What
does it take to become the fighter though? It takes mental training, physical
fitness, and of course both general and specific training.
Mental
training.
Some
call it visualization training. You go over the scenario of choice in your head
and examine the ways to make the outcome in your favor, and then you make them
work. It is used as positive imagery, to help you think you can defeat Goliath
rather than be overcome by fear. Visualizing yourself getting defeated is a
sure way to make sure you get defeated. God’s will aside, and faith in God
aside, David had an “I will kill this giant” attitude. Do you think the outcome
would have been the same if he would have thought like every man in King Saul’s
army?
Every
day in Iraq, I would mentally go over possible scenarios that could happen, and
in those scenarios I would always make myself win. When I say win, I mean that
I and mine live and my enemies die. To this day, I still use this method of
mental training. If I am walking through the woods with my wife and kids and a
black bear runs into us and does not run away instantly, I will be dropping my
ruck/daughter for my wife to grab, and I will be going head on, running fast,
into the animal. However, what if there is no time to drop my ruck that I carry
my daughter in? Well, I may not charge the animal, but rather I’ll go lateral
to it while instructing my wife the other direction as I shoot. What if, for
some retarded reason, I don’t have my gun? I will dump my ruck, regardless of
it all, and go at the animal with my knife or whatever weapon of opportunity I
can grab, so my family can get to safety. Is that likely to result in my
getting mauled rather than my kicking a bear’s butt? It’s likely, but I’d
rather get eaten fighting than never think about it and stare in panic, or try
to outrun a bear while carrying my three-year-old and my wife carrying our two
year old. The key is that I will make the most aggressive, violent action
possible to the point that that bear wonders what is happening to him, as I
stab him in the eye with a stick, repeatedly. I do not let anything but my
winning enter my mind, no matter the odds. If I had the thought that there was
no possible way I’m going to fight off or kill a bear with my pocket knife,
then I have already accepted defeat and may as well lie down in the trail and
let him eat me and my family. (This is just an example. If you live in Alaska
and want to fake dead for a grizzly, work through that in your own mind.)
Throw
an angry squirrel into a van full of linebackers. That little guy, through
rapid aggressive action, will have big “tough” men jumping out the doors in no
time. One good smack is all it would take to kill the squirrel, but the
squirrel does not care. All he knows is he wants to destroy everyone in the
van, and he will.
What
choice should you make? Is there a right choice or a wrong choice? No. Just
make a choice, and make it fast, aggressive, and violent. Hesitation will get
you killed. Having already lived through similar scenarios in your mind will
help your auto pilot work how you taught it to work. All the while, you know if
you do die, it will be taking as many of your enemies with you as humanly
possible, before you choke to death on your own blood.
Physical
fitness.
This
may seem insensitive and harsh, but if you are obese, all the mental
visualization training will not get you whopping up on anybody who requires you
to do much more then throw your weight on them. Get off your butt, and go hike
up a mountain. Don’t give me that “I’m putting on fat for food when the supply
dwindles down” excuse. Do you need to look all muscular and fit? No, nor should
that be a goal. It may be a byproduct of your training, dependent on your body
type, but it is secondary to the focus of being strong, fast, agile, and having
endurance. You need endurance to thrown on a ruck and go hiking for ten miles
in the dark because your retreat was burned to the ground and half your friends
were killed. You need speed to run into firefights or away from firefights,
depending on the situation (that is another topic). You need strength to grab
your buddy and throw him on your shoulders because his leg just got blown off,
or to pull something up a cliff. You also need agility as you run through the
woods or walk over rough terrain with your weapon at the ready. Some are born
for more of one then the other, but don’t excuse yourself because of your body
type. Work is the key word here folks. Do the best with the body type God gave
you. If you are truly “big” boned, you should be stronger than an ox without
much trouble, but you may have to work for endurance. Smaller builds may have
to work more for strength, but you will have better speed and agility. We are
all here for different reasons and with different gifts, just make sure you
don’t so limit yourself to one thing that you are hopelessly lacking in
another.
