Large Fierce Mammal

Ed’s Manifesto, which I have previously mentioned only in passing, is the name of a Facebook page associated with other internet outlets ( like this one) belonging to a Mexican Gentleman by the name of Ed Calderón. Ed lives in Mexico City, and until recently was employed by the Mexican government. His job description, to my understanding, could have easily come to include retirement by way of having your carcass ventilated by any number of unkind means. In short, and in his own words, “Ed is a security specialist and combatives instructor with over 10 years experience in public safety along the northern border area of Mexico. He runs seminars and private training specific to anti-abduction, escapology, free hand and unconventional edged weapons work. He is also director of Libre Fighting Systems in Mexico.”

It was through Ed’s Manifesto that I first learned of the Libre style of bladework, quite a while after he drew me in with his enthralling bag of tricks learned from the criminal culture operating in the violent and distinctly non-permissive environment that is Mexico, where abduction for ransom has become a growth industry. From this Ed has drawn his programmes of counter-abduction and “Escapology” (taught as “Black Box” Modules), Weaponology (arming yourself from the environment), and of course Libre; to name a few because Ed, like all serious Teachers, is a Student in his own right, and therefore a work in progress. I have never met Ed, but that’ll get fixed one of these days.

We’ll be looking at Ed Calderón, his Manifesto, Libre, and related topics in more detail in the near future, but in the mean time, here’s a poem inspired by it all  that I offer by way of a sort of warmup exercise.

Libre

By LFM

Physicians study hard and long
All anatomic charts devised
To do no harm, while other men
Will see they can be weaponized.

You’ll scarcely notice when they pass,
These Men of blood about their day,
Yet each one knows what you might know
If you’d not turn your eyes away.

Feral Men, they might be called,
Once boxed in, now summoned back,
To seize their own captivity,
The box still there, now coloured black.

Men of Love and Men of Faith,
Fathers, Husbands, Brothers, Sons,
Each keeps his troth with those before,
Within each heart that blood still runs.

His life is quite the same as yours,
For each one plies his daily trade,
With bills to pay and oaths to keep,
And much that lies beyond the blade.

But shining on each heart of hearts,
On each and every day of days,
The sun may set on happy ends,
Or lives enwrapped in crimson haze.

For in the calm there hunts a thing,
With eyes ablaze and talons keen,
To rend and slay what most you Love,
And only you to stand between.

So as you make your meal tonight,
And slice the meat to join the pan,
Feel the blade across the board,
And how you may be such a Man.

Seek out this knowledge, gentle friend,
From such as they describ-ed here,
And learn to meet the daemon’s flash
With steady heart instead of fear.

Now find the darkness in your heart,
Take no advice to rise above,
For ‘Tis no shame to make it yours,
A fiend to guard the ones you Love.

For if the daemon ever comes,
Unleash your fiend and be his Lord —
His every bit of flesh your meat,
His very bones your cutting board.