Truth about John Keehan (AKA Count Dante)

[Vapour]

If you never heard of Count Dante go here.

http://www.countdante.com/countdante.html

If you do, here is a thread I found in Japanese Martial Arts Forum. Take it for what is worth.

http://www.e-budo.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11300&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

[Black Jack]

The 1970's black belt article is the same story as the one I got from my old Green Dragon Society gung fu teacher, who was a student through that whole period and beyond.

John Keehan may of been able to fight but he was a sure-fire nutcase. I remeber seeing an old conditioning flyer from that school which showed a method they did which consisted of breaking the bones of ones hand with a hammer so the bones would fuse and become strong. Talk about insane, what is more insane is that some of his students did it, at that time in Chicago during the late 60's and 70's it was a whole different world, I am talking Little Dragon here.

[Serpent]

The only thing more dangerous than a nutcase, is a nutcase with training!

[David Jamieson]

In thebook "Kung Fu: History, philosophy and technique" towards the back of the book there is a description of a Kung exercise wherein a practitioner breaks all the knuckles of his hand by striking a large stone.

When the hands heal, the stone is again continually struck until the hands are as hard as that stone.

These kinds of kungs are NOT widely practiced and probably are not suited to your average martial artist these days. But then, neither are some of the more "rigourous" exercises found in Shaolin Kungfu. People just don't want to do that stuff anymore.

So, we can surmise that the masters of old were likely much more formidable than anyone alive today due to the archaic and tough measures they would take to be at the pinnacle of martial ability.

food for thought.

cheers

p.s Dante is a whole other bucket of peaches :D

[carly]

and the funny photos of him grimacing, are strangely similar to the pictures on the covers of many current martial arts publications:)

[Guile]

Looks like he was one tuff guy.

[carly]

Not that that there's anything wrong with that!

[Guile]

Looks like he was one tuff guy.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Kung Lek
In thebook "Kung Fu: History, philosophy and technique" towards the back of the book there is a description of a Kung exercise wherein a practitioner breaks all the knuckles of his hand by striking a large stone.

When the hands heal, the stone is again continually struck until the hands are as hard as that stone.

These kinds of kungs are NOT widely practiced and probably are not suited to your average martial artist these days. But then, neither are some of the more "rigourous" exercises found in Shaolin Kungfu. People just don't want to do that stuff anymore.

So, we can surmise that the masters of old were likely much more formidable than anyone alive today due to the archaic and tough measures they would take to be at the pinnacle of martial ability.

food for thought.

cheers

p.s Dante is a whole other bucket of peaches :D

But how would we type so much here if all our hands were broken and fused together?!

[joedoe]

Dunno about you Serp, but I wouldn't have a problem ... if you know what I mean :D

[Serpent]

Wow. Such control! ;)

Trouble is, though I have the control, I'd always be pressing like, six keys at once.

I'd need a jumbo size keyboard.

[rogue]

And the dude had great hair!

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Serpent
Wow. Such control! ;)

Trouble is, though I have the control, I'd always be pressing like, six keys at once.

I'd need a jumbo size keyboard.

I was talking about typing with my nose. What were you talking about? :D

[Serpent]

Toes?

I got big feet?

Nah, you're not falling for it, are ya....

:)

[joedoe]

:D

[Merryprankster]

So, we can surmise that the masters of old were likely much more formidable than anyone alive today due to the archaic and tough measures they would take to be at the pinnacle of martial ability.

Or we could surmise that our increased physiological knowledge, coupled with more advanced, less harmful, and more specific training methods, has produced more formidable fighters now than in archaic days.

Whichever.

[GeneChing]

I was going to put this on the Busted Teachers (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48947) thread, but it's just too juicy. It totally needs a fresh thread of its own.


Dante’s inferno (http://www.timeout.com/film/chicago/features/show-feature/3899/dante-s-inferno.html)
A local documentarian finds himself in a fight over First Amendment rights.

Floyd Webb figured he had enough weirdness to contend with when he started making a documentary about Count Dante, a Chicago martial arts icon of the 1960s. After all, in addition to running a dojo (the Black Dragon Fighting Society) and writing a book called World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets, Dante worked as a hair stylist, kept a lion as a pet, supposedly had mob ties and is alleged by some to have been part of a covert operation that armed Che Guevara and Raul Castro in Cuba in 1959. He was involved in a rivalry with other Chicago martial artists that got so intense Keehan and his associates allegedly attempted to bomb a rival dojo. Born John Keehan to a Chicago Irish family, Dante fabricated a lineage tying him to Spanish nobility. He may have also been involved in the notorious 1974 Purolator Vault robbery, in which $4.3 million was stolen ($1.2 million of which was never recovered). Plenty of weirdness there.

Then the cease-and-desist letters started showing up. As part of his effort to unearth more Dante-related stories, Webb had put up a website (thesearchforcountdante.com) with images and some background information. William Aguiar III of the Fall River Black Dragon Fighting Society claimed that the website infringed on copyrights and trademarks that Aguiar controls. Finally, after some back-and-forth, Aguiar filed a lawsuit in federal court on September 7, charging copyright and trademark infringement. The claim regarding the trademarks has since been dropped, but Webb is still waiting for a judge to set a court date on the copyright question.

As Webb sees it, both his documentary and the website promoting it fall comfortably within the definition of fair use. Fair use is a key concept to anyone working in the arts, and especially to documentary filmmakers. To encourage creativity and to honor First Amendment protections, copyright law allows for the unlicensed use of copyrighted materials in certain circumstances, including educational endeavors, social and political commentary, and parody.

“I’m not trying to get into the martial arts business,” Webb explained when we spoke to him in his production company’s office in the Fine Arts Building. “I’m not trying to publish a martial arts book. I’m not trying to open a dojo. I’m trying to make a social critique of a character that has impinged on the popular culture.”

