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...

Let’s talk buccaneers for a paragraph or few and then settle into a mighty pragmatic lesson that these spoilers of the seas took for granted and that many of we, the 21 st Century coddled crew, a bit less so. Hand-to-hand fights were quite common in the days of sailing piracy, in fact we get our phrase “hand-to-hand combat” from this very fact. A crewman on a sailing vessel was and is a “Hand” and thusly hand-to-hand combat in piratical parlance is just that, a one-on-one affair between marauder and mauradee. Contrary to cinematic depictions of rival ships holing one another willy-nilly with cannon shot, the preferred tactic was to fire upon masts and other standing rigging and leaving as much of the ship intact as possible. Afterall, a sunk ship cannot be looted, a sunk ship cannot be taken over as additional transportation booty. No, the crux, more often than not, was to use sailing prowess and well-placed shot to make boarding feasible. With boarding an ulti...

[From the introduction to Boxing Like the Champs, Round Two , but this applies to all the historical wok we do around here. From boxing, to old school wrestling, to rough ‘n’ tumble we must dig hard to find the real gold.  The book will be released in the Fall of this year. See our other products for more of this approach to training.] You’ve likely heard this quote before…   “ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it .” It was uttered by the Spanish philosopher George Santayana. In context, he issued it as a warning to those who seek solutions on the world stage, urging them to have a bit of long-view perspective before they plunge on merrily and or madly with this or that “save the world” scheme. In that context, Mr. Santayana was likely sage. But…on this smaller stage of a canvas covered ring, bordered by ropes and turnbuckles it is a bit of untruth. Oh, but only if it were true for we lovers of fistic mayhem. ...

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...