clavius

    Great story!  Thank you.

    • #14
  15. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Yeah, but where did John Wick learn gun-fu? Probably another hot Colombian lawyer.

    • #15
  16. GLDIII Temporarily Essential Reagan
    GLDIII Temporarily Essential
    @GLDIII

    Arahant (View Comment):

    You do know how to tell a tale, Boss.

    Tell a tale? Nuts I thought he was finally copping up some of his nefarious past since they put him to seed.

    • #16
  17. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    GLDIII Temporarily Essential (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    You do know how to tell a tale, Boss.

    Tell a tale? Nuts I thought he was finally copping up some of his nefarious past since they put him to seed.

    The giveaway was the discussion of divorce. The Charming and Delightful wouldn’t waste the lawyer fees. There are plenty of opportunities to dispose of bodies in the Keys.

    • #17
  18. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    GLDIII Temporarily Essential (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    You do know how to tell a tale, Boss.

    Tell a tale? Nuts I thought he was finally copping up some of his nefarious past since they put him to seed.

    Some folks can share their experiences in an interesting way, and some can’t. What one sees above is excellent writing. I have encountered published books that were not written half as well. The word “tale” is not restricted to fiction. It just means recounted to others, and can be true tales.

    • #18
  19. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    What did you study aside from judo and guncraft, Boss? I sometimes wonder if the krav maga studios in the States are the real deal or a tae kwan do sporting equivalent.

    A buddy of mine was a 2nd-degree black belt in shotokan and once suggested we learn aikido together. How often do you meet people who prefer learning another style to deepening knowledge of the one they started?

    • #19
  20. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    You know, if you are going to get a job as a thug you might want to stop and ask, “Who exactly are these people you want us to attack?”

    I just imagine someone saying, “Yeah, it’s just a woman and the guy who mops up at night” which, while technically true, doesn’t accurately express the threat level.

    • #20
  21. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Aaron Miller (View Comment):
    A buddy of mine was a 2nd-degree black belt in shotokan and once suggested we learn aikido together. How often do you meet people who prefer learning another style to deepening knowledge of the one they started?

    @aaronmiller, I’m primarily a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy, although I took a couple years off to study Judo.  Also have put some time into old-school Japanese jujutsu.  I have attended  couple Krav Maga seminars, and think that it’s a good system.  Too, I still practice the forms of The LINE, mostly because I’m too old to want to “fight” anybody.

    I like Aikido and have spent a little time with it.  Here’s my issue with Aikido:  In order to get good enough at it so that your skills are fundamentally reliable in a real-world situation, you have to invest about twenty years into it.  Aikido techniques require the use of fine motor skills, which are the first thing to go out the window when you get the chemical dump that accompanies a stressful confrontation.

    I try to study as much and as many martial arts as I can, with an “all rivers run into the same sea” attitude.  The lineage “chops” on my black belt certificate (yeah, I know; humble brag) in Japanese jujutsu go back to the Shao Lin temple, in China.

    • #21
  22. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Dave L (View Comment):

    Thanks Boss, I am still waiting for the book?

     

    You and me both, brother.

    • #22
  23. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Percival (View Comment):
    There are plenty of opportunities to dispose of bodies in the Keys.

    @percival, the crabs are always hungry.

    • #23
  24. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    BTW, Theo’s next adventure is almost done.  In that one, you’ll get to meet Kat, and all the 179-er crumb crunchers.

    • #24
  25. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    I’ll admit that for a minute there I thought this was going to go like the first MCU Black Widow fight.  Jon Favreau spends five minutes duking it out with one guy while she takes out everyone else in the entire complex.

    • #25
  26. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    As we used to say at the police bureau; A big atta boy for you, and big atta girl for Paola. We used Akido holds for pain compliance, and they were integrated into the side handle baton that we carried. We didn’t carry the wimpy collapsible baton. I had to use one of the holds when someone tried to jerk his arm away from me as I was trying to handcuff him. I just followed his arm movement and threw him on his back, twisted his arm which rolled him over on his stomach. My knee in his back pinned him and he was in cuffs. He whined all the way to booking. Never was confronted by machetes, but Glockido would have been my go to move if I had been.

    • #26
  27. Richard Finlay Inactive
    Richard Finlay
    @RichardFinlay

    Boss, I suspect you have been a victim of auto-correct.  You might want to search the text for “Paula” in the middle of this.  Unless she is undercover and has multiple identities ………

    • #27
  28. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Richard Finlay (View Comment):

    Boss, I suspect you have been a victim of auto-correct. You might want to search the text for “Paula” in the middle of this. Unless she is undercover and has multiple identities ………

    Yes.  Y’know, one tries to write a decent post about another country, and one ends up being such an anglophile, he can’t help but butcher the names he assigned to his own characters.  I’m a schmuck.

    Que triste.

    • #28
  29. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Man oh man, I’d pay good money to read or see this.  A Mongo story is a privileged glimpse into the kind of life I’ll never know. Thanks, Boss. It’s not only great storytelling, it’s wise, and wised up about what counts in life. As we say in my business, Five Stars. 

    • #29
  30. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Gary McVey (View Comment):
    As we say in my business, Five Stars. 

    Thanks, Gary.

    • #30
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