Fortunately, Webb has some big guns on his side. He contacted Stanford University’s Fair Use Project (the brainchild of fair use and public domain activist Lawrence Lessig), and it’s now part of his defense team. The project was established to defend the rights of documentarians and others who are often pestered with “nuisance suits” filed to wear them out. The latest twist has involved websites. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was meant to clarify the situation, but suits like the one against Webb have actually proliferated.

Talking to Webb about the case and about Count Dante is rather like taking a trip down the rabbit hole. In the course of a half-hour conversation, he weaves a story that runs all the way from Teddy Roosevelt’s interest in judo to latter-day mob figures. Webb is trying to separate fact from fiction, but with a life based on lies, it’s a tough job. The word alleged comes up a lot in Webb’s conversation; he knows that many of the stories he has heard are apocryphal, and the lawsuit has made him cautious, but the material is juicy enough to make Oliver Stone drool.

Each story leads down another strange path: “[Mob attorney] Bob Cooley, who wore a wire and helped expose corruption, was one of the last people to see Dante alive, and he claims that Dante was poisoned as a result of his being involved in the Purolator robbery,” Webb says. Suspicious details pile up like autumn leaves. “I’ve got Dante’s FBI record, but it stops after the bombing. They have everything up until 1965. [The Purolator heist] was a $4 million robbery and the FBI found [some of] the money. But they don’t have any records related to Dante at that time.”

What makes the lawsuit so annoying to Webb is that he doesn’t even believe Aguiar has a legitimate claim to the copyright. According to Webb, “his proof in total is two letters. One is a letter written to a martial arts magazine by Count Dante’s wife saying that he left the governance of the Black Dragon Fighting Society to Bill Aguiar Jr. [Aguiar III’s father]. The second letter is from Christa [Keehan’s wife], addressed ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ which grants [William Aguiar Jr.] the right to use text and images from the book for promotional purposes. There are no dates on the letters, they’re not notorized, there were no lawyers involved.”

Webb is confident that a judge will throw the suit out, and he’s eager to get the whole thing settled. He’s still chasing down leads on where Dante got that lion, and whether Dante really was in Cuba. And then there are those rumors that Dante faked his death…

If you haven't seen it, you gotta check out this site: www.thesearchforcountdante.com (http://www.thesearchforcountdante.com/)

[Lucas]

Pretty crazy stuff there Gene.

If this story interests you check out;

Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia ~ Bertil Lintner

Very interesting read.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I wonder who will play Dante in a movie....My money is on Benecio DelToro !
:D

[Shaolindynasty]

I posted that link a couple of years ago...

I've met Floyd Web through a kungfu brother of mine. Floyd is planing to film the "dojo war" between Dant and the "green dragons" in which a death resulted during a sword fight (no Joke)at our school www.leekungfu.com

I can't wait for the movie here is a trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Bqb5pT5N0

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

When he is done with that, I have every thing he needs to make a documentary on Chung Moo Quan, including a well researched 300+ page book that could be used for a script and all the resource contacts he could ever need to do it right.

[Shaolindynasty]

Heres another trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JKpnurQQ24&feature=related

[Dragonzbane76]

Where did this "Jive" crap come from? Don't make me get bruce lee roy on yo assee......

[GeneChing]

I posted that link a couple of years ago... Did you? It seemed familiar to me but I couldn't find it on a search. It was only a cursory search. I'd be eager to merge this with your original thread if you can find it, just for archival sake.

[Shaolinlueb]

Didn't Ashida Kim have the "World's Deadliest Kata" called COUNT DANTE?

this guy is great. Count Dante is great. there is a school about 25 miles away that claims to be associated with him. its total garbage.

[lkfmdc]

I wonder who will play Dante in a movie....My money is on Benecio DelToro !
:D

sorry it took me so long to notice this ;)

[sanjuro_ronin]

sorry it took me so long to notice this ;)

Now that's what I'm talking about !

[Ultimatewingchun]

I remember reading some articles with photos about Dante in some martial arts magazines back in the mid-1970's (probably Black Belt) - before he was killed. He allegedly died as a result of a "dojo war" that he himself stated. My overall impression of the guy was that that besides being an absolute lunatic - he was also a prototypical liar and fabricator of self serving and preposturous stories about himself.

Take a lot of what you read in the first post of this thread with a Giant grain of salt.

[lkfmdc]

I remember reading some articles with photos about Dante in some martial arts magazines back in the mid-1970's (probably Black Belt) - before he was killed. He allegedly died as a result of a "dojo war" that he himself stated. My overall impression of the guy was that that besides being an absolute lunatic - he was also a prototypical liar and fabricator of self serving and preposturous stories about himself.

Take a lot of what you read in the first post of this thread with a Giant grain of salt.

Actually, his student is the guy who got killed in the "dojo war"... they went into a kung fu school and found out they apparently had some weapons in there (silly karate people!) :p

Dante died of some form of cancer, I am tempted to say lung but I don't honestly remember... at the time of his death he was working as a hair dresser :eek:

[rogue]

I remember reading some articles with photos about Dante in some martial arts magazines back in the mid-1970's (probably Black Belt) - before he was killed. He allegedly died as a result of a "dojo war" that he himself stated. My overall impression of the guy was that that besides being an absolute lunatic - he was also a prototypical liar and fabricator of self serving and preposturous stories about himself.

Take a lot of what you read in the first post of this thread with a Giant grain of salt.

He would have been a great asset to our forum.:D

[sanjuro_ronin]

He would have been a great asset to our forum.:D

I think we have enough ASSets :D

[Shaolindynasty]

I think what makes him interesting is the mix of lies and truth. He made up an obviously fictitious background yet unlike the typical losers who do this now, Dante did some wild things that are documented like the "dojo wars" or robbing banks. Weird stuff

[cerebus]

The only 2 collectible "Count Dante, Deadliest Man Alive" t-shirts available for sale in the free world, so far as I'm aware. This link is for the size Large, I also have a Medium for sale....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190221764270

[Buddy]

Troy,
With this you were an even bigger martial arts geek than me. I bow to you my brother.

