Pop Quiz
One-How aware are you of your surroundings on a
scale from 1-10? [10 being very aware.]
Two-Do you consider yourself alive to the subtle
changes in your environment? [Again, rank this personal assessment on the 1-10
scale.]
Let us do a little anthropological
delving, we’ll get to The “Naked” Shield in a moment.
The Arctic
It has been noted that
among the various Polar tribes [the Inuit being just one of these] a keen sense
of direction is valued as much as the latest iPhone is to us.
In an often
snow-covered featureless terrain, one often blanketed by thick fog any and all
grasp of how to “see” the world is of utmost importance.
Whenever a person left
the confines of shelter to urinate [male or female] they would watch their
urine stream. They would note any pulling of the urine arc by the wind, failing
a strong enough wind to alter fluid flow dynamics, they would observe the steam
from the stream.
Does it rise? Does it
flutter and dissipate in a particular direction? Does it hug low and flat as if
hitting a thermal ceiling?
Also noted was the
feel of relative cold on these exposed delicate bits.
Once the micturating
and observations were complete they would return to shelter and report their observations.
These pit-stop based weather
forecasts told much about wind direction, wind speed, relative cold, humidity, barometric
pressure etc.
As each individual
pit-stopped throughout the day they would note their own observations to see if
they matched and report if they differed indicating a change in conditions.
Such information was valuable
to planning the days hunt or excursions and to set up that day’s direction finding
in the “hard to read” landscape.
The
Pacific Ocean
The early Polynesian
Pacific navigators made remarkable journeys sans compass, maps, or any other
gear assumed necessary for successful navigation.
The vast Pacific is, obviously,
trackless, but to the knowing it is riddled with swells that can indicate direction.
Swells not often easily read from the low vantage point of a raft.
Polynesian navigators
called reading waves and swell meaify.
They were always urged to note the color, the look, and the feel of the wave.
They have been noted to lie on deck to feel current, swell, distant refraction
and reflective waves.
Many navigators would sit
and straddle their legs so that their testicles make contact with the deck
claiming that this sensitive bit best helps them feel what the water is saying.
The Plains
& Eastern Woodlands
Many are familiar with
the film or novelistic concept of a Vision Quest. Essentially it is a rite of
passage where the apprentice warrior, or burgeoning young woman [these rites
existed for both sexes in many tribes] were sent off into the wilderness alone to
make the transition from dependance to what they are meant to be.
The key aspect of
these treks was to go bare bones. That means, no carried food or water, no weapon
or perhaps only a single weapon, and in most cases completely naked or close
to, a breechclout often being the only concession to clothing [a strip of
clothe that hangs fore aft but does not envelope.]
The experience is
designed to make maximum contact with the environment, to foster independence
to test “Do you know what you know?”
Some Western minds
assume the naked state was to strip mind and body to cause hardship, when
rather the opposite was the intent.
Stripping mind and
body created a more sensitive vessel for reading and living within the given environment.
Some tribes repeat this
experience in a seasonal manner with a week of required nudity to remind one
how to “see” with the entire self.
In a culture that does
not adopt the same “modesty” taboos the revealed self was no more lewd than our
own revealed mouths that eat, may excrete [vomit], and be used for sexual
purposes.
A Naked
Self Anecdote
I sail. I do so without
compass or chart. I river sail so no big feat.
But those in the know,
know that to sail is to “read” the wind in ways that those who have never attempted
to harness the wind can appreciate.
I have noticed via experience
than I am a far better Summer sailor than I am Winter sailor.
In Summer I strip to
shorts.
In Winter I bundle up.
In the Summer I am far
more cognizant of upcoming wind shifts that stir the hair on my arms or touch
my thigh than I can ever be in the Winter.
Reading shifts matters
on a sailing vessel.
The mere act of putting
on a hat can change how I register the wind as it moves along my scalp.
The Naked Shield
In each of these examples
we are seeing iterations of what was loosely termed “The Naked Shield.” That is,
exposing as much of the body as possible to the elements allowing the increased
surface area to work as an advance warning system for the world we inhabit.
Purposefully deadening
the senses with clothing, bubble-wrapping the self as it were, would be to the Naked
Shield concept what applying a dab of Vick’s beneath each nostril, donning a
blindfold, and plugging in earbuds would be to our standard day-to-day life—an example
of chosen sensory blindness.
The more stripped down
we are, the more aware we are—not just in the sensory sense but in a psycho-sensual
sense. [Conjure how more attuned you are to the world when you first don a new
swimsuit amongst a crowd than if you simply walked around in your day-to-day
wear. There is something about “exposure” that heightens and attunes the entire
organism.]
Skill
Nudity
Stripped down, well,
anything tells us more about what we are really capable of than simply running
the same-o same-o with “gear intelligence.”
Anyone who has had the
experience of driving a full-on stripped vehicle with the ABS turned off can
tell you in a heartbeat that most people would be even shittier drivers if they
drove the car “naked.”
Often, we do
not drive the car, the engineers who designed the car compensate for our
failures.
Discovery’s Naked
and Afraid television show allows us to see capable people stripped to
essence. People that self-confess they have skills and do well in standard states
but find the mere addition, actually subtraction can decimate a skill-set.
Such stripping down to
build up is the concept of the aforementioned Vision Quests.
Back to Those
Pop Quiz Assessments
Would you answer with
the same number if comparing yourself with an Inuit who uses EVERY act as a
world assessment?
The same number compared
with a Polynesian who can sense direction and “flavor” of the seas ahead by straddling
an outrigger?
I wager, the honest
may admit they come up a bit short.
“But Mark, I live
in America and can’t simply toss clothes and grab some of this awareness.”
“Naked” Solutions
The committed will find
ways around the “I can’t” but…
I provide some Naked Experiments.
·
You carry
a phone? Try stripping it for a day. Then a week. Then…
·
Can’t
drive without music or a podcast in your ear? Strip it.
·
Dine or
frequent establishments with background noise? Strip ‘em for a while. Try open
air places, food trucks etc.
·
You need
all the gear you train with?
You get the idea.
Might I also suggest to
those committed to The Suakhet’u Program and like practices, to make
these as stripped as one can. There is much to be learned from learning the changes
in the seasons, sensing the world alter itself merely by noticing the shifting slant
of sun on your back, the bite of frosty air in November, the dry gust from the west
that says that days weather will improve.
The indigenous did not
consider themselves naked when they were.
And…
One need not necessarily
be naked to strip away that which insulates the self.
[For more Rough& Tumble
history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school
tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box
Subscription Service.]
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