Ladies,
you too can be much stronger than you think. Will you match the strength of a
man? No, but that does not mean you should limit yourself to elliptical machines
and long walks. Do some pull ups and squats!
I
currently work in the medical field, and I can tell you that overweight and
obese patients cannot hardly help themselves out of bed when they are remotely
sick. Healthy-weighted, 90 year old ladies may have a horrible pneumonia, but
they can still walk around. Fat is also harder to grab onto. Take two
unconscious men– one who is 200 lbs of muscle, at 5’8′, and the other who is
200 lbs of fat at 5’8″. The fat guy is twice as hard to pick up and move around
as the other. So, in addition to making yourself more useful in general, by
having a healthy body fat percentage, you make it easier for your buddy to help
you if needed.
You
will be a better fighter if you are fit. No question about it. Your body will
handle stress better. You will live longer, if you don’t get killed first, and
you will feel better, sleep better, and even look better. You can get more work
done. In general, it just makes sense, but it’s hard to workout. Cry me a
river. You think TEOTWAWKI is going to be easy? Your 1-week practice run of
living out of the pantry was easy; try doing that while running security
patrols in 0 degree temperatures, getting your compound shot to bits, carrying
buckets of water ½ mile since the well went dry, explaining to your kids that
Grandma and Grandpa’s house just got burned down since there will be no
“sheltering” your children from what will become the new norm. It’s all hard.
So go do something that gets/keeps you in shape.
With
all that being said, I’m 30 years old. A 50 year old may have a hard time doing
what I do. Recognize your limitations but don’t use that as an excuse. I would
not currently go on an event that involved swimming a mile. I know that I would
be a hazard at this time, since I have not been keeping up on my swimming!
Don’t be the one who becomes a liability because you can’t physically do
something you should have known was impossible or too difficult for you. If you
cannot do a pull up, perhaps you should avoid the event that would require a
lot of rope climbing or rock climbing, eh?
Training
Training
is getting up and doing it! That is the only way you will learn new things and
perfect them. Ever hear about the guy who buys all the latest gear to go hiking
with and ends up dumping it or quitting, because he never tried it in the field
before he went out on a seven day hunt? The same applies for preparedness. You
have a state of the art piston driven AR15 with a $2000 Nightforce scope and
Surefire flashlight that you have only shot 40 times out to 100 yards with
plinking ammo instead of your “survival” ammo. So, let’s say I come along at
400 yards with my spray painted, scuffed up, AR with a $800 scope with ammo
that I know what it does and have it written on my gun because my gun is a
tool, not a pretty thing to look at. I am going to kill you and give your fancy
AR15 to one of my buddies. Not really, because I am not a murderer, but you get
the point, I hope.
I
hand-built a child carrier for my 35-pound daughter to attach to my Kifaru
ruck, and I have since built a second one that works better. Why? Because I
noticed on a 12-mile hike that it did not ride quite right, and I knew I could
make it better. The better it rides me, the further I can go and the more
useful I am when I get where were going. I no longer wear hoodies with the pass
through waist pocket or leave my right lower pocket unzipped on my coats, if
I’m openly carrying in the woods, because I’ve noticed a tendency for that
little bit of material to stick out enough to catch my muzzle as I draw. How do
I know that? I know that from experience drawing in different clothes. If
somebody would have told me that, it would have made sense. However, nothing is
as good as doing it yourself to figure things out.
Thinking
I’m just going to shoot bad guys from my retreat hill top without getting on
said hilltop, with my rifle of choice and ranging stuff out and making range
cards so I KNOW I can shoot bad guys from said hilltop, is foolish at best.
