#1 Tip for Survival

The folks at Proper Survival asked what my #1 tip for survival was. Here is the answer.

My number #1 tip is to get into shape.

We could go into the weeds of my beliefs or different fitness plans but the endstate is to 1) be able to move on foot light (probably jogging/ running) and while carrying a load for reasonable distances. 2) Be able to lift heavy things. 3) Be able to move your body with individual equipment (fighting load) over and around obstacles. Training should generally mirror these endstates. While I didn't discuss appearance as it doesn't matter (function matters, incidentally it also drives form/ appearance) it's pretty much impossible to succeed by any reasonable measure at #1 and #3 without being at or close to a healthy body weight. 

Crossfit Panda Muscle Ups

This little panda that does muscle ups is too ridiculous not to share.

5 Systemic Mistakes in Survivalism

These mistakes are not universal but I think are widespread and should be addressed.

1) Lack of Physical Fitness. This should not come as a surprise. Some seriously prepared individuals with awesome skills and massive logistics are in pathetic shape. Some famous folks in survivalism would almost surely die if anything actually happened because they cannot do anything physical. I can't say what will take them out but something sure will. It might be walking to the neighbors and coming home with a bag of potatoes, or trying to do farm chores without a truck, tractor, chainsaw, wood splitter, power tools, etc all or maybe not being able to move their body and equipment during a fight or for some other reason. However to think they can fight or live an independent 19th century lifestyle is laughable.

For the sake of this article I don't care what type of exercise plan you have. Be able to move your body and some stuff quickly or for a long time and be able to lift stuff. Get to a reasonably healthy body weight. Enough beating that dead horse.

2) Overindulging in hobbies. Some folks like to sew, others like to garden, many like to shoot guns. The problem comes when we put too much of our preparedness money into our (even useful) hobbies. The woman with 12 sewing machines and a room full of stuff that doesn't have enough food or a gun is one example. On the other end is Mr Joe Survivalist with thousands of dollars in guns,  2 cases of MRE's and a little hotel sewing kit. I recall a guy who had multiple "shtf" motorcycles. You do not need a $600 fly fishing rod to be prepared, a decent alternative could be had at 1/10th of the price. I'm not saying you should not have hobbies or spend money on them. Just don't confuse a hobby (even a useful one) with preparations. Spend hobby money on hobbies and preparedness money on preparedness.

3) Worrying too much about narrow unlikely scenarios. Lots of things MAY happen but putting some energy and resources into ones that are a lot more likely to happen. Cough savings cough medical insurance cough.

4) Overconfidence and lack of training. Few people happen to come into survivalism with every useful skill yet for some reason people think they can fill those gaps  with Bubba at the range, youtube or blogs. That we are willing to spend lots of money on stuff but as a group have little interest in spending money to learn to use that stuff puzzles me.

Maybe it's that cool gadgets are tangible as well as cool. It could be admitting they need to improve or learn a skill does not sit well with many self styled rugged individualists. Everyone has unique skill sets and thus different gaps in the proverbial wire. Someone might need to improve a tactical skill set or learn wilderness survival or medical training or whatever. Over time and in proportion to other efforts ones skill set should be improved.

5) Not using the stuff they have. Gear should be trained with to get used to it and figure out how to make it work. Equipment should be tested. Little accessories and such will be identified during the course of this. Stuff needs to be tested as even good companies make a lemon now and then. Better to figure out your knife/ gun/ radio/ generator/ water filter/ whatever doesn't work on a lazy Sunday when you are testing it than when you need it to save your life.

Well there it is. If these apply to you do something about it. Otherwise feel free to disregard. Thoughts?

Quote of the Day and Fitness Reminder

"The most important thing you can do as a patriot in this country is get your butt in shape"
-David AKA SouthernPrepper1

People grossly underestimate the physical demands of combat and true 18th- 19th century living. No going to a cool guy class on a flat 25 meter range or having a few chickens and a small garden are not just about the same thing. Cutting your own wood with a chainsaw, hauling it in a truck then splitting it with a hydraulic splitter is not the same thing.

This serious mistake is compounded by the fact that fitness is a genuine slow cooker concept. Think of it like cooking with a crock pot. If dinner isn't in by 10 you aren't eating it at 6. It takes hours and there is no crank the oven up to 500 and cut off the burned parts option. Should you mess up and stick it into the oven at 2 dinner will be at 10pm. There is just no way around it.

