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Physical Preparation--How to Survive When Your Gear Doesn't, by T. Davies
There is a lot of information online and in print about what gear
to have on hand if the worst happens, tons and tons about how to store food,
fuel, etc. There is even a plethora of information on how to get food and
build shelter in the extremes. All of this leaves out some crucial elements.
In this article you are going to see how to prepare your body and
mind for
working without equipment in adverse or even brutal conditions. the steps
involved are extremely labour intensive. What you do with it is up to you.
If you are out hunting and home base catches fire, will you be able to get
to a location suitable for shelter in a reasonable amount of time? If everything
goes wrong and your supply caches are gone, the fuel stores have burned and
the damned jeep is toast, is your body in the kind of shape it needs to be
in to survive? If you are confronted by an attacker and your ammo is long gone,
can you win in hand to hand?
Even the basics, like walking for a full day, are beyond most people in North
America. This isn't a natural condition, and is not true in most of the world.
In the highlands of Papua New Guinea a native will still walk a full day with
a spear sticking through his leg if conditions require it. In the plains of
Africa it is not uncommon for a tribesman to run a hundred kilometers in a
day. This level of survival is available to anyone if they simply take the
steps and do the work to build it.
A good place to start is with walking. People think that walking requires good
shoes or boots. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some form of light
foot covering such as a moccasin is useful but not necessary and most of the
walking footwear out there will actually get in your way over long distances.
Your feet are built with natural springs in the form of the muscle in the arch
of the foot, most footwear destroys that muscle by giving constant support
for the arch. Your feet are also supposed to bend at the toes, most footwear
restricts movement through the toes. Then there is ankle support. In rough
terrain your ankles are supposed to constantly modify their angle in order
to maximize your footing, string ankle support actually prevents your ankles
from being able to do their job. Finally we come to padding. Padding in shoes
is supposed to cushion you from shocks. It actually does the exact opposite,
providing no protection for impacts above 5 psi while preventing the bodies
natural feedback mechanisms from reporting the true strength of your impact.
Put another way, wearing those expensive hiking shoes can really mess up your
legs over any kind of real distance. As stated above, simple moccasins are
great as they offer a degree of protection to you feet, but they do lack durability.
Other options include Nike Free's (the cross trainers are not as good from
the foot health perspective but are much better than a normal shoe and will
last a very long time). Alternatively, Parade boots have no padding at all
and as such are better than hiking boots and last almost forever, while being
very cheap from most surplus stores. Of course, barefoot is ideal and your
feet will toughen up over time. Any of the walking options mentioned above
will take a lot of getting used to. If you are unused to walking with this
kind of footwear, you should start to practice now. The first few days will
cause you pain in areas that are unfamiliar. After a few days the pain will
mitigate and you will be able to walk faster than you were able to before,
but you still won't have much in the way of arch muscle so anytime you push
it you are going to experience muscle fatigue. Push yourself, but keep in mind
that if you push too hard you will injure the muscle and be in worse shape
than before you started. It can take quite a long time for a muscle that hasn't
really been used since early childhood to develop, so be patient with it.
Running would be the next spot. Again, footwear has all of the same problem
associated with it as it does in walking, plus there are some thing you will
probably need to unlearn before you can be an effective runner. When you run,
you should never touch the heels of your feet to the ground. The pattern is
toes to ball or mid-foot, use the toes to launch again (this requires very
developed foot arch muscles). Running on your heels means that the impact if
transferring
to your knees, causing minute damage with each step. The accumulation of that
damage will increase your odds of a serious knee injury, usually within the
first your of running. In a true survival situation your legs are your best
friends, treat them with kindness and respect and they will outlast any vehicle,
cover terrain that even a horse can't touch and keep you going when everything
else has failed. Breathing is another aspect of running. If you have ever done
track, odds are good you were taught how to breathe. Unfortunately you were
taught wrong. When you run you should breathe exclusively through your nose.
There will be a strong temptation to breathe out through your mouth (after
all, that is what we were all taught). The problem with that is twofold. One,
it rapidly expels all the Carbon Dioxide in your blood. This seems like a good
idea, but in reality we require a small CO2 reserve to allow us to properly
absorb oxygen. Without that reserve, you are simply making your body operate
with less oxygen than it should have. Two, mucus. This sound fairly unpleasant,
but mucus exists in our body for very good reason. In this case it helps to
lubricate the nasal passages, but needs strong out breaths to flow properly.
If you try running on a cold day, you will notice that for the first few minutes
every in breathe through the nasal passages hurts, but once the mucus is being
pumped properly the pain goes away. There is one other benefit of nasal breathing:
many asthmatics who have tried it have found that they become asymptomatic
and remain so. There is no real research on this, so these are purely anecdotal
accounts, however the sheer volume of them is fairly persuasive.
So now you can walk somewhere and run if you need to put on a burst of speed.
This is where the advanced stuff comes in. Parkour is a discipline that was
created in France in the late eighties by a man named David Belle. Parkour
is essentially the art of running
away really fast in places that your pursuer probably can't follow. The
best info on parkour will come from local communities, but barring that, the
Parkour.net web site is
a great resource. [JWR Adds: This
video clip and this
one of the notorious "Ninja For Hire" show the more extreme aspects
of the art. Disclaimer: Kids, Do not try this at home! Their interpretation of the "art" seems foolhardy, especially engaging in practice jumping without at least wearing a rock climbing helmet!] What follows is more
of a brief summary
of
the
training
and methodologies
involved.
A huge part of Parkour is the idea of gradual progression. When you begin
training you should practice landing as much as you can. Go to a flight
of stairs and
go up one step. Turn and face the bottom of the stairs and then jump off.
