To me, Rickey Kang is a lot of things: a martial arts master, Kobudo Attack World Champion in 1981, 82 and 85, a teacher, a father, a drinking buddy. But, most importantly, Rickey Kang is a warrior. What is a warrior? A warrior is someone who will beat your fucking ass & who will kick the living shit out of you. A warrior feeds on bad odds and pain. Warriors are a dying breed. Thatï's why Rickey Kang is special.

But he is also a man of peace and great gentleness. I once saw him rescue a small bird from a drainpipe, take it home, splint its damaged wing with a straw, and nurse that little bird back to health.

After that, that little bird stayed by Rickey's side, I witnessed it with my own eyes. I also witnessed a biker in a sports bar call that bird a 'faggoty' pet to Rickey's face. It was probably the last time that man was ever able to form a sentence without slurring his words and drooling. I've never seen someone attacked with such a savage, precise fury. After that, Rickey had to go away to prison for a while and his finch died.

That is just a little bit about what Rickey Kang means to me. I am lucky he is my friend and Dojo Master. I will train with him as long as he will have me.

He is a complex man. He is Rickey Kang.

Today is a sad day for Rickey Kang. I learned that my old teacher, Tu Van Trang, passed away last night. He died in a half-way house in Tallahasee. Most people around him probably thought he was just some fuck up, an old drunk, but I remember him from my days in the jungle, back when we trained high in the mountains in Laos. It was Tu who first taught me how to harness my inner tiger, how to prod that bastard back into my inner cage, and when the time was right, how to let it spring loose and destroy any and all dumb shit enough to get in its way.

The last time I saw Tu I met him at a bar in Tallahassee called the Lone Mast. We drank late into the night and Tu eventually got us kicked out for punching a hole in the jukebox, ripping out its smoking, sputtering innards and trying to eat them. But out in the parking lot, I remember Tu having a moment of clarity. He pulled me close and said, "Rickey, never stop fight". We embraced for a long time. Then he pulled away and staggered off into a ditch and I drove my truck off down the lonely highway to go get a whore, but I never forgot those words he spoke to me that night. Well, I take that back, I forgot them for a little while when I had more drinks about and hour later and fell down a flight of stairs and broke out my front teeth, but when I woke up, the next afternoon, I remembered them fine.

And I never have forgotten them since. "Never Stop Fight" N-S-F. And I haven't. And, even though Tu is gone now, he can rest in peace knowing that I never
fucking will.

A lot of motherfuckers are always writing me and asking me, "How do I train with you?"

Here's how, don't ask me. If your soul is strong and you are a fucking warrior, I'll find you.

No amount of money or fame can get you to train with me if you aren't already a warrior in your soul.

Once, when I was in my dojo, that Hollywood fucker hotshot Tom Cruise comes in and interrupts my class. He walks right up to me and says, "I'm Tom Cruise and I want you to train me. I'll pay any price" I didn't say a thing. I just stared into him for about 50 seconds. He's standin there smiling. Then he starts to talk again and I just slapped his bitch face. When he starts to talk again, I punched him in his throat and threw him through my plate glass window out into the parking lot. Why? Cause I could tell he would never be a warrior

At that time, I was training a little, twisted up 12-year old retarted Vietnamese kid I found in a trailer park in Gulf Port. He was in wheelchair and drooled and couldn't even talk. Now, a fuckin year later, that kid can walk and talk and beat the shit out of anyone in the world, except me. And he gets tons of hot pussy. He also plays lead guitar in my band and parties his ass off. I trained him cause his spirit was pure, and I knew, deep down in his twisted little retard soul, there was a warrior waitin' to pounce out like a fuckin wild-eyed hungry tiger.

So if you want to train with Rickey Kang, keep doing what you do and maybe one day, I'll walk into your life and bring you the power of the shit storm.

This shit is flat out crazy. I can levitate when I listen to it. I had to stop listening to it because the last time I did, I drifted off into a spirit trance and when I woke up, I was in a Starvin' Marvin in my dacchi suit and I was choking this Indian dude out with a double arm Ju-jitsu hold. I remember coming to and running off into the underbrush behind the store. I spent five days out there living off nuts and berries and squirrels I kilt with my bare hands. Wild shit!

