There has been an awful lot of speculation over the years about my relationship with Frank Dux, about whether Frank Dux was "for real" or whether the movie Bloodsport is realistic depiction of the underground kumite. As I have my upcoming novel, SHIDOSHI:The Four Ways of the Corpse about to be released, and these same "speculators" are sure to begin spinning their own, revisionist tales once again, I thought I would put a few things to rest. First, I worked for Frank Dux for several years as his head instructor at three of his studio locations. I instigated the "Special Skills" workshops program under his guidance. He awarded me a 6th degree black belt in Dux Ryu Ninjitsu, the main tree in the Koga Yamabushi Ninjitsu kai, from which many other ninjitsu practioners have sprung. Five Birds Martial Arts is closely related, and indebted to Dux Ryu for molding a fragmented set of beliefs into a workable, simple system. I know, first hand that his skills are superior, as I have worked out directly with him many, many times.
There are some things that I did NOT know, however. As I was working in the L.A. County Jails as a teacher at the time that I worked for Mister Dux, I witnessed a good deal of controversy that I did not want to understand, and I later found out that I was not supposed to understand. Frank Dux was working some covert operations, for government agencies, that he could not talk about, even with his closest friends. There were also many conflicts within the martial arts community, mostly by jealous competitors of Frank Dux, that made my association with him a difficult one. We parted company on friendly terms and I did not see Frank Dux for more than two decades until about a year ago, when I finished the above mentioned novel. I knew that people would believe that the conflict that is outlined in the book was actually based upon a real conflict between Frank Dux and myself. I contacted Frank and sent him a copy of the novel. He read it, reviewed it and approved the contents. This generous act on his part has opened the door for us to rekindle our old friendship. We have jointly decided to finish several projects that we began many years ago, but were put on hold for various reasons. Please stay turned for more about the True History of the Ninja, about the release of my novel SHIDOSHI:The Four Ways of the Corpse and about Frank Dux.
Below is a link to a recent interview with Frank Dux, where he is allowed to answer detractors and set his own record straight. My thanks to MMA Sports Expo for providing me with this link.
If it does not open on its own, please copy and paste the link below, into your browser. Wait a minute or two to allow to load, and watch an interesting interview with Frank Dux.
http://www.mmasportsexpo.com/videos/MMA_Show_7-22-10.mp4
About Me
- Gordon Richiusa
- The owner and director of Five Birds Industries, has been a martial arts student for almost 50 years. He has also been a teacher of English Composition,Film as Literature, Creative Writing, Scriptwriting and Martial Arts for 2/3 of that time. Like any good journalist, he never made himself the story. On June 19th, 2010, Gordon was inducted into the Martial Arts Masters Hall of Fame. The next year he published his first novel, SHIDOSHI:The Four Ways of the Corpse and was then inducted into the U.S.A. Martial Arts Hall of Fame and the Legends Hall of Fame, both with Book of the Year awards. Barbara Rich, his wife and Gordon have been working and writing together for 10 years. She is the author of The Gradual Diet and is known as Ageless1der to family and friends. She is also one of 15 contributors to The Five Principles of Everything.