[David Jamieson]

they should realy change that.

for one thing, he's dead and ofr another thing, he might be able to go for "one of the oddest men alive" but deadliest? No one is the deadliest except for the one who recently killed another! :p

[TenTigers]

if drop another ten lbs, I might be able to squeeze into it and look reel sexy this summer.



who am I kidding-more like 20 lbs.

[cerebus]

Troy,
With this you were an even bigger martial arts geek than me. I bow to you my brother.

Heh, heh, yeah, I know... :D I also have a near complete collection of the old black & white "Deadly Hands of Kung Fu" comic book/ magazine from the 70s, and have owned many of the old mail-order martial arts courses advertised in the comics & mags.

I've always been a bit of a martial arts history buff, so I love collecting all this stuff, but now I need to make enough money to get myself to the USKSF Lei Tai Championships in Maryland this summer, so stuff has got to be sold...

[cerebus]

... and the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Now available through Amazon.Com. Enjoy!

http://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Man-Alive-T-Roy/dp/1450587097/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267593694&sr=1-1

[David Jamieson]

the original charalatan!

comic book ninja.

:p

[cerebus]

But interestingly, unlike most charlatans & comic book ninjas, there was actually something to him. 5th degree black belt under Robert Trias, former Midewest director of the USKA, was in both the marine Corps and the Army. Weird, but interesting life...

[David Jamieson]

But interestingly, unlike most charlatans & comic book ninjas, there was actually something to him. 5th degree black belt under Robert Trias, former Midewest director of the USKA, was in both the marine Corps and the Army. Weird, but interesting life...

In the end what is his legacy but to be a laughing stock with a bad haircut who never built a system from which others could build themselves.

he is the definition of martial arts loser.

marine corps, army. Well there's literally millions of guys that have that stuff. It doesn't mete out as much unless he did something heroic? Did he?

So, what is the legacy here that gives him any value to a modern martial artist?

I mean, he can serve as an example of what not to do I suppose, but then, there are myriad examples of that.

I certainly wouldn't hold him up as anything more than a weird joke. Completely irrelevant to martial arts in the most real sense of the word. Just like the x-ray glasses he would position himself with on a page he was fake as fake can be.

[cerebus]

So, what is the legacy here that gives him any value to a modern martial artist?



Ha ha! Here are some quotes from Keehan that got him in trouble with the martial arts community when he first broke these "revelations" back in the '60s.

"In karate, and most Oriental self-defense arts, there is an over-emphasis on form practice, kata (dances), terminology and history, all of which have little to do with the development of effective stree defense- which should be the goal of the students."

"The bulk of karate, kenpo, and gung-fu stances are too strict or tensed, so as to restrict smooth and fast movements.... a boxer who uses a much more natural stance has much better footwork..."

"...most fistic arts are too robotic appearing and unrealistic. Most Japanese karateists remind one of the old time boxers with their crude stumbling movements. I believe the main reason for this is due to the fact that there is no professional karate (by this I mean full-contact knock-out karate); the participants are too wrapped up in style rather than effectiveness."

"Another serious fault in the present-day karate movements is the fact that the self-defense forms or techniques practiced are practically non-moving and performed from near-stationary positions. It is quite easy to hit or defend against a stationary target or an attacker who attacks with one punch and stops."

"The striking effectiveness of exponents of gung-fu, karate, tai chi chuan, etc, is highly overexaggerated... If the striking techniques of these systems were so effective I am quite sure the many thousands of professional boxers throughout the world would be using these techniques, since fighting happens to be their business. There is no doubt that a boxer can easily out-punch a karateist."

And much, much more. Sounds obvious these days, right? But when Keehan publicly printed these comments and others, people believed in the "one-strike kill", that these arts were "too deadly" for contact competition. Keehan was the first to call Bullsh!t on such ideas and to promote realistic training. When he held his first no-holds-barred tournament in 1967, the martial arts community was outraged, positive that people would be killed or crippled. In fact, no one was even injured very badly, but Keehan had p!ssed off too many people by then, so he reveled in his role as an outcast.

Interesting how big the whole "no-holds-barred' tournament scene has become since then, eh? :p

[cerebus]

And before anyone gets too serious or bent out of shape about this subject (amazing how this guy riles people up even now), I didn't write this book to glorify Keehan. I wrote it because, like it or not, he's a part of American pop culture and a bigger part of US martial arts history than many people want to admit.

There's still discussion about him today, but there's also alot of BS out there. I wrote this mainly to set some facts straight and give a more balanced view of the man, neither demonizing nor glorifying him, just showing him to have been as human as anyone (in spite of his theatrics).

;)

[David Jamieson]

Ha ha! Here are some quotes from Keehan that got him in trouble with the martial arts community when he first broke these "revelations" back in the '60s.

"In karate, and most Oriental self-defense arts, there is an over-emphasis on form practice, kata (dances), terminology and history, all of which have little to do with the development of effective stree defense- which should be the goal of the students."

"The bulk of karate, kenpo, and gung-fu stances are too strict or tensed, so as to restrict smooth and fast movements.... a boxer who uses a much more natural stance has much better footwork..."

"...most fistic arts are too robotic appearing and unrealistic. Most Japanese karateists remind one of the old time boxers with their crude stumbling movements. I believe the main reason for this is due to the fact that there is no professional karate (by this I mean full-contact knock-out karate); the participants are too wrapped up in style rather than effectiveness."

"Another serious fault in the present-day karate movements is the fact that the self-defense forms or techniques practiced are practically non-moving and performed from near-stationary positions. It is quite easy to hit or defend against a stationary target or an attacker who attacks with one punch and stops."

"The striking effectiveness of exponents of gung-fu, karate, tai chi chuan, etc, is highly overexaggerated... If the striking techniques of these systems were so effective I am quite sure the many thousands of professional boxers throughout the world would be using these techniques, since fighting happens to be their business. There is no doubt that a boxer can easily out-punch a karateist."

