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The martial arts have changed, 52 blocks has recently hit the headlines in rap songs, youtube
videos and instructional tapes. Sometimes called Jail House Rock, but claiming a lineage different from
that of the Jail House Rock of the West Coast’s Black Guerrilla Family. The idea of prison based martial
arts is an idea which has inspired both fear & laughter. Fear from those who don’t understand the
implications and laughter from those who over evaluate their own self worth. This article sets the record
straight, as far as the author knows it to be true, and addresses the more important issue in a single
question; Do Criminals Train to Be Criminals..? Yes!!! Here is how…
You may fool yourself all you want & say that you have a right to self-defense (you do) and that
you can beat up an untrained attacker with your “kung-fu” (not the martial art but the literal translation
of skill). However, if you don’t train to fight enemy you face in that moment you are setting yourself for
failure and excuses like your right defend yourself won’t save you.
Let me explain, here in the US we have a right to keep (own) & bear (use) arms (weapons not
just guns) & we also have a right to freedom of speech. A person who is well read and well educated in
communication mediums such as public speaking will exercise that right to freedom of speech better
then someone who lacks that particular “kung-fu.” The same is true of someone who must exercise their
right to self-defense, a skilled marksmen is better prepared to defend themselves with a gun if required
and martial arts (any martial artist) is better prepared to defend themselves in a fight, some more so
then others. The problem occurs when the “rules of the fight” change & against an experienced criminal
and not some young punk trying to be tough, “the rules” are theirs to make.
As such being a victim of violence causes various psychological problems but most of all, it
teaches the
person that violence is power. Remember your mind is designed to learn through association & the
process occurs such as this; a parent gets drunk and beats their kid over a slight or some arbitrary wrong
all the while offering the mantra “You will learn to respect me.” The child associates the word “respect”
with the emotion of “fear” so that respect becomes fear & the kid then sees that violence is a means to
be
feared (respected). Said child sets off “to earn the respect of his peers” and becomes a bully. As the child
becomes a teenager he wants to be a tough guy and sets off the fight bigger stronger and tougher
people (other bullies) while still bullying the weaker members of society around him. All to prove
himself as a tough guy, add a few brushes with the law and incarceration around like-minded individuals
and the patterns of associations have become habits and habits become routine and routine becomes a
life style…
So then at this point what has experience taught your averaged troubled youth;
Respect if being feared…
You need violence; hurting others to be respected…
If you are strong & violent you are respected…
Add in that the constant experiences at fighting cause one to be associated with others who seek out
violence & others who want to be “tough.” Thus, adding experience at fighting and an informal learning
process of learning by doing. Said association with violence means that many “tough guys” and
“violence fetishists” will read and watch instructional videos on martial arts,
combatives, knife fighting etc. to try out what they learn on those they wish to gain “Respect” from.
Now apply said cliché of tough guys with a higher calling then being just tough; give them easy
money and an illusion of real power (i.e. money) & you have the makings of a gang. These gangs often
recruited members in the past, to extort money and control areas of their locations. With them the
gangs kept members from stealing or harassing others in their neighborhoods but then started
victimizing others from different areas under the control of different gangs. The illegal drug trade caused
many gangs to grow in both size and in power as new weapons and guns became common place. Now
the in the 21st Century gangs have morphed into a more syndicate structure around the smuggling, sale
and distribution of illegal drugs.
As such many gangs still require their members to be beat in to prove their toughness and have
members with clean records to join the military to learn weapons & tactics; making the possibility of
finding gang members training in paramilitary tactics & even Modern Army Combatives or the Marine
Martial Arts Program a good possibility. This is of course my reference to Jail House Rock and 52 blocks
at the beginning of the article; you see it’s a bit of little know American Civil Rights History…
In the 1966 by George Jackson when prisons were integrated a prison gang the Black Guerrilla
Family tried to “take over the prison population” as a means of recruiting members into its Marxist
Revolutionary Organization to over throw the US Government. As such the Black Guerrilla Family
invented a “martial art” known as Jail House Rock; claiming African Roots it was a mix of dirty boxing
and hip hop danced moves (assessed as effective fighting techniques in the way one would find Kata
Bunkai in formal Karate). This served two key purposes; the association of violence with strength
(something common to a troubled childhood) & as a “secret martial art of African heritage” served as
medium for the indoctrination of Marxist Revolutionary Ideas, cloaked on pretty little wrappings of the
civil rights movement.
As such a racist prison gang known as the Aryan Brotherhood was said to have developed a
prison fighting system off of the an older hand-to-hand combatives system called Rock & Roll. Like their
African American counter-parts the Aryan Brotherhood used Rock-&-Roll as a medium of indoctrination
for White-Supremacy. The Aryan Brotherhood was first started to protect whites against blacks in the
prisons of California but also using “their protection” to indoctrinate new members into white-
supremacist beliefs. As such a “prison martial arts” become a sort of paramilitary training to indoctrinate
low level members into believing in a greater confidence in the organization then presented. As such
most street-fighters follow the same game plan; teach some basics and build confidence in followers. As
such everything is simple, direct and effect oriented…
So not the answer the question first posed at the beginning of this article; Do Criminals Train to
Be Criminals..? Yes it is a systematic answer based on the type of criminal you may encounter; a self-
trained tough guy, a prison trained felon or paramilitary narco-terrorist gang…