Key to crock pots and physical fitness are patience. That chicken is going to take hours to go from frozen to wonderfully cooked. You didn't get into whatever condition you are currently in overnight and you won't get out of it overnight either. It's going to take between a couple months and a year or two depending on where you are and where you want to go with the variable of how much you are willing/ able to work in the middle. Obviously going from a morbidly obese couch potato to the fitness level of a collegiate athlete or JSOC Jedi will take a really like time. For a reasonably healthy person ditching a 20 pound spare tire, building up to running a decent 5k/ road marching a decent 10k and putting on some muscle might be more of a 4 month thing. 

The point is to get started now.

Food and Fitness

Too many folks are doing a lot of reading and blogging and discussing but not enough DOING.

Food and fitness are the two primary areas people tend to fail in at the most basic level. For goodness sake do something to improve your situation.

Food is easy. We could go at it from a lot of angles but at the most basic level just buy a little bit more of the stuff you regularly eat on each shopping trip. I am talking about shelf stable stuff like dried pasta and sauce, beans, rice, pancake mix, Bisquick, peanut butter and jelly and various canned goods. We will touch on money later but if you can't manage to squeeze five or ten bucks of extra stuff into the budget per shopping trip I recommend looking at your life. If you have some more money and want to stash away some canned staples or emergency food then all the better. I care less how you do it so long as you are doing it. The point is simply that you need to be putting back food in case something happens that disrupts the supply chain.

Fitness is something way too many folks miss. I split off my fitness efforts into another blog because folks would rather talk about other things here. How folks think the world is going to collapse and they are going to be doing all this stuff but lack of fitness will not come into play baffles me. There are way more situations where you will need fitness than cool rifles and emergency food. Sort of like food getting started in any way is a good thing. Eat a bit better and do more exercise. Lift and run or do crossfit, man aerobics or whatever. Heck just go for walks. Doing anything will improve your situation.

In the context we are talking about finances are not that hard either. Avoid debt for obvious reasons. Do some thinking and educate yourself about what is happening and historical comparisons. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by FerFal is a bit pricey but has some great info. It's writer has actually lived through an economic collapse which is a lot more than most other folks can say. 
If you have some money that isn't doing anything right now you might want to think about what to do with it. Putting a portion of it into precious metals and emergency food could be a good way to go. 

It is easy to put too much money into firearms.  Most guys who are into preparedness like guns and it's easy to get canalized into stuff one likes. However if you are objectively short on .38 ammo for the nightstand revolver or buckshot for the scatter gun then do something about it. I like a lot of ammo but even the tightest budget will let you put back at least a couple hundred rounds per gun with a bit of dedication and some planning.


Get out and do something! Exercise and stash some food. Look at your money situation and if you need it some ammo. The bottom line is that unless your butt and gut are getting smaller and the pantry is getting filled you are not actually becoming more prepared. A little bit of knowledge put into action is a whole lot better than a bunch of knowledge which you do nothing with.

Fitness Conversation is Migrating

My various ramblings on fitness will now be conducted at Work Out Plan. Also I will keep track of workouts and various other fitness metrics there. It is going to be apolitical and entirely fitness oriented. The only real overlap with this blog, aside from the schmo who writes both, will be that it is my take on preparing yourself physically for all manner of challenges that life as a soldier or potentially a survivalist or guerrilla could include.

The format will be regular posts of exercise I have conducted and intermittent ramblings on philosophies of fitness, setting up a program and tips/ tricks. I will not spend much time there to be honest just enough to jot down whatever happened that day and occasionally some writing so please do not expect anything huge.

Figured you all might want to know. Go there if you want or not.

My Gut is Telling Me

1) Store food. Lots and lots of food.

2) Develop skills to do things for myself and to trade with others.

3) Fill in the little holes in our systems. This ranges from a $40 sling that makes a $1,000 gun functional to yeast that will help turn flour into bread or little pieces of kit to make rough living more comfortable.

4) Address deficiencies in my weapons handling/ defensive/ tactical training.

5) Get into the best shape of my life.

I don't know what any of it means or where it came from though most of it makes sense.

Debate Workout Game

I will be watching the debates because they are sort of interesting. Also the Joe 'Drunken Gaff-master" Biden and Paul Ryan should be funny. Since it is happening at about my usual workout time I am going to turn this into a workout. Sort of like a drinking game except good for you.

