the black book

[Howling Dog]

Woof,After hearing of guro craftys picture in the new black belt mag. i rushed out to get a copy!!    while leafing thru the mag. i saw a ad for michael d. echanis book on special forces/ranger-udt/seal knife fighting. The ad said the book was printed in 1978 and banned for being toooooo deadly until now and was being re-released.
Anyway.....I bought that book around 80-81  hmmm......banned? again...anyway I got it out of the archives and was leafing thru it. just wondered who has seen it or knows of mr. echanis and thoughts on the book, its worth as a training tool that kind of thing?
i did find a body diagram in the back of the book with vital targets on it and the angles of striking them, i thought that to be quite intresting. comments?                       sb

[crimresearch]

Are you talking about the O'Hara paperback with the green cover?
IIRC there was nothing all that unusual in that text...wasn't it pretty standard Hwarang knife defenses?
And given the number of readily available books on guns, etc. in print, what exactly would qualify as 'too deadly' to print?
 

[Stickgrappler]

woof:

tom guthrie IS talking about the "black book" - echanis had 3 books, the red (stick), the green (knife defense) and the black (knife offense). i've never seen the black book and because it was out-of-print for so long, anytime the book showed up on ebay it could fetch anywhere up to ~$150.

from my understanding from people who have the book - at the time it was the first book out on Asian knife, whereas there were already material out on Western knife. add to the mix the mystique of Echanis and possibly would be reasons why people have been wanting to check out the book.

[Howling Dog]

Woof stick grappler, Are you serious about the that book getting 150.00 dollars on ebay?
I bought that book in 1980-81 and paid 7.95 for it. it still has the price tag on it. Its been sitting in my closet all this time.
I remmeber back then reading some things about echanis in soldier of fortune, and things like that.
If memory serves me he was shot down in a helicopter in in nicaragua i believe he was body guarding the nicaraguan pres. at that time or training their military. (not sure) long time ago and iam getting on in years
Anyway one pic. i remmeber of him in particular was of him with a jeep running over his abs as he lay on the ground.
                           tom

[Stickgrappler]

woof tom:

i am serious. i have a friend who wanted to ebay it, but then wanted to hang onto it for a bit longer and he was the one who told me that it's reprinted and he regretted not ebaying it earlier.

for some background info check out my site, i have archived a thread from a diff forum with people who knew Echanis personally. it's a long thread.

http://stickgrappler2.tripod.com/kma/echanis.html

[Howling Dog]

woof stick grappler, i checked out your site.....started to read down the thread....extremly long .
echanis appears to be a hot topic in some circles..... with a lot of the same martial arts chatter weve all grown to love......is he legit.....no hes not...yes he is ...no...yes...no..blah blah  
 Personally i never had much trouble believing his legitamcy, back in the day, he was getting a lot of press coverage.
judging by the way he died i would have to say/ to say the least lots of others believed in his legitamcy as well.
As for the book....though i have no desire to sell it, iam almost sorry that ohare has decided to reprint it.  I kinda have a mixed thought on it....wont lose any sleep over it though, and i suppose if its as good as some beleive it will be a benifit to the art of combat knife fighting.
                    tom

[crimresearch]

Hi, all:

Sorry, after posting I did find out that there was a 3rd book on knife techniques, which I don't recall reading when his stuff first came out.