Skip to main content

Warrior Awareness: A Self-Test & Wise-Awake by Mark Hatmaker

 


There is not a Warrior, “sheepdog,” scout, “Hoo-ahh!” tactical warhorse alive who does not tout situational awareness.

There is no prepper, combatives certificate possessing, “Got the OODA Loop t-shirt” wearing Hoss who will tell you that being unaware of your environment is a good idea.

None.

Eyes on. Ears pricked. Alertness primed.

Aware and awake is the first and, often, best defense.

Pop Quiz

One-Point Southwest, right now, no hesitation.

Two-You have been kidnapped. You have been locked in a trunk. During the brief transport to the house you are to be kept or dismembered in you notice an open area next to the house. At some point you are able to grab a phone and have 10 seconds to describe what surrounds the house.

Is that open area a field, a meadow, or a pasture? [There is a difference and scouts, and CIA Field Operatives alike know that difference. Do you?]

Three-Name the last body of water you drove over or next to.

Four-If it is a river, which way is upriver?

Five-If it is a tidal region, is it in Neap or Spring Tide?

Six-You’ve been tasked with a BOLO for New Jersey tags right now—an infant’s life depends on finding this vehicle. How many New Jersey tags did you spot so far today, before the BOLO? Where?

[If you require notification to notice what’s around you, well…]

Seven-Back to our kidnapping. You’ve noticed this single-tree [the photo] to offer clues in your 10-second phone call. You live in a low-wind area, and you know your transport has been brief.

Which direction are you looking when you see that tree?

Eight—You are plotting your escape. You have decided that going under darkness is ideal. You notice that this evening’s moon has a ¼ sliver showing on the left face.

Will you have more chance of escape under cover of darkness tonight or tomorrow night?

There is no time to Google moon-phases, make a decision now! You’ve seen the same 29-day cycle since you’ve been born, you’re squared away on this knowledge, right?

So, how’d you do?

Here’s hoping well, but…I have hit many a pronouncer of “Always have your eyes open!” with these and other varieties of questions and often wind up with many a sputtering song-and-dance.

It seems that to many “Eyes open” is looking for some movie trope rather than what is actually around us.

Environmental awareness is less about looking for the pony-tail baddies in leather trench coats lurking outside John Wick’s house than noticing the real-world day-to-day EVERYTHING around you.

Some may say, “But Mark, I can’t live 24/7 under hyper-vigilance, that would be exhausting.”

You’re right it would be. If…and only if that awareness is primed as looking for Negative Anomalies.



In many American Indian traditions there is a warrior culture that primes such seemingly preternatural awareness in an easy relaxed manner that does not require secreting cortisol as a constant drip.

In the Comanche Warrior tradition, there is a concept called Tabe Nanika, which roughly translates as “Hears the Sunrise.”

A sort of educated synesthesia is involved. One learns to not merely look at what surrounds one but to learn to smell, hear, taste, touch and associate all the senses with as much phenomena in the word as the Warrior can.

To be Tabe Nanika means “Yes, I know that the sun will rise between that fencepost and that Red Cedar, but I also know that the cardinals will begin their metallic chittering as the rays break. This will be followed shortly by a lone male mourning dove giving his mating cry that is distinct from the call of the mated mourning dove. I can smell the tiger lilies when dew is on the ground as they will begin opening and turn their faces to the east.”

One can go on with the plethora of environmental observations that can be made with each individual environment and time of day.

In essence, Tabe Nanika is learning To See the Good So That You Can Easily See the Bad.

If the Warrior is wide-awake to all, and most of the world [fortunately] is good, then the anomaly of “something is off here” sticks out like a turd in a flower bed.

If one is only looking for the danger—one may, in fact, be blind to myriad precursors to danger by dint of removing the “good” from the sensory inventory.

Also, as in some of our Pop Quiz Questions, a blindness to benign at the time stimuli can lead to ignorance as to how to use all in our environment as clues to a wonderful world and as tools for our survival.



A Warrior wishes to be more than awake.

A Wise Warrior wishes to be Wise Awake. That is Tabe Nanika.

[For more on developing Tabe Nanika, The 1st Volume of The Suakhet’u Program: Opening the Sensorium is scheduled for release in September of this year.

·        It lays the foundation for the Morning Practice and opens the doors for the “Alive Walks & “Being” Practices to come.

·        This Video/Booklet Program will be a Black Box Subscriber exclusive initially with a roll-out to gen-pop further down the road.

·        For a bit more on this see here: https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-suakhetu-program-opening-sensorium.html

·        For more on The Black Box Program itself.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apache Running by Mark Hatmaker

Of the many Native American tribes of the southwest United States and Mexico the various bands of Apache carry a reputation for fierceness, resourcefulness, and an almost superhuman stamina. The name “Apache” is perhaps a misnomer as it refers to several different tribes that are loosely and collectively referred to as Apache, which is actually a variant of a Zuni word Apachu that this pueblo tribe applied to the collective bands. Apachu in Zuni translates roughly to “enemy” which is a telling detail that shines a light on the warrior nature of these collective tribes.             Among the various Apache tribes you will find the Kiowa, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua (or “Cherry-Cows” as early Texas settlers called them), and the Lipan. These bands sustained themselves by conducting raids on the various settled pueblo tribes, Mexican villages, and the encroaching American settlers. These American settlers were often immig...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Conversation with Neil Melanson by Mark Hatmaker

Here is a chat I had with a good man with a good mind, Neil Melanson. If you are unfamiliar with Neil’s exemplary work he has coached at Xtreme Couture, Alliance MMA, and a HC with the Blackzilians. He is now at gym Genesis Training Academy and Coach of the Filthy Few MMA team. -DVDs out are: Head Hunter, Catchwrestling, and Ground Marshal guard basics  -book Mastering Triangle Chokes -black belt under Karo Parisyan in the Hayastan Grappling System  First things first, Brother Neil, thanks for taking the time to have this chat. Allow me to get another thing out of the way, your book Mastering Triangle Chokes , top-notch. This is high-speed, low-drag stuff all the way. Often there is chaff to be culled through, but you have a linear approach that appeals to the pragmatic streak in me. Excellent work. Thanks a lot man.  You are a real articulate and detailed coach so that means a lot coming from you. Your approach to grappling appeals to my expansiv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Walk Like a Warrior by Mark Hatmaker

In reading contemporary historical accounts written by soldiers (cavalry and dragoon), settlers, scouts, pioneers, and other citizens of the American frontier 1680s-1880s, I find mention that Native Americans (“Indians” or “Savages” in the accounts) did not walk like “white men.” Their gait, stride, and foot placement is described often in poetic terms as “light” or “light-footed,” “fleet”, “gliding”, and often times “springy” or “spring-like.” These terms while descriptive of the effect do little to tell us the how or why of the gait. We can find clues in accounts given by trackers in any of the myriad “Indian Wars” or skirmishes that riddled the continent in the first few centuries of the settling of the nation. The obvious telltale barefoot or soft impression of a moccasin is often a giveaway that you have a Native American track but this is less so in the moccasined foot as more and more Anglo backwoodsmen adopted this footwear. But there are a few accounts that mention ...
4 comments
Read more