Another adventure is in the books!
This past weekend, on October 16th and 17th, I went to Chicagoland to visit my old friend James Lafond.
He’d put together a get-together of fighters hosted by The Vanilla Gorilla, and featuring a special guest star, Electric Dan!
You could consider me the D’Artangion to these 3 Musketeers, for when I got the invite to attend back in August, I of course said yes!
What follows was an adventure indeed!
THE APOLLO HOURS
I had had the opportunity to train in James’ circle at Man Weekend, 2026 back in May, Memorial Day time.
I was excited for James to see if I had progressed any, what I had to work on, and to get some 1-on-1 training time with the great man.
I was not to be disappointed.
For nearly 7 hours, the adventure went down.
And I learned a few things in the process.
PIVOTING LIKE A PANTHER
First of all, James Lafond moves like a panther.
It’s a fact,
I’ve read the guy’s books for over half-a-decade, and I got to meet him a few months ago.
But it wasn’t until this past weekend that I got to truly study him in action, like a hawk studying his prey.
One of the best things he does is Internal Hip Rotation.
This guy has his hips in an eternally pigeon toed state, which is the true source of his fluidity and combat power.
It allows him to prowl upon the ground like a big cat, and spring up and into pivots like the veritable King of the Jungle.
During the month of September 2026, I had been working on Internal Hip Rotation of my own to help with my pivots, and I’m glad I did.
I realized that to be as good as James Lafond, you’ve got to internally rotate, and I promptly doubled my training in this arena after our meeting.
A REAL PROBLEM
Second of all, I have a real problem.
I’ve touched upon it before, but have not examined it in true detail until now…neither in public forum or private self-reflection alike.
That problem is:
The aggressive Thumos in my Soul is held back by 12+ years of bad mental conditioning.
That bad mental conditioning is: do not rock the social norms by being “TOO MUCH”, and to prevent this tragedy, your go-to reaction should be to FREEZE SUBMISSIVELY.
To swallow the bitter pill of this terrible mental conditioning, I have billed it as “The Honor of Endurance” when in reality it is “The Strength of the Slaves”.
In practice, this means I take it as a great Honor to stoically endure a beating, and still be left standing.
To hit back or even maneuver has been trained within me to be beyond the pale.
This is true in every arena of my life, and shows up in the Physical during fight time.
THE STRONGMAN SHOOTS THE ELEPHANT
This problem began in June of 2014 and only got worse after my Mom died on January 22, 2022.
It has cost me money, respect, and a good woman.
This was the elephant in the room that James and I sought to riddle with bullet holes.
Because George Orwell was a pansy Socialist son-of-a-bitch for not shooting that elephant to become the Strongman of the British Empire.
And I’ll be damned if I’m not the Strongman.
THE ORDER OF THE DAY
The physical means for this pachyderm massacre was two-fold:
- Peek-a-Boo Style
- Flow Sparring
The Peek-a-Boo style is perfect for me because I am a short, aggressive, strongman.
I am more comfortable being close than I am far away.
So Peek-a-Boo is perfect for me.
Consequently, working on head movement to slip punches, bobbing and weaving along Jack Dempsey lines to get low and punch to the body, and weight-shifting off the line combos was the order of the day.
THE ROPEFLOW CONNECTION
I felt that my RopeFlow practice since February 22, 2026 helped me out a lot in this regard for Peek-a-Boo.
Honestly, if I hadn’t been doing it, I know that my freezing problem would have been even worse in this training session.
However, I have done RopeFlow in a square, head-on stance, and this was giving me some problems in staying bladed at an angle that I need to work on.
The Internal Hip Rotation that I have added to this in September of 2026 helped me pivot a lot, as I witnessed in awe that James had mastered.
And the Pilates I had been doing since September of 2026 also made the weight shifting from leg-to-leg a lot easier, much to my surprise.
The big thing was tying it all together.
PULLING OFF THE BIG PICTURE
I realized that I often hone in on a problem that is a key center-of-gravity of a situation, work to fix it, but then have trouble integrating this fix into the big picture to pull the whole thing off.
So it was with me in Boxing training with James Lafond.
It took a good chunk of time to calm me down, thaw me out of my freeze state, and get me to coordinate my arms with my hip movement and weight shifting.
Flow Sparring was on tap for this special job…and as time went on…
The ice began to melt!
KILLING KING KONG!
Up next it was stick time, and here was where Electric Dan truly shined.
I love stick a lot, but the icy fear returned upon introducing a new weapon.
Consequently, Electric Dan showed me a trick…just throw 1s and 2s in an X-pattern, like laying down suppressive automatic fire with an assault rifle.
I LOVED THIS because this fits my style perfectly!
Back in the day when me and my friends used to play airsoft in the early 2010s, the suppressive automatic fire was always what I did best with.
And in Speech-and-Debate, this became my go-to move…a fiery stream of historical facts issued authoritatively, all centering around 3 very basic themes.
The idea of keeping a move very sincerely simple and at an insanely high volume works best for my brain.
So when it came time for my great final stick fight with The Vanilla Gorilla…a mass of brain and brawn and solid sinew…
I was ready!
“I’m the pilot who killed King Kong!” I told him before the fight began.
The ice sure was melting fast!
THE FATE OF THE ELEPHANT
The elephant is big.
The elephant is strong.
But the elephant is wounded and fighting for dear life.
His fight is futile.
For with James Lafond’s drills, teachings and encouragement…
And the help of a few other good friends like Dr. Breck, Jeth Randolph, and a host of other honorable men who wish to remain anonymous…
The elephant doesn’t stand a chance.
That’s because All Men Follow the Strongman.
Pulp Fiction Power to you, my friends!
Sincerely,
Richard Barrett
10-20-2026
Written at 9:42 PM, somewhere in the USA…
