“Earth Swimming” & Truly Always Ready by Mark Hatmaker

[Consider this Part 2 of the offering Move Like a Scout or Indigenous Warrior. You can consume this piece in isolation but to really follow the arc I’d recommend reading the mentioned piece [or even re-reading it] to gather fully where we’re going.]

Many of us tout our bona fides as high-speed, low-drag, can-the-noize-boys cuz’ I’m lock ‘n’load from bang to go!

It’s a fun little play-acting symptom we see in grown-ass adults who wear the gear, talk the talk, but…do they walk the walk?

Before you answer, I’m going to drill down so we get mighty specific with that question of walking the walk.

I have zero doubt that there is a squared away cadre that walks a walk some of the time.

I wager there is a smaller contingent [not anyone you likely see on the street in the day-to-day] who walk the walk more often than not. I refer to those folks in war-zones, battle-zones, boots-on-the-ground, no time for drill cuz’ this shit’s real.

Environment shapes behavior.

Behavior is not what we think, wear, post, or say, it is what we do.

Animal ethologists do not scrutinize chimpanzee dream journals, Facebook statuses, or listen to the “I’m so squared away” podcasts of walruses.

They observe the animals themselves to see what they do. 

Even if the mentioned animals were to devolve and began sharing memes and GIFs I wager we would know far less about them than we do now as language [spoken or written] is a poor indicator of behavior.

We all know this, and lest we are hazy on how poor an indicator language or single instances of drill can be, allow me to refresh—“Till death us do part.” 

How often do you hear this lived up to [or died up to] even though it was uttered with absolute conviction before witnesses, codified with signatures, with the very Deity as a witness.

Our behavior is what we do. Period.

Back to Combat-Readiness

Saying we’re ready is not the same thing as being ready.

Dressing as ready is not the same thing as being ready.

And…Drilling for Ready is not the same thing as being ready.

It comes closer on this continuum as it shows intent, but it is still not the same thing.

We’ve all seen or experienced this Drill-Failure ourselves. 

Example: “I’m gonna get this old bod in shape, Lose some weight, kick-ass and take names. Here’s my gear, here’s me and look how hard I am training today!”

Compare that version of you [or the individual you observe] and days when this mean little ass-kicker is not in evidence.

Walking the Walk is not cherry-picked instances of the self “getting the job done and doin’ it right.”

Walking the Walk is something that imbues everything, including your walk. 

Again, environment being the key, those in war zones have this drill-to-real ratio down, circumstances demand it. Survival demands it.

The Conundrum

In our day-to-day life living and behaving “as if” we were in the actual shit 24/7 would be ludicrous.

Those who treat each trip to the local gas station as if it were Fallujah are tedious.

Head-on-a-swivel “Step aside Jack Reacher!” can only be maintained without true danger stimulus for limited periods. Even then, constant riding in cortisol land will eventually fatigue the organism.

The conundrum is that what we have come to think of as “ready” is some hyper-tweaked in-the-midst version of military readiness that is likely not quite conducive to daily living and thusly not something that we can assume as a daily walk.

The local convenience store is seldom Fallujah-like [thankfully] and over time no matter our desire to keep the head in the preparedness game, the very same lack of danger stimuli at this fabled convenience store that we should be thankful for is the very same absence of stimuli that will allow our “head-in-the-game” to degrade over time.

In Aesop form: If you start out looking for lions every single day and get no peek at lions for 354 days straight, over time our lion peering gets a little less diligent.

Peak-Military Combat Readiness Outside War Zones is likely not the answer.

When Does Readiness Look Like “Not Ready”?

Indigenous peoples the world over do and have lived in a world that requires more of them than our own daily lives.

[Again, see the article Move Like a Scout or Indigenous Warrior for more context.]

Daily threats could occur, whether that be from predator animals, predator humans, insecure environments, thrashing game, the elements, cautions ad nauseum.

Here, we have a class of human where we could justify demonstrable hyper-vigilance.

Yet observations of such peoples do not relate this hyper-jacked “I am always f-in’ ready, MAN!” state.

Observers of the past and anthropologists of the present actually report quite the opposite.

What is reported is more of a laid-back vibe.

Does this mean no walk is being taken?

Does this mean that our indigenous cadre is just blindly lucky and could use a heavy dose of “CAN DO!” podcasts to get their survival act together?

No one believes that. 

So, what accounts for this difference between the modern cortisol spiked “Ready!!!!” and the also apparently ready languid approach?

Perhaps, the readiness is/was hidden in a different context.

“Earth Swimming”

There are multiple traditions, tips, tactics, aspects of indigenous movement that are grounded in easy facile movement. Movement that was a specific interface to the given environment….

“Here’s how you move on the mountain”

“Here’s how you run in the desert”

“Here’s how you move upstream.”

Ad infinitum.

There was even an assumed readiness about how to sit on the ground.

How to lounge about.

How to be ready, even if you were not ready.

In the Comanche “Sokoob’i paha’ibit’u” translates loosely to “Earth swimming,” a lovely phrase.

It refers to methods of lounging, lying, lolling, sitting, standing, rough-housing that allowed for a fluid relaxed human [low-cortisol] that could translate directly into bang.

Methods that allowed for hands-free movement for defense, to move aside brush as one evaded, to grab the reins of horses or the hands of children, or to access weapons.

Movement that was always primed for ready even in relaxation.

When one’s every action [or non-action] is keyed to this way of “seeing,” way of moving, one articulates fluidly through the world as easily as a facile swimmer with a good stroke moving lazily through calm waters.

That easy stroke may be used to frolic or to save a life, but the root of the binary choice is always present in the action itself with no need to shift gears. That is, we often behave with a duality “Here

’s my Prepared-Guy demeanor” and “Here’s my having fun at a party guy demeanor.” In the indigenous mindset, they are one and the same.

Sometimes walking the walk, is not walking at all, but if it’s readiness we’re after then it’s all walking tall.

[We will be doling out tactics of “Earth Swimming” on upcoming RAWs.]

[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service. http://www.extremeselfprotection.com