John Lindsey
4th March 2002, 03:52
Tonight while reading through a Hwa Rang Do website, I remembered about Mike Echanis, who was probably the best know person from this art. Mike was also on the staff of Soldier of Fortune magazine and wrote a few articles (that I still have) on sentry removal. He also wrote 3 books I think.
Over the years since he died, I have heard various stories that his level of training in Hwa Rang Do was rather limited. Does anyone know what other martial arts he might have studied?
I remember when Echanis died, since I was in the Army at that time, assigned to the 2nd Ranger Bn. Bravo Company used to have a hand to hand demo team and they were putting on a show for some British Generals visiting Ft. Lewis around November of 1978. Well, the NCOIC of the demo unit dedicated the show to the memory of Echanis. From what I recall, Echanis was dropping frags and smoke grenades out of a airplane and suddenly the plane blew and fell into a lake. Not sure of any other details.
Later when I was in the SF engineer course at Bragg, I went out drinking with some of my SF buddies. I met this one martial artist who was assigned to 5th group. All I can recall is that he had a piece of a telephone poll hanging by a chain from a tree and that he used it as his punching bag. Also, he recently (at that time) got assigned to go teach martial arts to a CIA team that I think was called 'the Fog' or something like that. He mentioned that he always refused to take their polygraph test since after "what happend down south with Mike Echanis." I guess he was down there too. I remember him showing me his travel orders and how they routed him through 5 different places before ending up at the CIA!
One of the senior Japanese instructors in the Bujinkan organization named Nagato says that he knew Echanis and was even invited to go help him teach down South.
When I was going through the Special Forces' SOT course at Mott Lake, we would often have martial arts training in the morning. It was in a big round pit full of sawdust. The cadre commented on how this was the place where Echanis taught. All I can remember from the training is that we used an old tire as a portable kicking target.
Thats about all I remember :).
Over the years since he died, I have heard various stories that his level of training in Hwa Rang Do was rather limited. Does anyone know what other martial arts he might have studied?
I remember when Echanis died, since I was in the Army at that time, assigned to the 2nd Ranger Bn. Bravo Company used to have a hand to hand demo team and they were putting on a show for some British Generals visiting Ft. Lewis around November of 1978. Well, the NCOIC of the demo unit dedicated the show to the memory of Echanis. From what I recall, Echanis was dropping frags and smoke grenades out of a airplane and suddenly the plane blew and fell into a lake. Not sure of any other details.
Later when I was in the SF engineer course at Bragg, I went out drinking with some of my SF buddies. I met this one martial artist who was assigned to 5th group. All I can recall is that he had a piece of a telephone poll hanging by a chain from a tree and that he used it as his punching bag. Also, he recently (at that time) got assigned to go teach martial arts to a CIA team that I think was called 'the Fog' or something like that. He mentioned that he always refused to take their polygraph test since after "what happend down south with Mike Echanis." I guess he was down there too. I remember him showing me his travel orders and how they routed him through 5 different places before ending up at the CIA!
One of the senior Japanese instructors in the Bujinkan organization named Nagato says that he knew Echanis and was even invited to go help him teach down South.
When I was going through the Special Forces' SOT course at Mott Lake, we would often have martial arts training in the morning. It was in a big round pit full of sawdust. The cadre commented on how this was the place where Echanis taught. All I can remember from the training is that we used an old tire as a portable kicking target.
Thats about all I remember :).