And much, much more. Sounds obvious these days, right? But when Keehan publicly printed these comments and others, people believed in the "one-strike kill", that these arts were "too deadly" for contact competition. Keehan was the first to call Bullsh!t on such ideas and to promote realistic training. When he held his first no-holds-barred tournament in 1967, the martial arts community was outraged, positive that people would be killed or crippled. In fact, no one was even injured very badly, but Keehan had p!ssed off too many people by then, so he reveled in his role as an outcast.

Interesting how big the whole "no-holds-barred' tournament scene has become since then, eh? :p

impromptu scuffle ups weer happening long before beardbangstachefro guy came along. and he said nothing new. Mas Oyama had addressed pretty much everything you quoted him as saying for instance. Now that guy po'd a lot of karate people. lol

also, I don't think beardbangsstachefro guy had anything at all to do with the popularity of nhb/ufc type stuff at all. he was completely forgotten by the time that started getting organized and quite frankly, Tank abbot and the gracies brought that about more than anyone else. lol

the guy is barely a foonote in regards to real martial arts and especially in context to todays martial arts which are 6 bodies and two sets of head and shoulders above everything this guy ever did...which was mostly selling nonsense on the back of comic books and running a little dojo and getting into a fight.

He is unknown for any contributions he might have made because it's obvious what his focus was:

a)his hair

b) his tight ass bell bottoms

c) having people see him in teh same light as bruce lee

Not too mention, his biggest fan and lackey is that ass wipe ashida kim. more laughable nonsense.

[cerebus]

Well there ya go. Exactly the reason I wrote this book. Because what you wrote there is what most people (clearly including yourself) think they "know" about Keehan. This book gets past the surface & exposes the truth that you and many others would never know otherwise. I do find it amazing though how, especially as regards Keehan, many people prefer to be ignorant and believe a distorted image rather than to have facts or truth.

And as for ashida kim, well no one can help who tries to hijack their name for their own purposes after they're dead. Kim just tried to use Keehan's notoriety to sell his own BS.

[David Jamieson]

Well there ya go. Exactly the reason I wrote this book. Because what you wrote there is what most people (clearly including yourself) think they "know" about Keehan. This book gets past the surface & exposes the truth that you and many others would never know otherwise. I do find it amazing though how, especially as regards Keehan, many people prefer to be ignorant and believe a distorted image rather than to have facts or truth.

And as for ashida kim, well no one can help who tries to hijack their name for their own purposes after they're dead. Kim just tried to use Keehan's notoriety to sell his own BS.

I'm sure you'll find an audience. :p

[cerebus]

I'm sure you'll find an audience. :p

Time will tell. Hey Gene! You should be selling this through your company! :D

[David Jamieson]

Time will tell. Hey Gene! You should be selling this through your company! :D

yes, lets hope it all doesn't boil down to dogs and lemon juice right. ;) :D

lol

[goju]

ah the great karate hair dresser!

he was quite a interesting character :D

[cerebus]

LOL! I love the comments I'm getting on Bullshido! :D

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94351

[KC Elbows]

There should be some sort of special award for being lectured by a Bullshido member that you should have expected trouble from the way you said something.

Does it feel like Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, and Rick James took you aside and said, "Look man, you gotta quit the cocaine"?

[cerebus]

There should be some sort of special award for being lectured by a Bullshido member that you should have expecteded trouble from the way you said something.

Does it feel like Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, and Rick James took you aside and said, "Look man, you gotta quit the cocaine"?

LOL! It's all good. As long as it has people talking about it (good or bad) well, that's cool by me... :p

[KC Elbows]

Well, it sounds interesting, there were a lot of legends about Dante when I was a kid training in Chicago, and a lot of others doing the dojo busting as well.

But really, I hope you're at least secretly taking pride in the stiff lecture you received. It'll just be between you and me.:D

[Lucas]

lol now i remember why i stopped going to bullshido....

sounds like a good read. i'll make sure and get around to picking it up at some point. is this only available through amazon or could i find it at my local gigantic book store?

[cerebus]

Thanks! Yeah, it's really fascinating the reaction that this book is creating. In fact, someone on Bullshido had mentioned that the Amazon ranking at the time he checked it out (22,000) was impressive for it. I just checked the ranking again and it's now up to 10,000. Considering the millions of books which Amazon sells, that's pretty mind-boggling...

[goju]

lol well i made my first post on bullshido in your thread:D

[mickey]

Greetings,

I would not call dante a Bruce Lee wannabe. By the way, Bruce choreographed the "Dance of Death" into the Game of Death. It was the empty hand sequence used by Dan inosanto. I have not compared to two, but I suspect that they have one person in common: the late Ed Parker. Some say that Keehan got that form from Parker and took it to the east coast. And in time it may come to light one day that many of those Lee-isms that we all are now so familiar with came from the mind of Ed Parker.

Good Luck with the book.

mickey

[cerebus]

Thanks. Yes, I do also have some information on the Count Dante/ Ed Parker connection in the book. There were alot of different connections that people these days do not know about. The martial arts world in the US was MUCH smaller back then...

[David Jamieson]

Thanks. Yes, I do also have some information on the Count Dante/ Ed Parker connection in the book. There were alot of different connections that people these days do not know about. The martial arts world in the US was MUCH smaller back then...

no doubt it was just as insane though. lol

[cerebus]

no doubt it was just as insane though. lol

No question there. The only people doing martial arts in those days (well, especially the late 50s into the 60s) were soldiers, cops, and azz-kickers of various sorts. One thing to be said in favor of that is that there weren't too many "paper tigers" around since anyone who put up a sign advertising martial arts instruction pretty much expected to have to deal with off-the-street challenge fights, and the cops were basically like "Hey, you're a Karate expert, you should be able to defend yourself...".

[cerebus]

I just had the coolest experience! I was at a local bookstore talking with the owner about the possibility of carrying my book. I showed her one of my fliers and she was saying how so many local authors ask her to carry their books, but that they're usually not anything she feels she could sell. "But" she continued, "this looks like something I think my customers might really like."

