A month ago, I had the pleasure of being part of
Kung Fu Martial Arts Expo 9. I met a lot of talented people, but one person in
particular caught my attention because he wasn’t only doing martial arts, he
was also an author. Snake Blocker is from the Apache Nation and the book he
wrote is about the history of his people.
Granny:
Tell us a little bit about yourself?
Snake
Blocker: I was born in California. My tribe is the Lipan
Apache Tribe of Texas that is considered as one of the four regional tribes in
the Apache Nation. The Apache Nation is a very large and vast community that
stretches from Texas, Old Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico to Nevada, to tips of
California and Colorado. Some tribes have been known to travel as far north as
Canada.
The other closest regional tribes are the Jicarilla
Apache and the Mescalero Apache which are our closest cousins on the Apache
side and the Navaho Apache is also our bloodline cousins. The majority of my
mother’s relatives come from Corpus Christi, Texas. My mother and father got married
in Corpus Christi and my father was in the Marines for a short time and ended
up being in Camp Pendleton in the San Diego California area, so I was born in
Los Angeles, California and lived there for thirty years.
I was an active child, very competitive and stayed
away from drugs, never smoke or drink. I had a very strict upbringing as well
with my dad being in the Marines. I grew up very conservative and very involved
with our church group. The Apaches generally have a nice family base just like
many other cultures. We had constant mentorship from our parents, grandparents
and cousins.
I was a scrawny child and one of the smallest in my
class until high school when I finally ‘shot up.’ To combat the bullying, I
worked out to get stronger and studied to be smarter. It was my motivation. I
always wanted to do better and got me involved with martial arts; I loved
watching Kung Fu theatre on television.
Granny:
Do you teach classes?
Snake
Blocker: I do. I worked as a certified personal trainer and
opened my own studio in California in 1993 (Executive World Fitness), then
started a martial arts program in 1995 called Blocker Academy of Martial Arts.
In June of 2001, I joined Navy Reserve. A lot of my relatives serve in the
military. Then September 11th happened and before you knew it I was
in Kuwait. I lived there for nine months and then came back, then went to Iraq
for eleven months. When I came back, I moved to Colorado and then in 2009, I
was sent to Afghanistan for a couple of tours. As of this June, I will be
fourteen years in the Navy Reserves. I’m a Petty Officer First Class E6. It’s
my way of giving back to the country.
Snake Blocker with baby Sierra Ravin Blocker
Granny:
Thank you for serving and for protecting us.
Snake
Blocker: You’re welcome. It’s an honor serving. I have my
passion with the martial arts, with serving in the navy and, with my family
life. The biggest thing that I’ve learned over time is don’t try to change
people. Offer them opportunity and they’ll make the decision to change, if they
wish.
Granny:
Did the military ever ask you to teach martial arts to the people in the
reserves?
Snake
Blocker: I have. In the four different units that I have
been in, at various times, I had been designated as the Command Fitness
Coordinator which is the person who is going to be doing your PT and, within
the physical training we’ve added the combative aspects to it, particularly the
Military Close Quarters Combat (MCQC) program in which you’re fighting multiple
attackers and taught in the way of using knives and other like weapons. I was designated to teach MCQC in Kuwait,
Iraq, and Afghanistan and was recognized for my instruction.
Granny:
Did you use the Apache knife fighting and battle tactics like you demonstrated
at the Kung Fu Convention?
Snake
Blocker: I do, so when you’re talking about close quarters
combat, you try to get the soldier, sailor, airmen or Marines to learn to use
other means to protect themselves if they run out of ammunition. I incorporate
the battle tactics of my culture that I’ve learned about through oral
tradition. I always include the Apache knife fighting and battle tactics into
the military close quarter combat program.
What’s interesting is that even in the Naval War
College they still study a Native Americans to learn lessons from them and,
Geronimo (Goyathlay) is often brought up because of the guerilla warfare battle
tactics of the Apaches.
When people watched cowboy and Indian movies they’d
visualize twelve Apaches surrounding a wagon, but if you study history, before
the Spaniards, Columbus, Germans, French and English came over, there were at
the least ten million to two hundred million natives that were in the area we
call the United States today. There were massive amounts of people who lived
all over the area and as people came over, they began pushing them into smaller
areas and, there was mass genocide going on. I’ve never seen an accurate
depiction of the genocide of early America. Millions and millions died over a
hundred year period, but it’s the victor who writes the history.