When you jump, lift your legs as high as you can in front of you, and then
bring
them down so that they are almost straight (just a slight bend in the knees)
and point your toes. Your feet should be a little more than shoulder width
apart. Land on your toes, spreading the impact across all of them. As the
impact starts to hit, bend your feet until you hit the balls of your feet,
resisting
with your foot muscles. Then start to sink down using your thigh muscles,
while resisting as much as you can. You should end with your hands on the
ground,
between your feet. Listen to your landing, it should be almost silent. Once
you can do that perfectly a hundred times, move up to the next step and start
the process again. There is no point where you are finished training how
to land, practitioners of parkour who have been doing it from the start
still
train how to land every day. That is fairly typical of parkour training,
intensive repetition combined with conditioning and incremental improvement.
The key
skills are: landing, rolling, vaulting, climbing, jumping, and running. Parkour
can save your life in literally hundreds of situations, from extracting yourself
from a burning building (the creator was a fire fighter in France) to escaping
pursuit, but it isn't a casual discipline and requires a very high degree
of commitment.
Swimming is another skill that every survivalist should have. For swimming,
it is probably enough to be able to cover a lot of distance although the
stronger a swimmer you are, the better.
Finally there is unarmed combat. While parkour can keep you out of most situations
involving hand to hand combat, there may come a time where it is needed (either
because you are unable to formulate an escape route, or if you are diligent
with parkour more likely because you are protecting a loved one who is unable
to escape). Obviously there are many, many styles of martial art, and many
factors as to which one is going to suit you best.
Karate is the classic martial art, because it was really the first one that
western audiences had a large exposure to, but that doesn't mean it is the
right one for you. Karate is highly focused on Katas [(choreographed sequences
of footwork, kicks, strikes, and blocks)] and improvement can be slow, while
many believe that Katas are actually detrimental to your
ability
to win a fight (Bruce Lee was among those who believed this.) Having said
that, many people find the rigid discipline of Karate valuable, and it does
leave
you far better equipped in a fight than an untrained opponent.
Tae Kwon Do is more focused on mastering very hard, very effective punches
and kicks. A Tae Kwon Do master actually kicks harder than someone of the
same skill in any other discipline. Improvement tends to be fairly rapid,
with the
average time to black belt being around 3 years at 100 lessons a year and
diligent practice. One down side of this is that physical condition is imperative,
on
the other hand diligent practice at Tae Kwon Do tends to leave you in great
shape. Body mass is also a major advantage, as it is the main source of power.
Tai Chi is not usually thought of as a martial art, but more as an exercise
for elderly Chinese people. However, Tai Chi teaches you a huge amount about
redirection of force and using spirals to create energy. Some of the most
effective fighters in the world are Tai Chi masters.
Kung Fu is actually not one style of martial art, but it is usually taught
as a single style in the west and so is being considered that way here. Kung
Fu is probably the most stylized of all the martial arts listed here, and
takes the most time to master. There is a high focus on Kata again, and a
high demand
for physical conditioning. Basically, Kung Fu is really, really hard to master.
Once you do, it is very difficult to beat. The amount of time you can dedicate
to it and your passion for the beauty of the movement should be the determining
factor in taking up this martial art.
Ninjitsu is a Japanese martial art that is very different from the rest on
this list. Ninjitsu was a peasant martial art, designed to take on opponents
who were better armed, armored and equipped in a situation where if you
were caught training with weapons you would be killed summarily. As such,
ninjitsu
is eminently practical. Kata's simply don't exist in ninjitsu and most moves
are designed around deception and redirection. Joint locks, low kicks and
nasty nerve strikes are the main weapons, as well as a thorough training
in stealth.
Aikido is an art that focuses on redirecting your opponents force and moving
them off balance. Aikido is very effective for smaller people, as it doesn't
rely on your body mass or ability to generate force at all. It uses many
of the same locks and throws as ninjitsu, but is more focused on them. Judo
is
basically a sport version of aikido and probably shouldn't be your first
choice for unarmed combat.
Jujitsu has been receiving a lot of focus lately as it is the most common
martial art in modern mixed martial arts competitions. It is focused primarily
on grappling. A really good jujitsu fighter can beat most other styles if
they can get the fight to the ground, but there is inherent risk associated
with the process of getting someone to the ground. That is why most Jujitsu
fighters cross train at least one striking martial art as well.
There are many, many other styles out there (Capoeira, Savate, Kick boxing,
Muay thai, Escrima, Krav-maga, Jeet kun-do, etc.) each of which has its own
specialties. The one to take is a very individual choice but all require
dedication and focus. Parkour and Tai Chi seem to be a common combination,
although Parkour
tends to magnify your abilities in any martial art due to the simple physical
awareness and athleticism it imparts.
Of course, strength training is important for any and all physical routines
(for Parkour a strict body weight routine is strongly encouraged) and
the more cardio you do the better your endurance will be.
In the end, the only tool you can't lose is your own body so it makes sense
to keep that tool in as good a condition - T. Davies
JWR Adds: I do not recommend the "foot toughening" approach and/or wearing minimalist foot gear that lack thick soles and arch support--such as moccasins or ninja tabi--for preparedness. Note that this foot gear would be mutually exclusive with Parkour, which requires foot protection. It is also out of the question for anyone living in an area with long-spined cacti (such as Cholla), or for anyone that might ever have to do any karst climbing or reef walking. Foot toughening also requires a commitment of time and a level of training dedication that few adults can afford. You will note, for example that barefoot competitive runners are few and far between. ]
