Indigenous Ability

  Photo #1 • The Texas Proverb adorns my Library Wall. • It reminds me that I adore and revere books/thought/study but… • The cowardly way is to leave the information on the page. • It urges to consume as one a nutritious meal and then to use that fuel and put into practice what one has read. • To test it, amend it, toss faulty work, poor scholarship, bad info and to actively make trivia on the page my own fact. • Then…do it all over again. Photo #2 • The Vale Alliance is a loose confederation of Brotherhood among The Black Box Brethren. • It centers around how many a Roman closed a letter with the phrase “Vale!” • Which translate to “Be Strong! Be Worthy!” • When I first encountered it I was struck by how pale most of our sign-offs are now—Bye, Take it easy, Later. • Here we have an exhortation to Be Strong of Mind, Strong of Body, Strong of Character. • But… • With the Vale sentiment, Strength is not enough. • You must be Worthy. • One can be stron...

  “ Man is the first weapon of battle .”—Ardant du Picq, Battle Studies [1870] “ Most wanna be “hard men” put more time into bright and shiny gear—guns, knives, doodads than they ever have into the meat and bones holding up the toys in their pretend warrior photo .”—Comment in Conversation from a Real-World Operator Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous Old Man Math Photo: Taken 7:48 this morning post Unleaded Whole Hog Conditioning Block 3 Training Day. Age: 59 [60 in 45 days.] Training Time: 27:20. Last Night’s Supper: Steak, eggs and bacon at a Cracker Barrel came home to eat an industrial size bowl of popcorn while partaking of a Charles Bronson flick. [ Red Sun.] Deeper Math on Block 3 and How It Grows on Blocks 1 & 2 for those already on the Unleaded 6-Month Transformation Journey BLOCK 2 AIMS ·         Develop the Posterior Chain in all angles and variations using the natural pulling arcs of the targeted musculature. · ...

  I turn 60 in 53 days.   I’ve been training in Western Martial Arts for 48 years. For 44 of those years, I trained with what I thought was the ideal—everything from scads and scads of Hindu Squats, Dands, Dive-Bombers, Pull-Ups, box jumps, tire-flipping, sprints, miles of roadwork, skipping-rope, shadow-boxing, Olympic lifting, the whole nine yards. By 2018-2019 I had compiled a treasure-trove of counter-intuitive old school physical culturist information, not from the usual manual re-prints but from actual correspondence, yellowing fighter interviews, etc. So much of this information struck me as archaic and likely out-and-out wrong. Afterall, so much of it was diametrically opposed to what we know as gospel truth today. And then the obvious elephant in the room rared it’s trunk and asked, “ Old Man, you obviously revere and resurrect these old school combat ways, enough so you put them to the test in the gym day-in day-out and find them not only up to snuff, b...

  The one training partner you can always rely upon is Y-O-U. Each time you take a headcount of who’s available to hit it and get it, well, there you are. We would all agree that group dynamics are mighty useful for anything from tennis-doubles to wrestling practice. But we would also likely agree that many a tennis champion past, present, and future has a ready repertoire of solo drills within his or her grasp that allow them to continually hone their game. The handball player has wall-return practice, the range-bereft shooter has dozens upon dozens of dry-fire drills, the striker has everything from bags to mirrors to, well, his own shadow. Solo or not the player, shooter or combatant that  REQUIRES  the presence of others to sharpen the saw is at a deficit in comparison with the individual who will train  with and/or without  good fellows to share time with. The auto-didact who sees no training partner as no true loss is fertile with creative idea...

  The work we begin in Unleaded Conditioning Block 2 paves the way for what's to come in Block 5. See all about Old School Unleaded Conditioning Hacks & the 6 month journey to a leaner meaner Y-O-U. Unleaded Conditioning Info.

  Old Man Math Age: 59 Training Time: 28:14. Desserts Eaten Yesterday: x’s 2, Lunch & Supper. Deeper Math BLOCK 2 ADDENDUMS ·         Block 2 replaces Days 2 & 5 of Block 1. ·         I repeat—Drop everything on those 2 days. ·         Also—Drop the last Exercise from Days 1 & 3. ·         Rest Protocols WILL NOT APPLY ON YOUR NEWLY ADDED Block 2 Days. ·         There are 2 periods of a mere 10-seconds of rest. ·         That’s it. ·         Beyond these 2 10-second “rests” all else is one continuous cycle of motion. ·         THIS is how we build Abdominal, Thigh/Hip, Calves [Gastrocnemius, Soleus, & Anterior Tibialis] Strength & Stamina with Zero Weight. · ...

  A sojourn into the methods of some of the Old Time Physical Culturists and Combination Fighters reveals many a counter-intuitive approach to conditioning, everything from choosing walking over running for roadwork to an almost dogmatic approach of using lightweight [seemingly insubstantial weights at that] over heavy lifts. Example : We have an entire cadre of early physical culturists who were lean and in modern parlance “TikTok jacked” with muscular striations to resemble a geological survey map and yet many members of this cadre with jacked and striated quads and glutes never [NEVER] hit a back squat. More than a few considered back squats [particularly heavy ones] the road to ruin. We’ve covered the wisdom of walking vs. running in a multipart series but let’s dig in a bit on this lightweight, and in some cases, no weight paradox. We’ll attack this from the obvious end of the stick and then build towards some less obvious applications. SUPPORTIVE BOLSTER Muscle resp...