So, as we're talking one of us mentioned the name "Count Dante" and this guy who was browsing in the store looks up and says "Did you just say "Count Dante"? The guy who had the ads in the comics?" so I say "As a matter of fact, yes" and hand him one of the fliers. He just started going on about how cool it was and how he HAD to buy a copy of the book! The owner of the book store then looked up at me and said with a smile "Yes, I think I'd like to carry your book." :D:D

[David Jamieson]

I just had the coolest experience! I was at a local bookstore talking with the owner about the possibility of carrying my book. I showed her one of my fliers and she was saying how so many local authors ask her to carry their books, but that they're usually not anything she feels she could sell. "But" she continued, "this looks like something I think my customers might really like."

So, as we're talking one of us mentioned the name "Count Dante" and this guy who was browsing in the store looks up and says "Did you just say "Count Dante"? The guy who had the ads in the comics?" so I say "As a matter of fact, yes" and hand him one of the fliers. He just started going on about how cool it was and how he HAD to buy a copy of the book! The owner of the book store then looked up at me and said with a smile "Yes, I think I'd like to carry your book." :D:D

You're making this up aren't you. :p

[cerebus]

You're making this up aren't you. :p

LOL! Ya know?! That is just TOO crazy! I wouldn't be able to make that up! At first it even occurred to me that the bookstore owner might have thought that I'd staged it, but that guy's reaction was too genuine and I myself was too surprised to have been faking any of it. All I can say is that I'm getting the weirdest and most interesting sychronicities lately...

[cerebus]

Well, surprisingly enough, after the initial hostile reception on Bullshido, a longtime Bullshido member reviewed my book and found that he enjoyed it!

Here's a link to the review:
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94516

[cerebus]

Oh, and the spacing issue between lines the Bullshido reviewer mentioned has been changed/ tightened up. ;)

[jungle-mania]

After all these years I have heard about him and all, I think it is about time I got a copy too, especially since we got a KFM forummer who wrote the book. Can I get it off Amazon? I live in Singapore and Australia, doubt I will get your copy at my local bookstore.

[cerebus]

Hello. Yes, you can order it straight through Amazon. There were two listings for it due to a glitch. One listing shows "out of stock", but the other has it available. Hope you enjoy it... ;)

[Lokhopkuen]

"Throughout history, kata has been the method by which the founders of various Martial Arts recorded and passed on their fighting techniques. And by studying the kata deeply within a given system, one would be enlightened to the knowledge within the specific style."
-Sh!to Ryu Master

"I'll rip your heart from your chest and show it to you while it is still beating."
-Count Dante to my Uncle David, Chicago, ILL. (((LOL)))

http://thesearchforcountdante.com



Ha ha! Here are some quotes from Keehan that got him in trouble with the martial arts community when he first broke these "revelations" back in the '60s.

"In karate, and most Oriental self-defense arts, there is an over-emphasis on form practice, kata (dances), terminology and history, all of which have little to do with the development of effective stree defense- which should be the goal of the students."

"The bulk of karate, kenpo, and gung-fu stances are too strict or tensed, so as to restrict smooth and fast movements.... a boxer who uses a much more natural stance has much better footwork..."

"...most fistic arts are too robotic appearing and unrealistic. Most Japanese karateists remind one of the old time boxers with their crude stumbling movements. I believe the main reason for this is due to the fact that there is no professional karate (by this I mean full-contact knock-out karate); the participants are too wrapped up in style rather than effectiveness."

"Another serious fault in the present-day karate movements is the fact that the self-defense forms or techniques practiced are practically non-moving and performed from near-stationary positions. It is quite easy to hit or defend against a stationary target or an attacker who attacks with one punch and stops."

"The striking effectiveness of exponents of gung-fu, karate, tai chi chuan, etc, is highly overexaggerated... If the striking techniques of these systems were so effective I am quite sure the many thousands of professional boxers throughout the world would be using these techniques, since fighting happens to be their business. There is no doubt that a boxer can easily out-punch a karateist."

And much, much more. Sounds obvious these days, right? But when Keehan publicly printed these comments and others, people believed in the "one-strike kill", that these arts were "too deadly" for contact competition. Keehan was the first to call Bullsh!t on such ideas and to promote realistic training. When he held his first no-holds-barred tournament in 1967, the martial arts community was outraged, positive that people would be killed or crippled. In fact, no one was even injured very badly, but Keehan had p!ssed off too many people by then, so he reveled in his role as an outcast.

Interesting how big the whole "no-holds-barred' tournament scene has become since then, eh? :p

[Lokhopkuen]

lol well i made my first post on bullshido in your thread:D

Way to roast some a-holes bro:D My eyeballs feel icky just reading that site....

cerebus I commend you on your thick skin and buoyant attitude.

[Lucas]

lol well i made my first post on bullshido in your thread:D

lol whats up paddy long legs

[cerebus]

Hey, if anyone here has read (and hopefully enjoyed) my book, please feel free to leave a positive review for me here:

http://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Man-Alive-T-Roy/dp/1450587097/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268784266&sr=1-1

And if you didn't like it for some reason, please DON'T leave a review :p! Actually if you didn't like it, I'd really like to hear from you, but would greatly appreciate a private message as opposed to a public smackdown. Thanks! ;)

[cerebus]

TTT (for those who haven't seen it)...

[GeneChing]

How the ‘deadliest man alive’ stoked Chicago’s infamous ‘dojo wars’ (https://www.wbez.org/stories/john-keehan-aka-count-dante-and-the-martial-arts-scene-in-chicago/76248ceb-f0a9-4a91-b474-2bdc64f4f3ff)
In the 1960s and ’70s, martial arts schools in Chicago were locked in bloody rivalries. The man at their center was known as Count Dante.

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/d4923211-eec6-4067-a3c3-8640e9d69fcc.jpg?width=903&height=900&mode=FILL
Photo by Rev. Woodrow Edgell
By Joe DeCeault
June 2, 2023, 9:00am CT

Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of violence.

