Indigenous Ability

The video link at the end of this post will take you to a short demonstration we posted of an Old School Test that uses one [that’s right, one] position to test for… ·         Posterior Chain Flexibility ·         Psoas Strength [Internal stabilizers are far more important than the “show” muscles, work the stabilizers and the esthetics of the show will follow.] ·         Guttage aka “Speed Bumps” The Standard Standing Body Fold becomes less “standard” when you do it the Old School way—just as with much of Old School Combat Tactics and Physical Culture, what often “looks like” is not “the same as.” The video explains the ins and outs of how to conduct the 5-second test, as well, as offers suggestions on how to improve your “Test Results” in the span of just one week. We go into far far more detail on Pliant Strength in Unleaded Volume 1: The Pliant Physique where the prem...

  [That Part 2 bit in the title tips that it is a good idea to read in conjunction with Part 1 which immediately precedes this offering. All quotes are from the masterful pictured volume.] “ How is courage spent in war? Courage is will-power, whereof no man has an unlimited stock; and when in war it is used up, he is finished. A man’s courage is his capital and he is always spending. The call on the bank may be only the daily drain of the front line or it may be a sudden draft which threatens to close the account. His will is perhaps almost destroyed by intensive shelling, by heavy bombing, or by a bloody battle, or it is gradually used up by monotony, by exposure, by the loss of the support of stauncher spirits on whom he has come to depend, by physical exhaustion, by a wrong attitude to danger, to casualties, to war, to death itself .” An imminently useful observation for we not in the trenches. Will Power/Courage are exhaustible resources—we do not possess an infinite supp...

  In 1945 a slender volume titled; The Anatomy of Courage by Charles McMoran Wilson was released. It was an update of his prior volume, The Mind of War . McMoran was a medical doctor who saw much frontline service in WWI which led to a series of lectures regarding his observations on cowardice, bravery, and troop resilience-these lectures make up the volume The Mind of War. McMoran was privy to more such close hand human observations in the Second World War which led to the revised title which is an expanded version of The Mind of War. The volumes are a goldmine to the student of courage as they are not mere surmise or cold clinical observations of college students in campus experiments or bold baseless assertions [“ You know what I would do if I was in battle!” ] Such studies are well-nigh worthless, akin to watching someone’s masturbation technique to evaluate their potential as a lover with a real-live partner. These are analytical observations by a trained scientific m...

  We shall begin with two lovely quotes to light the path, then express distaste for why the argument may even need to be made, talk disappointed monkeys with long memories, tangled webs/cognitive load and then, if we’ve walked the path rightly wind up back where we started. “ To the wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland .”--Democritus That quote is not mere platitude, Democritus was well-travelled in a day when travelling was h-a-r-d and, unlike many professors of doctrine, he “ ate his own cooking’ ”, that is, practiced what he preached. He esteemed the value of “cheerfulness” in inward and outward demeanor and was known widely as “The Laughing Philosopher” because, well, I’ll bet you can guess… Our next path-light is a blessing of a Navajo ideal. “ I have been to the end of the earth. I have been to the end of the waters. I have been to the end of the sky. I have been to the end of the mountains. I have found none that are not my friends .” Asto...

  [The following cocktail twins pleasingly with a prior offering : “Face Under Pressure”: A PT, Combat & Stress Hack.] Good grapplers know that good mat-movement upright or horizontal is about excellent positioning for the aggressor and creating poor positioning for the defender. Good strikers know that to have good power is to have good posture and structural alignment in the midst of striking and that to feint or bait poor alignment in the defender steals power. The wise combat-a-teer trains assiduously for structural perfection whether in motion or stock-still. I’ve said nothing disagreeable or new to this point. Veterans stay with me a wee longer as we use a thought experiment that can easily be taken to the real world to test what we have established so far. Yes, what proceeded may be obvious, but even obvious hypotheses should be put to test to ensure that what is obvious is also true, as more often than we realize, obvious is sometimes just legend, dogma or...

  Anti-shadowboxing? “ C’mon, Mark, shadowboxing is a hallowed part of old school training, you can’t be serious?” I hear ya, but…allow me to double-down: Shadowboxing and all other non-contact work that is meant to simulate fighting [kata/hyung/forms etc.] fit into this category-warning as well. I know, sounds blasphemous, so let’s jump in and build the case against and you can do your own evidentiary evaluation afterwards. I will say, the deeper the archology took me, I gave up this protocol that has been a staple of my own training for literal decades. First a Little History Little mention is made of shadow work being a large part of a boxer’s stable-work prior the turn of the last century. Oh, there are mentions of it, and more than a few “ made a flash of the hands ” to impress “ coves at ringside ” but being a cornerstone of the training, little ado is made. I’m with you, little mention in the record does not a convincing case make. Stick with me… Why the P...