Indigenous Ability

Those of us who train weapons, whether that weapon be firearm, tactical folder, escrima stick, pepper-spray, or Viking battle-axe likely spend most of our time en garde, at port arms, or “Weapon-Ready.” In other words, our tool of choice is un-holstered, un-sheathed, un-pocketed, un-pursed, un-quivered and ready to go. Our training is often drill-based or duel patterned, meaning all of the preliminaries have been assumed. Fake-words have been had, weapons are in hand, now we click the sticks 1-8, adjust the paper-target up or down range, slash-one/thrust-four for reps, or apply the centurion’s gladius to the post ad naseum. But… …in the New World, [Frontier America] a premium was placed not only prowess with a weapon at-the-ready but also speed of weapon acquisition and how quickly that weapon could be engaged tactically. In other words, we are not merely talking fast-draw, we are talking fast-draw and do the job. Let us not assume the fast draw is mere stuff ...

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-hand ambidexterity, not at all, just one of time-utility and, well, a jaded eye towards reality. If we are to make t...