Grandmaster Ken MacKenzie - Taekwondo Times

“This training is going to make believers out of all of you,” stated Sgt. Ed Thurston of the Fitchburg,
Massachusetts Police Department. Between his thumb and forefinger he dangled a five and a half inch
hard plastic club. The shaft was rounded and grooved. The butt of each end was flat. On one end, keys
were attached. “I have personally used this tool to take down and subdue a perpetrator who had about fifty
pounds of muscle on me and was loaded on angel dust. It was a struggle, but he wound up cuffed and a lot
more compliant than when the altercation first began.”
Sgt. Thurston continued, “This little device, class, is called a Kubotan. I also like to call it an attitude
adjuster.” I was soon to find out why. As a civilian martial arts instructor, I was honored to be invited to
this workshop. Sgt. Thurston was a certified Kubotan Instructor at the police academy. Over the next four
days of intensive training, the Sergeant would indeed make “believers” out of this entire class of students.
By Norman Mclinden
—John Adams, writer of the Declaration of
Independence and second President of the United
States
76 November 2009 / taekwondotimes.com