Indigenous Ability

  THE Primary Factor in self-protection/self-defense is situational awareness. Keeping in mind that crime is, more often than not, a product of opportunity, if we take steps to reduce opportunity to as close to nil as we can manage we have gone a long way to rendering our physical tactical training needless [that’s a good thing.] Yes, having defensive tactical skills in the back-pocket is a great ace to carry day-to-day but all the more useful to saving your life or the lives of loved ones is a honed awareness, a ready alertness to what is occurring around you every single day. Here’s the problem, maintaining such awareness is a Tough job with a capital T as most of our daily lives are safe and mundane [also a good thing] and this very safety allows us to backslide in good awareness practices. Without daily danger-stressors we easily fall into default comfort mode. A useful practice to return awareness/alertness to the fore is to gamify your awareness, use a series of specifi...

  So, we’ve all heard that scalps were often taken as trophies following battle-kills by both Indigenous Tribes and Anglo-adopters of this fearsome way. At times scalps were used as decorations to add fearsome aspect to war lances or as saddle adornments or used as “markers” to collect bounties and a few other sundry uses “decorative” and transactional. What is seldom asked is, “Exactly how does one go about scalping a human?” In cinematic representations it is often a time-shortened quick one-handed affair. But…the actuality was often far different. A more labor-intensive thing that demonstrates stopping to take a man’s scalp demands a bit more time, a bit more effort, and a lot more inclination that crosses the border into the unimaginable. How to Scalp ONE --Fell your victim. TWO --Grip the hair on top of their head with the left hand [assuming you are right-handed.] THREE —Make two semi-circular incisions around the skull with your knife—treat the skull as if ...

  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...