Floyd Webb remembers the first time he met John Keehan. It was 1964, and Webb was just 10 years old, scrubbing out garbage cans in an alley in Chicago’s Chinatown to earn pocket money. Webb was living on the other side of the expressway in the Harold Ickes housing project.

On this particular day, behind a row of restaurants, Webb and his friends noticed a guy putting up posters. They’d seen him around before — he was a red-haired guy in his 20s, memorable because he was a white person who was actually friendly to them, a group of Black kids. “We usually got thrown out of places when we left the neighborhood,” Webb said.

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/e01ec5fb-1824-489e-a123-91533cc9d255.jpg?width=960&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
Floyd Webb as an elementary school student in the 1960s. Courtesy of Floyd Webb
The man introduced himself to the boys as John Keehan. The posters he was putting up were for a karate tournament taking place just a few blocks from where Webb lived. The idea of going to the event exhilarated him.

Used to getting bullied by his classmates because he was scrawny and spoke with a stutter, Webb spent a lot of time daydreaming about sticking up for himself. He loved action movies with fight scenes, and when he was home alone, he often mimicked the judo-inspired moves he’d seen.

But when it came to joining a formal martial arts school, which were then becoming more popular around the country, Webb had a problem. Most martial arts schools at the time excluded Black people. On top of that, in a city like Chicago — which was then an incubator for a burgeoning Black Power Movement — teaching Black people to fight was considered taboo.

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/69b8db23-e54d-4983-84aa-3dfabaf8e2de.jpg?width=960&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
An advertisement from September 4, 1964 for a karate tournament organized by John Keehan at the Chicago Coliseum. Chicago Sun-Times
“The cops didn’t want Black and Hispanic people learning martial arts,” Webb recalled.

When they arrived at the tournament, the boys couldn’t believe their eyes.

“Instead of a three-ring circus, it was like a 12-ring circus,” Webb said. There were throngs of people gathered around matches taking place across the arena.

Keehan took the boys over to one of the matches and led them up to the front of the crowd. As the men fought round after round, Keehan told Webb and his friends about the fighters and talked them through the match.

Webb was in awe of Keehan. He brought Webb into a world he wanted to be part of. And he made him feel like an insider.

It’s what led Webb, as an adult, to spend more than a decade and a half working on a forthcoming documentary about Keehan’s life. Keehan ran successful dojos, or martial arts schools, and tried to change the very nature of martial arts competitions in the United States.

So when Curious City listener CJ Fraley asked about the infamous dojo wars in Chicago, we first turned to Webb, who has arguably the most comprehensive knowledge of the time. There were, in fact, intense rivalries between dojos in the city during the 1960s and ’70s. We also talked to a number of people who knew Keehan personally about the man at the center of these wars. Keehan helped popularize karate in Chicago, but his ego eventually led him down a path of self-destruction. This is his story.

Keehan was born in 1939 to an Irish-American family. Before he became a martial arts legend, he was a skinny kid growing up in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood.

One night, someone broke into his family’s home, and Keehan, a teen at the time, confronted the intruder. Instead of stopping him, Keehan got beaten up.

After that, Keehan’s dad decided his son needed to be able to defend himself. He signed Keehan up for boxing lessons with Johnny Coulon, an Irish-American boxer who ran a gym in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood.

Fighting, to Coulon, was the great equalizer, and showed what you were truly worth. “If you came into Johnny Coulon gym and had a problem with Black boxers being there, Coulon would tell them, ‘Get in [the ring] with ’em, let’s see what you can do,’” Webb said.

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Pugilist Johnny Coulon in Chicago in 1913 (left) and 1908 (right). Coulon became Keehan’s boxing instructor when Keehan was a teenager. Chicago Daily News
Because he spent so much time in places like Coulon’s gym, Keehan ran in more diverse circles than most kids in his neighborhood, which was majority-white at the time.

“Some of his friends would tell me that they were always shocked they would go out with John, and John would … go on the South Side to Black parties and everybody knew him,” Webb said.

After graduating high school in 1968, Keehan joined the military. He’d loved boxing since he was a teen, but it was while he was stationed in California in the Army that he became obsessed with martial arts. He read books about martial arts techniques, started training in kung fu and spent time with karate masters up and down the West Coast.

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Art Rapkin (left) and John Keehan (right), at a wedding in the mid-1960s. Courtesy of Art Rapkin
Keehan seemed hell-bent on getting discharged from the Army. According to his friend Tommy Gregory, Keehan stole cars, made false reports to police and even went AWOL for a while to try and get tossed out.

In 1960, Keehan finally got kicked out of the Army. Freed from his military duties, Keehan made his way back to Chicago and devoted himself to martial arts full time.

Karate was introduced to the United States in the 1940s and ’50s, partially driven by World War II and Korean War servicemen bringing fighting techniques back from abroad.

Robert Trias, often referred to as the “father of American karate,” was the first person to open a public karate school in the U.S. He opened his dojo in Phoenix, Arizona in 1946 and founded the country’s first national karate organization, the United States Karate Association (USKA), just a couple years later.

Keehan started training with Trias as soon as he returned from the Army. He drove from Chicago to Arizona and stayed for weeks at a time, renting rooms at fleabag motels and training during the day.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/16a5e98c-59e1-4632-8702-95ab320a13e2.jpg?width=1600&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
Robert Trias opened the first martial arts school in the United States in 1945. Known as the “father of American karate,” he was Keehan’s first martial arts mentor. His book, ‘The Hand is My Sword,’ outlined his philosophy of martial arts, which was introduced to him when he was a WWII serviceman. Photo source unknown
By 1962, Keehan had opened his own dojo in Chicago, the Imperial Academy of Fighting Arts. The school had two locations: one was in the Beverly neighborhood, where Keehan grew up. The other was on Rush Street in the Gold Coast. At the time, Rush Street was like Chicago’s Las Vegas strip, full of neon lights, bars and burlesque clubs.

Most of the guys Keehan trained were construction workers and people from around the neighborhood. He put them through rigorous boxing regimens he’d picked up from Coulon and taught them martial arts moves he’d learned from Trias.

