I actually did get quite a bit of reading done in the last week. I’ve been going to bed early lately, and spending an hour or so each night reading, before falling asleep. Typically, this is while the wife is in the living room watching her nightly movie, and the children are all snug, sleeping peacefully in their beds, so it’s my second quiet period of the day (the first is in the morning, when I get up, in the ten minutes I get before the oldest kid gets up and starts talking…). 1) The Straight Left…and How to Cultivate It by Jim Driscoll This is a really old book, from the early 20th Century. It is considered a classic in boxing literature, written by a Featherweight Champion of the World. I had heard of it over the years, and then forgotten about it, until I found it mentioned in one of the books I mentioned recently in this series, The Straight Lead, where the author mentioned it was one of Bruce Lee’s go-to references. Since I’m a (mediocre, at best) boxer, and not a kung-fu or Jeet Kune Do guy, I decided I should go to the source material (ALWAYS go to the source material!). I’m really glad I did. Mostly, because it reinforced what I already knew, but also because he had some interesting ideas on increasing the effectiveness of the left jab. I kind of mentioned before that I’ve always felt my left jab lacked something. That having been said, it is one of my two favorite punches when actually fighting (the other is the left hook. I love the jab, because even my less than perfect jab is generally good enough to keep a dude from hitting me, and occasionally it’s been a fight ender all by itself. Apparently, some people don’t much care for the sight of their own blood, and when you smear their nose across their face, they tend to bleed, and decide maybe it’s not worth the effort after all. I love the left hook because, if my jab doesn’t stop a dude, my usual alternative is to simply crash to the clinch, and start popping hooks into the floating ribs, liver, and kidney. Even tough guys generally decide after one or two of those, to drop their arm to protect it, leaving the side of the head and neck wide open. I’m one of the few people I know who has never won a fight with a straight right. I’ve won quite a few fights with the left jab and left hook. The rest of my unarmed fights that I won usually involved grappling to a choke, or just staying alive until a buddy jumped in to help (my preferred method when I HAVE to get into an unarmed fight…). I also mentioned, I’ve been doing a lot of solo work to improve my jab. My protocol, thus far, has been really focusing on it on the heavy bag, and—unlike traditional boxers—a lot of time on the makiwara board, dialing in the angles of hitting solid, with my left. I find the makiwara does a lot of good, for me, in forcing me to tighten up at the right moment in the punch, and finding my actual, optimal bare-knuckle range for the strike. This book gave me a couple other ideas to incorporate. Definitely recommended. Additional bonus is, it’s a reprint of an old book, so it’s dirt cheap on Amazon. 2) Bye-Bye Miss American Empire by Bill Kaufman I’ve read a number of articles, over the years, by Mr. Kaufman, and while he and I are certainly not in the same place politically, we are at least in the same place in regard to localization and, for lack of a better word, personal secession. This was a really good introduction to a number of secessionist movements currently active in the United States, ranging from The Vermont Republic, and the Republic of Texas, to the State of Jefferson, and the League of the South. In addition to a general overview of the beliefs and goals of some of these organizations (some of which I was already familiar with), he did a good job of going into the history of some of them, which was particularly interesting. He also made the very valid point that, while formal, state political secession (seriously. I live in the South. On our mountain alone, 17 of the 20 houses fly one of the flags of the Confederacy—and yes, ours is one of the 3 that doesn’t—but every single one is also flying the federal colors. Reconstruction succeeded far more than most people, even in the South, realize) is still probably not particularly realistic, the idea at least has become increasingly mainstream. I’m not particularly enamored of formal secession movements, because I’m focused far more locally than they tend to be (seriously, even living in the South, on our mountain, we have a lot less in common with residents of say, Atlanta or Nashville, than we do with residents of the Allegheny Mountains in New York, or the folks living way out at the end of the dirt roads in the wood of Maine. That having been said, considering the increasing Balkanization of the United States, if there is a local secession movement that has a mission statement that shares your tribal values, it might be worth looking into. Recommended 3) What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength by Scott Carney My buddy Greg Hamilton, up in Washington, started doing ice baths this winter past, in the vein of the methods utilized by Wim Hof. I’d heard of Mr. Hof previously, and read a little bit about him. I’ve had this book on my shelves for the better part of a year, and kept meaning to read it, since Carney did a lot of studying with Hof, which is what the book is mostly about. When I noticed Greg talking about his experiences, I decided to finally break down and read the book. Now, I finally got around to it. It’s a really good narrative of Carney’s experiences, as well as the science behind why the methods seem to work. One of the interesting things I’ve been meditating on a lot is the failure of many, otherwise incredibly intelligence people, to differentiate between the religion of Science, and the process of science (science, the process, is the use of the scientific method, to test a hypothesis, resulting in observable phenomena. If you “believe” in something, because some “priest” in a white lab coat told you HE/SHE observed phenomena, that’s not science. That’s religion. That’s Science. It’s also extremely, disturbingly anti-scientific) There are a LOT of things that happen in the world that science cannot explain. It may, in the future be able to, but currently, cannot. To believers in Science however, if science cannot explain it, it can’t be real. Whether they label it a fraud, or choose to ignore it, it doesn’t fit in the current dogma of their selected religion, then it simply isn’t real. This is—indirectly—discussed a little bit in Carney’s book, when he points out that a lot of scientists and doctors insisted that Hof’s methods couldn’t possibly be achieving the results he was claiming, because said results were impossible. Yet, when he volunteered to be a lab rat, they found he was achieving them. More importantly, even some of his students, only exposed to his methods for short durations, were also able to replicate the results. It has interested me enough to start planning on trying some of his methods myself. Recommended. 4) Breakthrough Marksmanship by Ben Stoeger I own, and have read, every book Stoeger has written on shooting. I’ve gotten a LOT of practical benefit out of studying his methods and adapting them to my needs as a pistol shooter (and, for that matter, as a rifle shooter as well). This book goes back to the basics. It’s not just a series of drills like a couple of his books are, but a focus on the fundamental techniques of shooting fast and accurately. I will admit, I didn’t learn anything new from this book. Everything he talked about, I discussed in The Guerrilla Gunfighter I: Clandestine Carry Pistol. I am still glad I supported an author that has done a lot for the advancement of shooting technique, and I recommend you buy his book as well, for the same reason, whether you have or have not bought my book (although I will point out, my book covers a lot more than just how to shoot fast and accurately. It also spends a lot of time making the point that you need to know WHEN to shoot, and WHO to shoot…WHOM?) Continue reading...
