Take AIM at those love handles by giving this new KILLER workout your best SHOT! Tacticalisthenics helps TARGET body fat while improving a wide RANGE of skills! Forget those fitness MAGAZINES and set your SIGHTS on the ultimate in TACTICAL cardio training!
Learn more about Master Ken here: ameridote.com
“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you’ve planned, and you’re down to your reflexes-that means your [preparation]. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you’ve cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you’re going to find that out now, under the bright lights.”-Joe Frazier
The great champion Joe Frazier is referring both to boxing and life in general, and his lesson is mighty powerful. Perhaps more powerful than he ever realized. I’m going to drive home just how powerful his advice is with an example from some horrifically evil people, but first, let’s take a sojourn through some Paleolithic anthropology and then a 16th-century observation on warfare before we bring it back to the 21-st century.
You are the weakest human being that has ever walked the planet since this species inception.
Don’t take that personally, I’m weak, too, and so is your neighbor, and your CrossFit coach down the road. The 21st century human is a pale copy of better versions of ourselves that colonized this planet up till about 10,000 years ago.
This weak estimation I have just rendered is not me talking-that’s the science.
“There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging. Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new ‘niches for imbeciles’ were opened up. You could survive and pass your unremarkable genes to the next generation by working as a water carrier or an assembly-line worker.
“Foragers mastered not only the surrounding world of animals, plants and objects, but also the internal world of their own bodies and senses. They listened to the slightest movement in the grass to learn whether a snake might be lurking there. They carefully observed the foliage of trees in order to discover fruits, beehives and bird nests. They moved with a minimum of effort and noise, and knew how to sit, walk and run in the most agile and efficient manner. Varied and constant use of their bodies made them as fit as marathon runners. They had the physical dexterity that people today are unable to achieve even after years of practicing yoga or t’ai chi.”-Yuval Noah Harari Sapien: A Brief History of Humankind.
A little depressing, huh? Before we get too down on our weaker and dumber selves let’s not forget that we win when it comes to technological luxuries. But then again…
“Don’t talk about ‘progress’ in terms of longevity, safety, or comfort before comparing zoo animals to those in the wilderness.”-Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Your call if you dig the idea of being a domesticated animal.
You can strive to be either more like the wolf, or more like the golden retriever. Both fine animals, but…
The next stop on our journey, the16th-century Frenchman Michel Montaigne. Rather than quote from the lengthy section I have excised this idea, I will paraphrase in prose far less elegant than his.
Montaigne, while musing on warfare of the past up to his present-day remarks that each succeeding general or army would fare well or better than preceding champions.
For example, Alexander would easily dominate opposition that preceded him by a century, whereas Caesar coming after Alexander would handle Alexander and his armies easily, and that a French militia of Montaigne’s period would handle a legion of Caesar’s handily.
Nice, huh? Puts we gradually weaker humans back in the driver’s seat.
Not so fast.
Montaigne points out that these successive victories would only be possible because each succeeding army enjoys greater technology (i.e., better forged steel for Caesar vs. Alexander, early firearms for the French dragoons vs. Caesar). He then goes on to say that if we level the playing field by making each fighting force compete mano y mano, or with the preceding generations technology then the victory goes hands down to the earlier version of ourselves. Montaigne makes this assertion by observing that each generation of man seems to do less and less, and to be capable of less and less. Keep in mind he was making this observation in the 1500’s-I wonder what he would conclude after observing today’s texters, and tweeters, and gamers.
And now back to the 21st-century. I will quote from an exercise video available online. I will not provide a source for the video, I will not offer the name of the “instructor” as, well, because the video producers and instructors are scum.
The video is an outreach for potential ISIS converts on how to stay fit for battle.
I quote from the video: “This video is dedicated to the mujahedeen in Syria, and to others who plan on coming here.”
Our quite fit “instructor” then offers tips on how to get fit and stay fit for battle with no gym equipment. And, I will say, having been in this business for some time, his advice, unfortunately, is quite sound.
This video reminds us of the fact that the scum who perpetrated the atrocities in the offices of Charlie Hebdo and what followed, also met regularly for fitness sessions.
Which brings me to the point of this journey, what are we doing right now to be
Are we content to assume that our “protectors” somewhere out there in Washington, or wherever are the only preparation we need to make?