Now in his mid-20s, Keehan was focused on creating a larger-than-life persona for himself. He drove fancy cars, wore expensive clothes and walked up and down Rush Street with his highly unusual pet: a lion cub named Aurelia he’d bought downstate.

His friend Tommy Gregory remembers the lion cub particularly vividly. “That f****** thing would absolutely tear the s*** out of you,” Gregory said. “It was as wild as can be.”

And he fell in love. In 1964, Keehan met a woman named Pat Harpold at a bar. He proposed within a few months of dating.

Keehan’s importance in the U.S. martial arts world was rising fast. In 1963, he and Trias had organized a successful karate tournament in Chicago. They planned another, even bigger tournament the following year.

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The Chicago Coliseum, pictured here in 1923 (left) and 1908 (right), was an arena venue located at 15th St. and Wabash Ave. on the Near South Side. It was where Keehan hosted two of his national karate tournaments, in 1963 and ’64. Chicago Daily News
For Trias, the Chicago tournaments were part of an effort to expand the reach of the USKA. For Keehan, they gave him an opportunity to solidify his own reputation as a promoter, showman and karate master.

And they put Chicago on the map as an epicenter of martial arts nationwide.

But at this point, despite having one successful tournament under their belts and another on the horizon, things between Keehan and Trias were tense.

Keehan’s boxing mentor, Coulon, had believed anyone was worthy of being in the ring as long as they could fight. But Trias didn’t feel the same way. Keehan’s best fighter at the time was Raymond Cooper, who was Black. And Keehan had given black belts to a number of his Black fighters — something he saw as the biggest issue between himself and Trias, according to Webb.

But it wasn’t just who they put on the mat that Keehan and Trias disagreed about. It was also how they trained them to fight. “We’re watching things like people’s teeth get knocked out,” Webb remembered of the 1964 tournament, where he saw many of Keehan’s students up close for the first time. “For a no-contact tournament, there was a lot of contact.”

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/00577549-85b1-4e92-8ce6-c33efae3ead1.jpg?width=1600&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
A 1962 Chicago Daily News interview with Keehan. Pictured, Keehan (right) does one of the moves he was known for, a flying kick. Chicago Daily News
In a CBS News interview from just before the 1964 tournament, the reporter stands in front of the karate school’s logo, a giant black dragon. The reporter asks a confident-looking Keehan whether someone can be seriously injured doing karate. Keehan responds, “You can very easily kill someone, if you know how to hit them and where to hit them.” He pauses and then adds, “This is the whole thing [that puts] the trained over the untrained.”

Rather than going for knock-outs, like in boxing, a fighter in karate matches typically pulls their punches and kicks — coming mere inches from striking their opponent. Judges award points based on technique, and fighters can lose points, or even be disqualified, for making contact.

But for Keehan, none of that mattered if you couldn’t win a fight in the real world.

“You didn’t know what you knew until you actually went out and fought somebody,” Webb said of Keehan’s philosophy.

Frustrated by the sport’s no-contact rule, Keehan started his own organization, a competitor to the USKA called the World Karate Federation that allowed for more contact between fighters. (Keehan’s organization is unrelated to the World Karate Federation that exists today.)

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A 1975 advertisement for the Black Dragon Fighting Society. Those who signed up would receive a brochure for merchandise including Keehan’s book, ‘The World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets.’ Courtesy of Floyd Webb
Back at his own martial arts school, Keehan forced his most advanced students to go through a rite of passage before gaining higher degree belts.

Art Rapkin, one of Keehan’s former students, said trainees hoping to advance to brown or black belts were put in a dimly lit room and forced to fight four other students from their dojo — one after another, at full force. They were given sticks and knives, and let loose. By the end of this initiation ritual, people were left bruised and bloody.

And Keehan would intentionally instigate bar fights, enlisting unsuspecting people to help with the beat-in. Rapkin said Keehan would find the biggest guy at the bar, knock a beer bottle out of his hand and blame his trainee for it.

“John would look at me and go, ‘Why the f*** did you actually do that?’ in front of the guy,” Rapkin recalled.

“If he was with four guys, you’d have to fight them, too,” he said.

By the mid-1960s, Keehan had amassed a following of elite martial artists. He called these followers the Black Dragons.

The Black Dragons proved their mettle against other martial arts schools around the city in off-the-books battles. And because of Keehan’s own penchant for violence, when the Black Dragons got involved, the brawls were often bloody.

“Those fights were like Tarantino movies,” Rapkin said. “Think Kill Bill.”

These ongoing battles became known as Chicago’s infamous “dojo wars.” Violent from the start, within a few years, they would turn deadly.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/0880ea0f-ea58-479e-86e0-3a505ff38248.jpg?width=1600&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
John Keehan outside his martial arts school in 1965. Rev. Woodrow Edgell
Meanwhile, Keehan continued to add to his already mythic persona.

He legally changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Dante and began claiming to have descended from Spanish royalty. He wore a velvet cape and carried a gold cane with a lion’s head on its handle.

At home, he was increasingly prone to angry outbursts. “He lived in a fantasy world of things he wasn’t,” Harpold said. Keehan had to rehome their pet lion after it got too big and fierce for him to take care of. Harpold says their marriage dissolved, and by 1966 they were divorced.

Keehan started dating a waitress from the Playboy Club and turned her into a character, too. The Dragon Lady, as Keehan dubbed her, became a kind of sidekick to Count Dante. She was known as a Playboy Bunny with a black belt — though she had limited karate skills. They appeared together on tabloid covers and local television shows, performing acts that were a combination of martial arts and magic tricks. It was all part of a promotional ploy.

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A drawing of the Dragon Lady, who dated John Keehan, and the mountain lion, Stasha, Keehan bought for her as a pet. Courtesy of Floyd Webb
“He wasn’t satisfied with just being a successful, well-respected martial artist,” Rapkin said. “He also wanted to be, like, Elvis.”

