Indigenous Ability

The following missive can be applied to not merely frontier trade-knife, bowie knife, tomahawk, foils, sabers, epees, but also to “schooled” unarmed combat and precision military maneuvers. The informed among us are already quite familiar with the fact that some of the best troops from Europe fought in Early America. These crack troops were schooled by some of the best military minds that Great Britain and the Continent had to offer, and yet they encountered more persistent and baffling resistance than they expected and/or had confronted in warfare in the Old World. The early colonists [some were schooled in the European military tradition, many were not] took their cue from what they encountered in the Indigenous Tribes of this new land. This new warfare if it can be encapsulated at all might be expressed in a proverb originating in the Northeastern tribes that can be loosely translated as “ Advance like foxes, fight like catamounts [panthers], and fly like birds.” F...

[All based on RAWs 210 & 209.] All are 3-Minute Rounds w/ 30-seconds Rest Round One -Cross. Keep it live, move. Put some stink on it, test that bag’s warranty. Round Two -With partner or without, toss that cross and envision a counter liver-hook or head-hunt on the high-line, so cross and roll with a bread-basket cover, keep those shoulders high—no sure things in the world. Round Three- Cross, Roll, toss another Cross out of the Roll Round Four -Add a rear bark as the cherry on top. Play this one on the drag bag as the true bark is unforgiving to tibias the world over. Rest 1 Minute Round One -On your feet slap and catch and drag to an outside two-on-one. Work both sides like a good wrassler. Head in the pocket, Crew, or I will tsk-tsk you to kingdom come. Round Two -Off of a resisted two-on-one slide as smooth as a viper into an Underhook ride. Again, where is that head supposed to be? That’s right. Round Three -Once you’ve got that ...

Let’s tell a few tales from the fighting days of sail. Our tales will come a bit later than the usual Master & Commander Napoleonic battles and also a wee bit later than the buccaneer days in the Caribbean. These two periods of nautical mayhem overlapped to some degree and have much to contribute to our modern understanding of war at sea. Another day. We want to jump forward in our timeline just a bit and have a look at some aspects of violence aboard sailing vessels from approximately 1800 on into the 1920s when we see the last of the windjammers still plying their trade on the seven seas. We will not be speaking of military vessels or pirate ships. One expects to find tips and tactics in matters of violence in these two cases. Instead we will focus on private ships of commerce. Vessels that were charged to move cargo from destination A to destination B as quickly and efficiently as possible. We want to have a look at the bit of melee wisdom that spawned o...

[Excerpted from our book Boxing Like the Champs, Round Two , to be released Fall of 2020.] Rocco Francis Marchegiano. Rocky Marciano The Brockton Blockbuster. Yeah, yeah, we all know, the only undefeated heavyweight champion.  Retires with a perfect record. A strong, powerful fighter with a big heart, tremendous work ethic and a good character to boot. Usually we start all of these mini-lessons with a reminder to the cognoscenti or an introduction to those new on the path.  Rocky Marciano is one of those rare few who seems to need little of that “ Gather around, let me tell you about …” noise. So, in this case, let’s not talk about what he did well, but something that he did poorly. And….how that poorly done thing often made him perform so well. Contradictions abound there, huh? The legend, while graceful in character, has never been accused of grace in movement. He was an awkward lunging fighter. Some labeled...

This is Lieutenant-General John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne on the rabble that was encountered during the American Revolution. “It is not to be expected that the rebel Americans will risk a general combat or a pitched battle, or even stand at all, except behind intrenchments as at Boston. Accustomed to felling of timber and to grubbing up trees, they are very ready at earthworks and palisading, and will cover and intrench themselves wherever they are for a short time left unmolested with surprising alacrity…Composed as the American army is, together with the strength of the country, full of woods, swamps, stone walls, and other inclosures and hiding places, it may be said of it that every private man will in action be his own general, who will turn every tree and bush into a kind of temporary fortress, and from whence, he has fired his shot with all deliberation, coolness, and uncertainty which hidden safety inspires, he will skip as it were to the next, and so on for a long ...

Rough ‘n’ Tumble, scufflin’, illegal boxing, boombattle, and all the various and sundry names that go to describe the all-in melee that is truly no-holds-barred, no-strikes-off-the-table uses the entire body as a weapon. Let’s take a brief sojourn with just one of those weapons—The Shoulder. Due to obvious range restrictions, the shoulder is part of the closed-quarters arsenal.  [ Notice, in deference to the origin of the word, I call it “closed quarters” in the piratical naval melee sense and not the modern and incorrect perversion to “close quarters.” Yeah, I’m that guy, a stickler for the details. Consider this, if the name ain’t right, what else might be wrong? If a guy calls a jab “a fisty puncher” and is oblivious to the word “jab” we’d suspect something was a bit awry in the boxing research, would we not?] To the Shoulder! We’ve got three broad ways to use it [Slams, Butts, & Grinds] and essentially only two attack paths [Inward & Upward.]...