Month: May 2012

10 less common “static” position holds to work on.

1. Hold the up position of the pull up movement and as you do switch hand positions without going up or down ( note how you need to actively switch the tension in the entire body to support the mass and consider how this can be done with less force)
2. Go down to a half squat with upper body perpendicular to the earth and walk forward backwards and in circles (relax your eyes and shoulders and see how real strength is born)
3. Hold the bottom part of the push up movement and walk without changing height (same as in the pull up switch, allow the body to change tension lines and understand how to create it on your own or avoid it to avoid getting hurt while working with your hands)
4. Hold the bridge position and as you already guessed 🙂 walk around (expect no back injuries after this once you learn to lead the limbs from the body)
5. taking two steps away from a tree or a wall lean on it with your fingers and walk up and down (keep your fingers from bending to avoid relying just or structure)
6. considering your level of comfort and health in the matter either lean against a wall or form a bridge touching with just your head and feet and in this position tense and relax a part in your backside and then the corresponding part in your front. This is a great drill to learn how tension and impact move through our bodies.
7. Lie on the ground and raise your legs and back in the air so you touch the ground with your shoulders and neck alone. Let the breath guide your movement and sway the body to make walking on your shoulder blades easy and fun.
8. lie on your stomach and grasp your feet with your hands. Rise up to a bridge on your stomach and use your breath to rock forward and backwards and side to side. (this will give you great ability to take strikes and again allow you to move as you should from the breath outward)
9. Place both feet on a tree trunk or a wall and stay horizontal using just one arm at a time as you turn back and forth with only one upper limb touching at a time. This will allow you to do work in different angles than you are used to and to remember you have free limbs to move with and limbs to use tools with. Do not pick a tree which is comfortable to lean your feet against but something vertical so you also learn to use tension wisely throughout the body to keep moving no matter what.
10. Sit on your shins with the upper side of the feet flat on the ground and keep the body from the knees to the top of the head in the same line. Slowly lean backwards from the knees pivot and go back up using the breath to guide the pendulum movement. Make sure you avoid excess tension in the body as you load the angle on yourself and allow the breath inhale to deal with the needed extra firmness from inside.

Do this drills when you can and listen to your body and good things will happen. This is geared to the infantry men but will do good to anyone wanting to do better.

Four low tech ways to prepare for selection and deployment

The further I look back at my military history the more gadgets and trinkets meant the world to me. A young skinny soldier at eighteen thought the world of this pin or that beret and considered getting a shortened M-16 the peak of comfort at the time. Later on things progressed to changing the torture devices the IDF issues you as shoes and making sawing and shaping the best vest and configuration possible. The older version has far less crutches to performance and a lot more experience to understand what is really important to getting the job done and living well in nature.
With this perspective I present you four simple cheap ways for the serving and those who plan to serve their fellow countrymen to make yourself ready to the moment when your actions will mean life and death.

1. Many cultures prepared their young for adult life with some variation of a spirit quest. The form I experienced was very simple in formula. Three days in nature with no sleeping, no eating and drinking and all the time you do something from making fires at night to preparing tools and tracking animals during the day. This can be dangerous as people do drop during this trial and the subconscious does surface to some degree (on the fourth day the barrier is broken between the folds ) and here comes one of the hidden parts of this trial. You must find and organize people friends or family to look over you and you need to do the same in turn. Civilians forget the military is team work and there is no better time to start working on that than right now.
The time spend during the spirit quest or however you want to call it will give you a much better control over your senses and deciding what is true and what is just in your head. You will meet some of your demons and as you have to keep working during this time you will either learn an important lesson for the next time or release a lot of misconceptions on your limits bodily mentally and emotionally.
2. Everyone has a few minutes a day to himself. A parent can do this drill while cradling his first born and a kid can do this under the house for a few minutes just before coming home from school. The drill is again simple in formula. You have only two rules. A you keep moving all the time and B you must take X steps per X minutes you have time right now.
Yes, you take one step per minute and you have to keep moving the entire time. This translates to slow motion walking and the benefits start manifesting from the first time you take time for yourself. Awareness to your own movement will rise and the impact you force on your body as you fall from leg to leg will clean out of your system. You will find yourself making less and less noise and your feet will wake up to the surface you are on and you will have less and less bumps and bruises on your toes and legs from going here and there. Another side of this drill is stalking proficiency and again here you will need friend or partners to work with.
We start with just listening as one partner faces away from the stalker and turns only when you hear or feel some movement. Progress to facing the stalker in open ground and calling out the movement only when it breaks the lines of the surface (breaking the surface of a shaded building or coming out of a curve in the ground before the watcher) Progress to moving in nature and using any way to move silently toward the watcher and again this is something you can do from time to time but everyday you can take a few minutes to hone your skill and awareness. No one can do this for you and the subtlety of what this will give you will reveal itself over years and years.
3. Movies are shot during the day and illuminated by night but real work and most of your training will take place during nighttime. Building your ability to work at night will affect your everyday life and allow you to progress where others falter. We start by not turning on the light every time you go to get something from the fridge or when you go down to take out the trash. Slowly and with care you can progress to orienting yourself in dark buildings and in nature using friends and partners to play hide and seek without the use of light. A small and fun trick in this drill is to wear sunglasses during night time games and turning the lights on and off by a partner in the game to see how you fare in the ever changing game of life.
4. The worst time to learn to handle yourself well is when the bullets are flying overhead or when your brother in arms is screaming from a puncture wound in his privates. One of the best educations to your knowledge and to your nervous systems is to give from your time at the local hospital or any of it’s equivalents. Take time and volunteer in the local emergency room. Scrap up the human waste from the floor and help to hold down the crazed drug addict after a long boring shift. Death, injury and fear are a part of everyone’s world. Be the warrior and come up to meet them and make the world a better place for yourself and everyone around. You.
Nothing I write here is new nor is it very high tech or glamorous in any way. Being the guy or girl who walks into the fire to save those who cannot help themselves or the shooter who lies waiting for days to stop the terrorist on his way to the school bus isn’t glamorous either but being on this site and reading these articles I think I am communicating with the few who find the beauty being a good human being and serving with the best.

Stay safe
Stay low
don’t forget to smile
When your face relaxes you shoot better

Three simple drills for calmness and precision

Three simple drills for calmness and precision

1. Do something brief but taxing such as sprinting up a short hill or climbing a rope. Stop and pay attention to your breathing and to your pulse. If you cannot feel the pulse press your hand to the side of your throat or ribs and repeat the drill until you can feel the pulse in the entire body as you listen to your body calming down and as you progress add delicate work such as throwing a small stone into a paper cup or drawing what is in front of you after a brief glance.
2. Take a normal breath and slowly exhale as you perform something repetitive such as walking, push ups or peeling potatoes. Use the same speed for your work until you cannot exhale no more and then continue for a little while as you again listen to your pulse. Work on the freedom you have to act rather than react to bodily fear but respect the fear. Neglecting attention to any part of you will not be wise in the long run.
3. Lie on the ground face down with your limbs spread to the sides. Tense toward the edges of your limbs with the intent of moving your limbs forward without focusing on the resistance. Hold this for a few breaths and repeat as you face up to get to know your tension better. There is a lot to gain in working toward what we perceive as impossible. Remember no one knows how to walk coming out of the womb even though you already have the tools to accomplish the task.
A. Paying attention as you continue to act
B. Release the habit of reaction and be free
C. Work to clean the perception of the world so you can see things as they are.
Always keep working. Your daily work need not be long or hard but to it must be.