An Indigenous Teaching/Awakening [Excerpted from our upcoming book The Great Seeing: Walking the World in the Path of The Scouts of Old—Lessons in Living Where Science & History Meet. ] Where in the World are You? To become a Good Scout, Warrior, Wayfarer of the Planet one must be alive and awake to our ever-changing surroundings. The Comanche tradition has a strategy called “ Ha’kus’a t’zare ‘ene ” which is a series of loose questions that an elder would ask often of the young. As one moved beyond childhood, the Warrior asked these of him or herself several times per day. Such four-dimensional locational surveys are common in many indigenous traditions. The questions are myriad and often keyed to particular environments but here we will begin with a mere four. ONE: What Time is It? · Without looking at your smartwatch, or any other device—assess the sun, the moon, relative shadows, your own internal “feel” for the ...
In the empty-hand realm of combat true ambidexterity is a rare bird. Marvelous Marvin Hagler took great pains to develop facility both as an orthodox fighter and as a southpaw, but we could easily see where he stacked his chips when the heat was high. Seeking ambidexterity is a worthy goal, but one that has opportunity-costs. That is, the time put into developing the off-hand [off-foot for kicking, or off-side for grappling] means that is time we no longer have for moving the competency needle further towards mastery on our “good” side. We should always make that opportunity cost/cost-to-benefit analysis in our training as there are only so many hours in the day, and precious few per week dedicated to training itself. With actual training time at a premium do we want so-so returns or better-than-average? This is not an argument against empty-handed ambidexterity, not at all, just one of time-utility and, well, a jaded eye towards reality. If we are to make an empty hand a...