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Viking Tactical PT w/ & Without Battleaxe by Mark Hatmaker

 


Ready for an obvious statement?

The Vikings were a seafaring warrior people.

Obvious statement, Part II.

They were mighty comfortable and proficient in and around water.

Obvious Statement, Part III.

Vikings knew that nothing comes naturally to a man, that to be proficient in anything—from sailing, to swimming, to mastering the flute, to battle, to the art of negotiation, love, and friendship—all require dedicated attention and practice.

Obvious Statement IV.

As one might expect, a rough and tumble people, did not brook tippy-toe methods to mastery.

Proficiency, to Warrior cultures, is often hard-earned via stark ways but such hard-earned knowledge and skill creates confident and able warriors.

Let us turn to a passage from one of the sagas to illustrate hard ways.

The following passage is from The Saga of The People of Laxardal, Chapter, 40. It tells of a “swimming” competition [drowning, really] between Kjartan Olafsson and King Olaf Tryggvason.

“Kjartan then dived out into the river and swam over to the man who was such a strong swimmer, pushed him underneath and held him down for some time, before letting him come up again. The other had not been above water long before he grasped Kjartan and forced him underwater and held him under so long that Kjartan felt that enough was enough. They both emerged once more, but neither spoke to the other. On the third try both of them went underwater and were under much longer. Kjartan was far from certain what the outcome would be and realized that he had never before been in such a tight situation. Finally both of them came up and swam to shore.”

The sagas of the Viking and the tales of other Warrior cultures are rife with such rough and tumble “games,” and activities designed to make the individual Warrior in the parlance of today’s Special Warfare operatives “Drown-Proof.”

There are many competitive games, battle tactics, and wild-ass “water-fighting” we could delve into here, but…another day.

Today let’s dive into solo drills that all of us can use to up our conditioning and make us more confident when engaging with this dominant element on the surface of our planet.

Viking Sprints

We’ll start with a drill that we find in culture after culture and it also pops up as a training mode for some early 20th century boxers—it is for that reason we first introduced it in our book Boxing Like the Champs, Round Two.

When played right, this one is an excellent leg and lung burner and tests footwork with the demands of working against an element far more resistant than air.

·        Find a stretch of shoreline that is around mid-thigh depth.

·        Pick out a stretch of 100-yard straight-away and run it as fast as possible.

·        You’ll find you’ll have to pick those knees up high to get any simulacra of speed, and if you are in a natural body of water the pliable nature of the soil, sand, mud beneath your feet adds even more resistance.

·        Shoot for 5 Viking Sprints with a minute rest in between.


V  Viking Sprints with Battleaxe

This one allows you hold a weapon in your hand and gives you that feel of a Berserker storming the shore.

Warning: Carry the axe like a Warrior as we detail on Battleaxe Secrets. Do Not use movie carrys or civilian carrys.



There’s not an experienced Axe Warrior or lumberjack on the planet who carries in that ill-advised way.

Carrying it in the non-prescribed manner in such an uncertain footing while drilling at speed may very well result in self impalement.

I repeat—Do Not Do the Battleaxe Version of Viking Sprints if you have zero idea of how to carry/wield the axe correctly.

Deep Water Roils

For the next drill/tactic…

·        Wade from the shoreline to neck-depth, obviously you can use a pool for this one.

·        Pick up your feet and sprint as fast and furiously as you can in this resistant medium.

·        Strive to raise your knees to hip-height, and then drive the foot down and slightly backwards.

·        Keep a 90-degree bend in your shoulders and stive to drive just as hard with the arms as you do the legs.

·        Resist leaning forward, stay upright—shoulders over hips; your feet will not touch the ground during the roils, we are mimicking the frenetic pace of a sprint but making zero attempt to gain ground.

·        Tighten the core while roiling to protect the back during this unusual stressor.

·        Shoot for 5 to 8 30-second rounds of all out effort with an approximate rest time of 2-minutes between rounds.

Deep Water Roils with Battleaxe

Here the drill is the same, but we grab our axe in a Warrior Carry.

You will want to alternate hands per round as the water resistance on the proper carry is significant.

Switching hands will provide balanced delt and trap conditioning.



Deep Water Chopping

Here’s a fun one where we have our axe from the get-go.

·        Walk to neck-depth.

·        Shoulder that axe, hit proper offset facing and proceed through the four stages off proper lateral chopping as hard and fast as you can.

·        Shoot for 5 to 8 30-second rounds of all-out effort with an approximate rest time of 2-minutes between rounds.

The beauty of this drill is that is a combat specific burner AND it educates and corrects any Pivot Deflection errors you may have as that steel dorsal shark fin of a battleaxe blade seeks to drive true—any errors on your part will sing out with each and every swing.

We’ll stop there but suffice to say the material on Warriors tactically interfacing with water from Vikings to Algonquins to Moken to SEALs is deep as the ocean.

Let us close with a Viking benediction.

“Now just for fun we’ll each name what we place our trust in. I’ll choose first, and there are three things I place reliance on---one is my purse, the second my axe, the third my storehouse.”—Spoken by Glum in Killer Glum’s Saga, Ch. 14

Want nitty-gritty battleaxe work? Tomahawk reality? Plains trade knife? Old School Rough ‘n’ Tumble empty hand combat with no Euro-filigree?

[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.]

Or our brand-spankin’ new podcast The Rough and Tumble Raconteur available on all platforms.

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