In September of 1968, Keehan held the first major full-contact karate tournament in the United States. At the World Fighting Arts Championship Tournament, virtually any move, no matter how aggressive, was allowed. It took place at the Chicago Coliseum, where Keehan had co-hosted a tournament with his former mentor several years earlier.

The fighting was fierce, but — perhaps in part because he was on the outs with the larger martial arts community — ticket sales were lower than Keehan expected. By the time the tournament was over, he owed a lot of people money he didn’t have.

According to Rapkin, Keehan was desperate to get off the hook for the money he owed, so he got creative. “‘What you’re going to do is you’re going to take the money and then you’re going to report to the police that you got robbed by a couple of guys with a shotgun,’” Rapkin said Keehan told him. “And I did that.”

The physical violence that marked Keehan’s martial arts career began to leak out at home.

“She came to my house with two black eyes,” Harpold recalled of the night the Dragon Lady showed up at her door. After getting beat up by Keehan, the Dragon Lady found Harpold, hoping to talk to someone who knew Keehan the way that she did. And though Harpold said Keehan was never physically abusive with her, she was familiar with his outbursts.

At this point, Keehan was a powder keg. He had no mercy for anyone who stood in his way.

The Chicago dojo wars raged on.

One of the Black Dragons’ biggest rivals at the time were the Green Dragons, who trained at a dojo on Fullerton Ave. in Logan Square.

Keehan had already landed on the FBI’s radar after he tried to blow out the front windows of a rival martial arts school using dynamite a few years earlier. And things were about to get even worse.

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Keehan pictured in a 1970 Chicago Sun-Times story related to the dojo wars. Chicago Sun-Times
In 1970, the feud between the Green and Black Dragons was coming to a head. One version of the story goes that the Green Dragons had bad-mouthed Keehan, calling him a hack who was past his prime. Word got back to Keehan, and he wasn’t about to let them get away with insulting him.
Late in the evening on April 23, Keehan showed up at the Green Dragons’ dojo with some of his best fighters.

According to Patrick Garrison, a Green Dragon who was there that night, Keehan knocked on the door of the dojo and pretended to be law enforcement. As soon as the door opened, the Black Dragons stormed in.

The Green Dragons immediately grabbed their own weapons off the walls: samurai swords, battle axes and maces — spiked steel balls on the end of long wooden sticks.

One of the Black Dragons fighting beside Keehan that night was Jim Koncevic. At 6’2’’ and 265 pounds, Koncevic was a judo champion and legendary brawler. He also ran his own martial arts school in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood. The two were best friends.

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A Chicago Daily News article from April 25, 1970 describes Koncevic’s death. Chicago Daily News
Green Dragon Jerome Greenwald later told the Chicago Tribune that Koncevic attacked him from behind, hitting him right in the middle of his back. Trying to defend himself, Greenwald said he grabbed a dagger from the wall and turned to face Koncevic. In what Greenwald swore was an accident, his 14-inch knife plunged straight into Koncevic’s body.

Keehan’s friend staggered out the front door of the dojo and collapsed on the street. “You could swim through [the blood on] that sidewalk,” Garrison said.

Koncevic died from his injuries. Greenwald was charged with manslaughter and Keehan was charged with assault and battery, among other things, for instigating the attack.

When the case finally went to court, the judge dismissed all charges. According to Keehan’s attorney, Bob Cooley, who documented the events in his book When Corruption Was King, the judge screamed, “You’re each as guilty as the other. I’ve never seen such a pack of lunatics!”

But the fallout from Koncevic’s death came swiftly from the martial arts community, which shunned Keehan.

Over the years that followed, Keehan ran a used car dealership, a porn shop and a hot dog concession at Comiskey Park. He hovered at the edge of organized crime. In the fall of 1974, he was questioned in connection with the Purolator vault heist — the largest cash robbery in the U.S. at the time. He was never charged for it.

And then, in May of 1975, at just 36 years old, Keehan died. For a man who lived so much of his life in sensational terms, the circumstances of his death were surprisingly uneventful. He died at home alone in his Edgewater apartment. And though people speculated wildly about what led to his death, the official report stated that Keehan died from a bleeding ulcer.

https://api.wbez.org/v2/images/206f5563-9f46-4fb3-9b07-f0b8da9306a6.jpg?width=960&height=0&mode=ASPECT_WIDTH
In January 1976, several months after he died, Keehan — aka Count Dante — appeared on the cover of Black Belt Magazine.
Keehan’s impact on martial arts in the United States was huge but complicated. He took what he learned from the boxing gym of his youth and believed it was a person’s physical ability — rather than their race — that made them worthy of competing.

For documentarian Floyd Webb, what stands out about Keehan is the number of Black students that successfully trained in his dojos.

“He had welcomed Black students in his school and those Black students were taking all the championships at that point,” Webb said. At the same time, Webb believes reckoning with Keehan’s legacy is fraught because of how violent Keehan became. “You keep opening these doors and you keep finding out different things about the guy.”

Keehan’s emphasis on physical toughness as the ultimate sign of a person’s worthiness led him to push for more contact in martial arts — a precursor to sports like today’s mixed martial arts. But this same obsession led him to never back down, instigate deadly battles between dojos and made him volatile at home. For better or worse, he’ll be remembered as a main character in the history of Chicago’s martial arts scene.

Joe DeCeault is a senior audio producer for WBEZ. Follow him @joedeceault. What a character...

[mickey]

Greetings,

Rare Interview with Count Dante. Check out the Aikido segment. It shows Dante's lion in the background lying down. It is so beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SfavHpVIjo

mickey

[mickey]

More,

The real distance and marginalization of John Keehan may have had to due to the fact that the BDFS invaded a school that taught Chinese martial arts and suffered a fatality as a result of that. From a business/money making standpoint, it was not such a good thing for Karateka to keep that loss at the forefront of people's consciousness. At that time, as it still is, at times, there was much talk about whether karate was better than kung fu. Here is a link to someone who actually visited the Green Dragon School:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcMPVoiivVA

mickey