Reading about how to start an IV because your kid got a gut bug and is severely
dehydrated is great. Try doing it sometime, because it’s not as easy as it
looks on YouTube. If you can’t get it, get an ER nurse to teach you, lest the
time you really need it, you cannot do it. Doing mag changes standing in your
living room watching a Die Hard 3 is better than nothing, but how about
magazine changes while lying in the mud or snow? Or while running? Or after a
max set of pullups? Better yet while your buddy throws a bucket of sand or mud
on your face?
Train
with your gear on that you plan to use! A popular movement now is the
IPSC-style shooting. Running from obstacle to obstacle, shooting around stuff,
under stuff, and so on is great, right? Aside from the fact that there are some
incredible shooters doing these events, let’s look at it in terms of combat
patrolling, climbing up mountains or buildings, crossing rivers, and riding
horses and four-wheelers, while snowshoeing, and so on: Do you plan to put on a
belt that pushes your mags and pistol 2″ out from your body with no form of
retention other than friction? What happens when you put on a chest rig for
that AR you plan on carrying? What about the body armor and plates you plan on
putting on before you hike to your retreat? What about putting on a ruck with
all your gear to get from A to B? While not trying to take away any value from
IPSC events, I want you to train how you plan to fight. I love friction
retention mag holders, for the SPEED and simplicity. Would I jump out of a
plane, rappel a cliff, or cross a raging river with such a device? Let me see…
No way. Would you? I really like the buckle on my drop holster right in front
of my thigh, right until I lay down and it makes more noise than needed by
hitting/scraping the floor. So, I move the buckle more to the inside of my
thigh and I use retention mag pouches. Is it slower, yes, but they are always
there.
Do I
like all my gear on my waist? Of course. Well the waist belt on my ruck doesn’t
do much good if it has to go around a pistol, three mags, a flashlight, and a
knife. Not too long ago, in the Marine Corps as a Scout Sniper, I never used a
waist belt with a very heavy ruck at times, just so I could dump that thing
faster than a hot potato, if need be. Now I’m not so tough, and my scapula’s
hurt from all that abuse, so I use a waist belt most of the time. Other gear is
adjusted accordingly. Occasionally, in getting off my rear and putting my gear
on, I find the shortcomings in both my setup and my training, so I know what to
adjust and/or practice more.
You
must also continually train. This may be hard to do, but I think of all the
times I have sat on my rear and watched a movie when I could have been
training, even in a small way. What a waste. People often think that the
military’s special forces are just super human and have so much cool gear that
they can’t help but be awesome. Not really, they just train more than the
conventional military. Training will make you learn what works and what does
not. Head knowledge is nothing, if you have not tested and proven it.
Put
the big three together and you will be better at killing the enemy and
protecting the good people– family or not, whomever that may be. A fit, trained
guy scared of dying is worth little when the going gets rough. A mentally
prepared fit guy with no training is worth a little more. A mentally prepared,
trained, fit guy or gal is priceless. Remember though, just because you train
hard and prepare does not mean you won’t end up crawling through a ditch
holding your bowels in with your foot blown off and no ammo left. However, you
still have a knife that will take one more evil guy out, right?
A
sidebar
As I
mentioned earlier, I would return to a certain point about the so called
“tough” guys in the Marines I dealt with. They were pansies, thugs, disgraces
to the real fighters. Sure, not everybody was a motivated fearless fighter, but
at least some did not run from trouble. Remember, that Nazi storm troopers or
typical thugs are tough when the odds are in their favor. One thug by his
lonesome is going to try to blend in, so he can live another day. He is not
likely so dedicated to his cause that he is willing to die for it. A perfect
example of this mindset, politics aside, is the Bundy Ranch incident. All the
BLM guys were real tough and aggressive until they were massively outnumbered.
All of a sudden a bunch of guys “just doing their jobs” were not so anxious to
do their jobs any more. Currently, we have SWAT teams taking down one man in
one house with MRAPs and 20 officers. If they know the guy is a potential
fighter, they up that significantly, like in Waco Texas. I am not using these
examples to encourage anything lawless but rather to demonstrate the very
common lack of combat mindset that individuals have.
From the Survival Blog
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