This is fuckin OUTLAW music, flat out. I used to hang out with the lead guitarist Duane Roland. I actually lived in the back of his van for a month in 1977 and, to repay him, I helped him write the first song on the album Bounty Hunter. My horse is kicking dust up off the trail, I'm just getting back
from a trip to HELL. My six gun she's stapped by my side, Thunder is the horse that I ride. And it seems to me this is one hell of a way, For a man like me to earn that pay. Need I say the fuck more?

This is some evil shit. I used to listen to this when I was training. I'd put it on so loud it would just kind of like, take over my soul. One time, I got so fired up I punched clean through a 150 lb. cowhide leather heavy bag. My arm went right through up to the shoulder. My training partner Kenny Pang had to cut me out of that fucker with a chainsaw. One note: I used to train Dave Mustaine for a few months till he pussied out. He's kind of a bitch, but I still think he rocks on guitar.

I guess this one is one of the all time greatest fucking albums of all time. Sometimes before a hard fight, when I need to get real cold hearted, I put this on full blast and it turns me into some kind of man-beast. Once, after I broke some dudes arm in about 27 places and had to go to court, I used this album as my defense. I told the judge that I was listening to it in my car before I went into Hardee's where this dude starts fucking with me. Big mistake cause about three seconds later he was screaming in agony beside the bubble pool. I got off with house arrest and 500 hours of community service.

Since my style of kung-fu makes me live forever, I was around back in 61 AD when the druids were partying and doing human sacrifices on the island of Anglesey. They did these badass chants that we would sing while we ran naked through a sacred groves of oak trees smeared in mud and human blood. Then we'd get all sexed up and fuck right on the ground like animals. It was wild. You can't get that album cause it only exists anymore in my head.

Sup fuckers? You know Rickey Kang has been thinkin real hard lately about love and hate. I think I finally came up with what it all means. And now, right on this internet, I’m gonna share it with you.

LOVE

If I love you, I will do anything for you – bend roll bars with my bare hands and rip you out of a burning dune buggy, block a throwing star with my forearm, give you the last Icehouse draft out of my cooler… hell, I’ll even train you and give you everlasting life and get you some good pussy. That’s if I love you real hard.

If you’re a hot woman with a real high ass, we’re probably gonna fuck.

But if I HATE you…you best get back in the car and sling gravel the fuck outta my general area cause you ain’t gonna like what’s about to go down.

Here’s a story:
Last week I had a visit at my dojo from this guy, called hisself Roy Sissom. Said he was with the IRS, something about me not payin him tax for the new “Kang’s Kick Ass Kingdom” dojo out on Dixie Highway. He comes marching in right in the middle of my class. We were in there doing an intense wall sprint session – it’s where I teach pain management by making the whole class run dead smack into a cinderblock wall at an ass burning sprint. So this dude Roy is standing there smirking with his brief case, and he shows me some papers, says I owe 12 grand in “back tax”. Says he wants to see my files. So, I play it cool and I tell him to wait right where he’s at. I walk about twenty paces away and then I spin around and run at him like a panther. I get airborne about 10 feet out and do a flying-two-footed-chest-kick right on that cocksucker’s solar plexus. Sent his as right through the front window into the parking lot. He’s probably still fucking laying there, sputtering, spitting blood.

HATE

Long story short. If I hate you, you’re gonna get your ass folded up into a little box and mailed off to Africa.

I do a lot of Tai Chi. It helps keep me loose. Thing is, I like to do it naked. Last summer I was livin' in a Days Inn off the I-80 interchange outside of Clearwater and I started doin my Tai Chi out by the pool, naked. No big deal, right? Wrong. Midway through my deal, this dude from the front desk named Amir comes out and he's like, "Mr. Kang, excuse me, Mr. Kang." Now I'm deep in a trance, all lathered up, doin my dance, eyes closed and, in my head, I'm dreaming of riding a giant powerfull tiger down a beach next to the crashing sea. But then I hear Amir's voice, cutting into my dream. "Mr. Kang, you must put your pants on when you are at the pool."

Now my routing is all busted to shit and, for a second, I feel rage. I feel like picking up a deck chair and beating Amir. Beating him to fuckall and back again. But then I remember that he's pretty cool actually and that we drink together most nights when he gets off his shift at the front desk. So what does Rickey Kang do? I play it cool, I put back on my track shorts and towel down and just chill the fuck out. See? That's why I do the Tai Chi dance. It keeps me sorted out, it mellows me. It keeps my dacci tiger in the steel box.