If the native people had joined forces there
wouldn’t have been enough people to resist us, but there was segregation
between the tribes and nations. I bring this history into my training and
explain that nobody is safe forever; genocide is not a thing of the past and,
just because we have superior fire power, you might not always have access to
it. You have to learn to fight with as many resources as you can. What was
considered savagery by the invaders was considered regular day to day battle
tactics for the Apache. Up until the 1940’s the U. S. Government was still
chasing down renegade Apaches.
Granny:
You were speaking about your people’s history and that brings us to your book, Apache
Warrior Journey 1. I wish I had more time to go through your book at the
convention. The stories and the photos were absolutely breathtaking. What
prompted you to write this book?
Snake
Blocker: I learned a long time ago that unless something is
written down, it will be forgotten. If you can preserve a language like Latin
and Greek in a cultural sense then it will live forever. Then you have these
other people who only had an oral tradition and when they were wiped out, their
history was lost. There thousands of native cultures that we’ve lost their
history completely. When I looked at the books that were out there on Apaches,
the majority were written by Non-Apaches. The ones that were written by Apaches
spoke specifically of only one tribe of Apache.
Over twenty years when I traveled, if I found
someone who was Apache, I’d sit down to talk to them or got their e-mail and
learned their stories. Some only had a few stories or had a picture of their
grandfather and they would say, “I remember that my grandfather told me how to
make a bow or he told me how to cook and here is the recipe.”
You pick out bits and pieces from different Apaches.
It was good stuff and, I was in Afghanistan getting the finishing touches on
the book; twenty years of me collecting notes. Half the book is about oral
history from modern Apaches that had never been in print before and it tied in
with some of the stuff from the history books. The book is a more complete
picture of the Apache Nation as a whole.
Granny:
I thought so as I scanned through the book. There was so much in there about
the land, the people and especially the women. You could tell that it took you
a long time to pull this together.
Snake
Blocker: I put some footnotes in there about the military
tactics but I realized it was a bigger picture than that. We needed to
understand who my people were and are today; who we are as a nation; what is
the diversity of our culture. For
example, the Jicarilla Apaches see the snake as a bad omen where the Lipan
Apache see the snake as a symbol of strength. Even with my name comes from the
fact that a snake sheds its skin and, it never looks back.
That is how we should be in life. This is the realization
of the stories that we do. The most important and favorite part of the book is
the stories, myths and legends. There is some truth, there is a moral to the
story and, always a lesson learned from the different tribes.
Granny:
This book is so amazing, and you also write poetry. How many poetry books have
you published?
Snake
Blocker: Four, which are titled: The Art
of Boundaries, The Art of Expression,
The Art of Emotion and The Art of Compromise.
Granny:
You also have a Muay Thai Manuel. Are your books self-published or traditional?
Snake
Blocker: I went traditional with the first one, The Art of
Emotion with a small run publication under Hidden Thoughts Publication in 1997.
The reprints and newer books are done
under Blurb.com
Granny:
Are you working on any new books?
Snake
Blocker: I have enough notes to finish the next Apache
book. They can buy my poetry current books as PDF download, table top hard
cover limited book or in eBook form.
Granny:
I saw that Apache Warrior Journey 1 can also be purchased as an Ebook or PDF
download.
Snake
Blocker: The books can be purchased on Blurb and I donate
portion of the funds to the Apache Bison program in Texas. We started with two
bison and the Lipan tribe gets no funding but we have a community tribal museum
that is opened to the general public and we have a small lot of land, which is
privately owned by tribal members. Our goal is to produce more and more bison,
but everything relies on donations. Fifteen dollars buys some food for those
bison, which will lead to more bison and, that’s how we’ll build the program.
You can find more about my tribes programs at www.lipanapache.org
Granny:
Thank you so much Snake Blocker for taking the time to do this interview and I
will be promoting your books on my blog and, I would like to touch base with
you later on to learn more about the second Apache Warrior book and the bison
program.
For my readers, you can learn more about Snake
Blocker on the sites below.
Snake Blocker’s next seminar event will be with W.
Hock Hochheim in Oberlin, Kansas:
