The Warrior's Journal

I first saw The Warrior's Journal in the Fall of 2007. I had just completed my third book and I was beginning research on a new book project. Not long after mailing my Wado Ryu manuscript to my publisher, I received a phone call from my friend Marrese Crump. He told me he wanted to show me a project he had been working on for a number of years. Several days later, he came to my residence with a huge stack of notes. He explained to me that he had been keeping a training journal of sorts for many years. The notes contained random philosophical observations, training techniques and a series of questions he had been led by his training to ask of himself. Some of the questions were answered within the notes and other questions were simply written down and underlined. Marrese and I caught up with one another's recent activities as I examined his training journal. He told me that he was currently training WWE wrestler, Dave Batista. The notes contained many of the techniques and concepts he had shared with his famous student. The reason for his visit with me, he explained, was that he wanted to know if I thought he had the makings of a book from his notes. He was beginning to enjoy a measure of success in his martial career, and he thought it was the right time to share his philosophy and technique with a larger audience. I looked over the notes. They were written on various types of paper with several different colors of ink. This stack of papers filled with detailed dissertations, single sentence observations and hand-sketched diagrams was obviously the product of a lifetime of personal inquiry. It was an introspective quest for wisdom through analysis of martial training. It was, in short, a Warrior's Journal. As I scanned the text, I noticed allusions to books that Marrese and I had both studied. There were also references to complex concepts of martial technique that were only taught by a few master martial arts instructors, under whom we had both studied. Marrese had read my second book, Filipino Combat Systems, and wanted to collaborate with me as Grand Master Ray Dionaldo had done to coauthor a book from his notes. Upon examination of his journal, I concurred that it had the potential to be made into a book. My familiarity with the subject matter led me to believe that I could accurately present his notes in book form. I spent most of my waking hours carefully examining the journal during in the weeks following our meeting. The more I read, the more amazed I became at the depth of this young man's insight into the deeper aspects of the arts. I was reminded of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations, initially never intended to be read by anyone but the writer himself, but too valuable to be lost to posterity. The Warrior's Journal also reminded me of Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do. This book, based on his own "warrior's journal", was organized and published after Lee's death. I imagined that the notes that were now in my possession were much like the notes from which this martial arts classic was derived. I had read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do as a child. I had found it inspirational, but vague and hard to follow. I re-read the work many times in subsequent years, each time, getting more out of it as my own frame of reference as a martial artist grew. After a lifetime of study, I have come to a deeper understanding of the message that Bruce Lee tried to pass on to us. I have often wished he had lived long enough to complete his book himself. As a younger man, I recall wishing I could have talked with Lee and other great martial philosophers. I recall thinking how much easier it would be to simply ask the author, "What are you talking about here?" The big questions are never easily answered. Answers that come easy are seldom fulfilling. Such answers are seldom the truth that we seek. The warrior's quest is a journey, not a destination. It is my hope that my lifelong quest for wisdom has sufficiently prepared me for the task of presenting the Warrior's Journal as a concise text that adheres to its author's intent to present the philosophical and pragmatic benefits of the Marrese Crump combat method. I have been blessed with the time and the opportunity to pursue philosophical and technical aspects of the martial arts to which few are ever exposed. I am honored to have the opportunity to coauthor Marrese Crump's Warrior's Journal. I feel that I have been given an opportunity that I never had with Bruce Lee's Tao. I have been entrusted with The Warrior's Journal and I have the ability to sit down with its author and ask the questions that I need to ask to better my understanding of the material. The Journal reveals Crump's intuitive understanding of martial philosophy. Many of the concepts that I have come to understand through a lifetime of comprehensive study of archaic texts seem intuitively obvious to Marrese Crump. His vision for the martial arts is a vision that should be shared. The martial arts are a living art. They are passed on from teacher to student, from generation to generation. This is as it should be. There is much that cannot be revealed with the use of words, pictures and film. However, there is much that can only be revealed to the modern mind by way of words. It is these truths that The Warrior's Journal seeks to reveal. As the reader examines the philosophy and technique of combat recorded in this volume, let him never lose sight of the fact that all aspects of the way of the warrior should be seen as metaphor for combat strategy for living life to its fullest.