Indigenous Ability

I wager the vast majority of those who take the time to read an essay with the title “Training with Intent” are involved in some physical training of their own. You may be a combat sports enthusiast, a street-combative operator, or simply trying to get in front of the waistline spread that comes easier with the years. I also wager that those of us who do train put the vast majority of our thought/intent into the raw data of training. That is, “ I will lift such and such weight this number of reps, then I will run this far, then I will bang the bag for this designated time, and follow that up with a mat-roll that emphasizes this or that pre-selected technique. ” This raw data approach to intent engages our Western-minded penchant for the quantifiable. Numbers are easy hooks to benchmark progress or to place numerical goals on the horizon. Numbers let us know how long we did something or how fast we were. They allow us to graph where we are, where we were, where we’d like to...

The Transportation Security Administration [TSA], designated cops in schools [aka School Resource Officers or SROs], gun-free zones, random bag checks on subways, and other like-minded safety initiatives have been called security theater by more than a few wise minds. Computer security maven Bruce Schneier is credited with coining the term security theater. Mr. Schneier is author of the prescient and illuminating book Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World. He offers that the TSA does little to nothing to “keep us safe” and this large outlay of expenditure and labor is there to act as nothing more than a pacifier or Linus’ security blanket for a cowed populace. Mr. Schneir is not alone in this assessment, Ross Anderson, is a Professor of security engineering, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. His research bailiwick is that of the economics and psychology of information security. Professor Anderson is equally as scathing in...

Paul, thanks for taking the time to have this conversation. We’ve spoken before regarding one of your other lives as a Western author. Today I want to get into another area of your expertise, your skills as an expert interrogator. Would you mind giving the readers a little about your background? I had a 35 year career with the Los Angeles Police Department. For over 20 years I investigated sex crimes, including 15 years running a Special Assaults Unit of thirty detectives covering 25% of the city for everything from indecent exposure to child molest to sexual homicide. Our unit regularly produced the highest number of detective initiated arrests and highest crime clearance rates in the city. I was fortunate to be twice honored as LAPD’s Detective of the Year and received the Quality and Productivity Commission Award from the City of Los Angeles. Through my company Elementrix Consulting ( www.elementrixconslting.com ), I currently conduct law enforcement seminars across the count...

First things first, in today’s sermon “biting” has nothing to do with your teeth, so rid yourself of images of Mike Tyson chowing down on Evander Holyfield’s ear. In early Frontier Rough & Tumble parlance “to bite” was to take a shot at your opponent’s punching arm with your own fist—specifically an incoming fist. There is an entirely different rough & tumble vocabulary for injuring your opponent’s arms while in the passive, defensive, or on-guard position which we will discuss another day. You will find a few references to biting as a not necessarily on the square tactic in the early days of bare-knuckle work in Merrie Old England, and it made its transfer across the pond with some fighters making it a feature of their work. In American frontier rough and tumble there was no onus or pretention of “ That’s not quite cricket” as more often than not All-In fighting was just that. Let’s face it, in an era and fighting method that prided itself on numerous way...

The War Hammer This is just one of the 200+ Historical Recreation Challenges in the Indigenous Warrior Series] Mark off a course approximately 200 yards (Varied Terrain is ideal, my course is hilly and features a water-crossing, and one climb-over element.) Grab a sledge-hammer (preferably a 16#-18#er, no less than a 12#er). Bang a tire/stump/hated object with 20 full-power strikes alternating sides with each hit, then take that War Hammer with you thru your course. You may carry it at port arms, over-the-shoulder, single-handed near the sledge but do not drag it or put it down (even to ford an obstacle in your course). For each time you drag or put your weapon down hit 10 burpees at the site you have committed the sin of relinquishing your weapon. Hit your maximum strikes/course trips in 30 minutes. [ Bonus Points for a blood-curdling war cry with each War Hammer Strike. Remember you are not striking the object to “exercise your body” but to kill your enemi...

So, how many pull-ups can you do before you have to come off of the bar? How about one-arm pull-ups, can you do even one with zero assist from the free-hand? Prior to the 20 th Century the record for one-arm pull-ups was 12 by an Englishman named Cutler performed in 1878. Flash-Forward to 1918, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mermann’s Gym, a gathering place for old-school gymnasts and physical culturists. Veteran circus-performer Lillian Leitzel arrives at Mermann’s to refine some work with some acrobats. Leitzel was a noted aerialist [and notorious for her fierce competitive spirit and less than becoming temper.] She causally lets it drop that she could smash the one-arm chin-up record. Asked to put proof to her claims she steps up to the bar, places her left hand behind her back, grips the bar with her right and knocks out 27 reps. That not good enough? Well, how’s this? She comes off the bar, shakes it out and then grabs it with her left hand and hits 19 reps. ...

The following parable is credited to many traditions, I first came across it in the Tsalagi tradition [Cherokee to outsiders.] A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery, honesty, service and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred, lies, selfishness and fear. The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?” The grandfather quietly replies, “The one you feed.” This parable seems to strike a chord in many I discuss it with and has led to more than a few fruitful conversations [face-to-face, forum, messages, email, etc.] Many are quite pleased with the concept of feeding the Good Wolf and see utilitarian value in realigning in this direction. Some good folk professed the need to feed the Bad W...