Indigenous Ability

This following is an interview with a damn fine martial artist and, more importantly, a man I call a friend. Chances are you know the man, but for the uninitiated. Michael Janich has been an avid student and instructor of self-defense for more than 40 years. He has an extensive background in the martial arts and military combatives and was inducted into Black Belt magazine’s prestigious Hall of Fame as Weapons Instructor of the Year in 2010. Janich is also one of the foremost modern authorities on handgun point shooting and is one of the few contemporary instructors to have been personally trained by the late close-combat legend Colonel Rex Applegate. Janich served nine years in the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, including a three-year tour at the National Security Agency (NSA). He is a two-time graduate with honors of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California (Vietnamese and Chinese-Mandarin) and a recipient of the Commandant’s Award for o...

This lesson is not from a champ. Nor is the “Chin-Hook” an actual punch per se. Let’s set the stage. Heavyweight champion, Max Baer, wasn’t champ for very long. His fun loving, playboy habits often got in the way of diligent training and his propensity for clowning showmanship, on occasion, cost him ground in the midst of tough battles. What was never in question was Bear’s punching power, particularly that right hand. The Ring magazine rates him #22 in the 100 Greatest Punchers of All-Time , and he had the unfortunate specter of two ring deaths tagged to his name. Max had power even if he didn’t always use it. This lesson comes from an early Baer match in which he lost [on a DQ.] So why do we do we include it here? His opponent in the bout in question was Jack McCarthy, a bit of a journeyman fighter, but undeniably tough. Mr. McCarthy had a method of controlling the clinch and delivering punishment that has been used by many fighters but an ...

[The first in a series on Tactical Night-Vision that will take us from nautical warfare in WWII, thru optical anatomy and capabilities, and wind up with deliberate night-vision training from indigenous cultures.] Mark Opens with Four Obvious Statements  One -Awareness is the key to survival. Two -The key to awareness is willful directed use of the senses. Three -The primary sense in the curious biped called humans is sight. Four -Human sight does not operate at optimum capacity under low light conditions. But…we can use a series of tactical hacks to improve low-light acuity. Let’s delve into a bit of wisdom from Captain Peter Dickens, D.S.O., M.B.E., D.S.C., of Britain’s Royal Navy. Captain Dickens commanded an MTB [Motor Torpedo-Boat] during WWII. MTBs were small craft [70 footers] and mighty primitive…no radar, and, get this, no voice-radio. These wee boats were essentially electronically blind and had to rely on good eyes and unflagging...

[This entry likely appeals only to the deep-diving combat thinker. It is best read in conjunction with   Combat Archeology: Surface Mining & The Amber Problem.  That link also has freebie video.] We open with an anecdote to illustrate one of today’s two points. Two trappers, one old one young, wound up hunting and travelling together for a season. The younger respects the elder’s wisdom and know-how and keeps an avid eye on all that he does. He treats this season as one of intensive study. He watches how the old man cuts for sign, where he places traps, where he skips traps in areas that seemed fertile ground at first glance. He even subtly tries to imitate the old man’s series of odd rolling movements that he performs after he alights from horseback and just before they head off to trail game. In short, whatever the old man does, he does. He has a thirst for knowledge. But in the beginning, he asks few questions, a bit of pride and all that.  As ...