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Warrior Walking: Your Jungle/Voyageur Legacy by Mark Hatmaker

 


To set our stage, a textbook extract:

“Let us begin, then, with the act of walking. For all its apparent simplicity, it is an adaptation as specialized as flying is to a bat or swimming to a seal. True, man is not the only animal able to stand on his hind legs alone; birds, bears and a number of man's primate cousins are bipedal on occasion. But with the exception of a few flightless birds, such as the ostrich, man is the only animal that depends exclusively on two legs for locomotion whether crossing a room or crossing a continent, moving at high speeds or aimlessly strolling, with arms burdened or swinging free. Using his two legs, a man has the endurance to outrun a deer. He can carry heavier loads, pound for pound of body weight, than a donkey the French-Canadian voyageurs who transported Indian trade goods through the North Woods routinely backpacked 180 pounds of bales over nine-mile portages, and a legendary hero among them named La Bonga is said to have portaged 450 pounds. No terrain is totally impassable to a man; he can reach an eagle's aerie or a pearl oyster’s bed. Only a man, the British scientist J.B.S. Haldane noted, can swim a mile, walk 20 miles and then climb a tree. When compared with the versatile and powerful scheme of human locomotion, even the regal movement of a horse turns out to be limited indeed.”—Peter Wood, Life Before Man [1972]

This humble mode of transportation the overwhelming majority of us engage in on a daily basis has had the most astonishing impact on our history.

We trekked onto every continent via locomotion, stepped upon the deck of many of a sailing vessel to explore every waterway on the surface and submerged, walked into cockpits to fly both our troposphere and beyond.

Warriors the world over have relied on Endurance Marches, Marches Under-Load, Rucking and our early Combination Men used it as The Original Roadwork to prep for fats and trim the adipose tissue.

THE QUESTION

But…we must ask, are we walking with the same deliberative ease that man evolved to amble the globe or has a preponderance of sedentary habit, artificial surfaces and variances in footwear development altered our strides, gaits, hell, even our postures of ambulatory attack?

The scientific and historical record points to the answer, a resounding Yes.

Indeed, the vast majority of us do not walk as our forebears did.

Personal Anecdote Time

I am a content man as I…

·        Never have to run another step, hit another burpee, or sweat another HIIT session again. [High Intensity Interval Training.]

·        I have kicked a two-doctor consult of, “Looks like we need to replace that hip cuz you won’t be doin’ much on it” down the road for close to seven years.

·        Keep in mind, I was told a cane was in order to make it thru an amusement park to watch my daughter ride rides.

·        I swim rivers, free-dive oceans, hike miles in canyonland at elevation, climb and skitter cliff face without apparent hiccup in hip or, here’s the important part—perceived increased effort via non-specific cardio output at times under elevation.

·        The Grand Experiment of Turning this Old Body over to nothing but Old School Unleaded Conditioning & The Warrior Walking Protocol began just before my 54th birthday. [60-years-old at the moment.]

·        I have logged nary a run session, not hit a sprint, nor endured a burpee during this span.

·        I plunged in [with skepticism] into pure Old School Conditioning, & “archaic” ancestral practices. That is, the odd mix of calisthenics and [seemingly] light weights, strange “shock” exercises, and the most counter-intuitive of all—the specific type of walking used by early Combination Men to prep for a fight.

·        Counter-Intuitive?—Running was seen as a no-no. A hole-digger.

·        Counter-Intuitive as it leans one up and increases work capacity all while feeling like, “Hey, am I foolin’ myself here?”

·        I have put myself thru The Canyonlands Test, the Extended River Tests, the Swim Tests, the Rucking Under Load Tests and all point to better output in a myriad of environmental trials and I had to do ZERO redline work.

·        I did zero Task-Specific Training.

·        Hell, all I did was hew to the Warrior Walking ideal.

·        This “Original Roadwork” shot through the prism of Indigenous Movement we are calling “Warrior Walking” is relatively easy to learn.

·        Takes around a week of diligent attention to get all the mechanics down—to find your glide-- but once you do, Boy Howdy!

·        In Unleaded: Warrior Walking, the Only Cardio You Need for Combination Fighting, Physical Culture and Attacking the Outdoors.

·        We cover every specific step of mechanics—head-to-toe of how to do it [trust me, it is more than just “getting your steps in.”]

·        We’ll provide two Warrior Walking Programs, a 12 Week Cycle for Those Who Simply Want to Lean Up and Enjoy Life. Perfect to grab the hand of loved ones and sayin’, “Let’s go!”  A “workout” that feels exactly like explorin’ life—gotta love that!

·        And another 12 Week Full-On Program that is aimed at Combination Fighters [Rough n Tumblers] and Outdoors Explorers.

·        See our blog for some peeks at this approach, this resource in particular:  & our several articles on Early Tribal Walking Methods.

·        Those who partake will, as said in the Comanche warrior tradition: “Kanaba’itu!” [“Walk Tall!”]

·        Warrior Walking is a DVD & 18-Page PDF package.

·        There is whole lotta research and a whole lotta life-correction here.

Walk your self lean, to health and adventure like a Comanche warrior here!

Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life, Not Just Readin’ About It

The Black Box Warehouse

https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/

The Indigenous Ability Blog

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/

The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast

https://anchor.fm/mark-hatmaker

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