If we make this assumption how do we resolve this with the fact that most such attacks are not battlefield attacks, they are civilized world attacks-this puts us into Montaigne’s example where we have to ask ourselves how would we do against an enemy when we lack our technology which we use to bolster our weakness?
Would we be ready if we had to be ready?
Are we preparing to any degree whatsoever as Joe Frazier suggests versus a foe that takes such advice to heart?
We either makes ourselves weak, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of time dedicated to either is the same.
What are you going to do while some villain out there is doing what needs to be done?
Garry here, now please visit Mark’s website
http://www.extremeselfprotection.com
On my birthday recently my wife and I decided to do something a little different, careful, it is not that kind of an article although it does involve me and another bird with two lovely breasts.
We decided, a few months in advance, to visit the Northern Shooting Show that was being held for the second year in Harrogate (the posh part of Yorkshire). So an a reasonable if chilly birthday Sunday morning we folded back the roof of the car and sped off on our jolly.
I had watched a few promotional videos on Youtube and had a fair idea what to expect, remember guns are not as much part of British culture as they are in the USA. The last time I had regularly fired weapons was a long time ago as an infantry soldier in the Territorial Army, the Yorkshire Volunteers, well apart from shooting the odd rat or beer can in the back garden with my air rifle that is, I was in the regimental shooting team back then.
Anyway the first thing I did was have a go with an AR15 .22 on a portable range and my wife had a go with a Beretta and we both got good groupings. We then had a saunter round the outdoor stalls, watched a bit of the air rifle shooting competition, watched the retrievers being put through their paces in a competition that looked a lot of fun, the we went into the big exhibition halls as the sun was refusing to come out and it was pretty cool. Here we found masses of interesting things to look at and to play with, I even bought 3 really neat little knives for a mere £5.
At the back of one of the halls was a bushcraft area and this was on my list of key things to visit. We really enjoyed the ferreting display with Mark Davies, this was really entertaining and educational in equal measure and my wife got to hold a cute baby ferret…….
The next stall was a guy who was showing people how to field dress game for the pot, we got their when he was dressing a pigeon, by hand. So we watched as showed us how to assess if the bird was healthy, he removed the wings, then the head, cleaned out the crop, then he inserted his thumbs, one at a time down into the body, the first along the back bone, then the second along thr breast bone, then with both thumbs slid back in place he spilt the bird open.
This exposed the breasts and he then showed us how to remove the breasts using the thumbs. Hey presto two lovely pigeon breasts ready to cook. I had never seen this done before, virtually everything we eat comes from a shop, the meat from a local butcher or preprerared from the supermarket.
I had prepared pigeon years ago with a knife but it was messy, this was easier and less mess, I was impressed. He then asked for volunteers to try this on two more pigeons, step forward one willing volunteer and I was joined a minute later, after some persuasion, by a woman who had been watching too. So I paunched my first wood pigeon, yes there was blood and giblets but I successfully retrieved the breasts, no tools needed, not even my nice sharp little knives.
So after washing the blood off my hands I was quite pleased with myself. I had tried something new and got it right, nothing life changing but it told me a little more about myself. I have a great love of the outdoors, I never fail to be please when surrounded by flaura and fauna, I have no wish to kill or harm anything unless I am going to eat it and like most people hat is done for me virtually all the time. The moral of this tale, and a major part of my upcoming book, Exit the Dojo, (teaser), is that we are increasingly, and to our cost, detached from nature and the natural world.
I do grow some food, vegetables and fruit and my grandchildren learn where food comes from. I have one daughter who is vegan and another who is vegetarian, the latter ones children eat meat. We need to see where our meat comes from. Toby Cowern is the CRGI survival expert, mine is an interest that grows out of my use of the countryside, its mountains, lakes and woodlands, the wild moors in all the weathers our temperate climate provides. Would I kill and eat a rabbit, a sheep, a cow? Yes I would and I would want to know that every bit of that animal that could be used would. In my predominantly white western consumer orientated society, living in a country of shopkeepers as Napolean, once said, we are alienated from nature, we need to return to older ways occasionally to get in touch with our species being, the experience of the last 50 generations has not wiped out what was learned from the previous 5,000 generations, we are tool users, but before we had tools the opposable thumb set us apart for our hominid cousins, and incorporating meat into our diet fuelled the massive growth of the brain.
Paunching a pigeon is a primal act, we need to recognise and learn to love the primal in us.