The rules:
Basics
-Joe Biden appears obviously under the influence of drugs or alcohol: 10 burpies
-Either the President Barrack Obama or Mitt Romney's names are mentioned: 5 pushups
-Obamacare is mentioned: 5 situps
-Social Security, medicare or medicaid are mentioned: 5 burpies
-The word economy is mentioned: 5 incline pushups (feet on coffee table)
- The word Terrorism or a direct reference to 9/11 or the recent attacks in Libya are mentioned: 10 situps

Person specific:
-Paul Ryan mentions Ronald Regan: 5 wide arm pushups
-Paul Ryan mentions balancing the budget: 5 leg lifts

-Joe Biden rambles incoherently: 5 close hand pushups
-Joe Biden talks about how Republicans hate seniors and plan to kill them off: 5 (4 count) fluter kicks

This should make for a decent muscular endurance/ core session.

Edited to include: Immediate realizations.

Will not 'owe' exercises so if I am still doing one and another is mentioned it will not count.

Obvious additions: 5 pushups for OBL, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thoughts and Mosby on Physical Fitness

John Mosby wrote about physical fitness awhile back. He starts with a great quote "It's gotta be a man thing. Every guy I know thinks he's in shape. It doesn't matter if he weighs 245, with 27% bodyfat, and the only "athletic" activity in his life is performing 12oz curls while watching NASCAR, motherfucker is convinced he's an Olympic-caliber athlete." 

Please read his post in it's entirety before continuing.

Two sayings guide my thoughts on physical fitness: "There is no such thing as being too strong, only too slow" and "I don't want  to be the biggest guy, the strongest guy or the fastest guy, but I want to be big and strong and fast." 

Now onto some fundamental thoughts:

On General Physical Preparation vs Sport (or whatever) specific training. If you want to be in shape you will lift heavy things, move your body and do vigorous cardiovascular activity with some core and flexibility stuff to protect you and eat well.  This is the same for a guy who just wants to be healthy, a kid trying to perform better at a sport, a soldier who wants to be fit, whatever.

Aside from the same basic playbook everybody who wants to be healthy and athletic should use there are of course considerations for your specific goals. A runner needs to train towards their goals. A football player probably wants to get big/ strong and capable of short bursts of speed. A wrestler or MMA guy wants to be strong, but not necessarily bigger with a ridiculous cardio base. For each of these goals slightly different training is required. However it is a lot less different than you would think. The football player and wrestler should both lift heavy but football boy should be eating more (to grow) and doing lots of sprints while the wrestler will eat less (to not grow too much) and do more longer duration cardio.

Think of it like a bread recipe. To make any basic bread you will need yeast, flour, salt and some other stuff. One recipe might use all wheat flour and another some white, you may or may not add honey, cinnamon or raisins depending on if it is a breakfast bread or whatever. My point (and I know it is an over simplification of baking) is that things do not really change all that much. A little tweak will get the results you need without messing up the whole thing. Adding a dozen eggs or omitting a key ingredient like flour will just result in a big nasty mess.

Also it is worth briefly revisiting the concept of a point of diminished returns. This is a point in time/ place where you will either get less progress out of something, or the progress is less meaningful.

This is significant because we only have so much time. If we choose to free up 10 hours a week to exercise it is important to use them intelligently. Putting lots of time into improving a capability that is already past the threshold of practical utility does not make sense. For example, it is highly unlikely that the difference between a 45 minute 10k and a 40 minute 10k or the difference between a 500 pound dead lift and a 600 pound dead lift will really matter. The skinny runner guy probably needs to put some energy into other things and so does the gym rat.  

To some specific thoughts on John Mosby's post.

When it comes to finding time to work out it is just like anything else, you make choices. To get off work and spend a couple hours at the bar, have dinner and watch TV until it is time to go to sleep is a choice. Spending 4 hours a day on the internet is a choice. You get the drift. Also it helps to come at the problem from a positive standpoint "I am going to work out 4x a week, when does it best fit into my life?" than a negative one "I am too busy to work out."

I do not disagree that absolute strength (the sheer ability to move a given amount of weight) is important but do think relative strength (strength to weight) is important. I think it is important for a couple of reasons.

Strength to weight is what lets you move yourself and your body. If you can chin 200 pounds but weigh 250 you are sucking. If you can chin 200 but weight 150 that means you have a decent shot at getting your body, armor, kit and weapon over obstacles.

It also has value as a way to assess ourselves (and develop group standards). Relative strength lets you more accurately measure strength and develop meaningful standards than absolute strength. A guy who weighs 150 pounds that presses 275 and squats 375 is pretty much jacked while a 200 pound dude who does the same is kind of average (for a guy who lifts) and a 250 pounder who does the same is behind the power curve. Conversely if you use absolute strength to develop standards it just doesn't work. Our 150 pound dude could be a serious competitive power lifter and not meet the sort of standards that average lifters in any gym 40-60+ pounds heavier can do with ease.

Personally I see 3 reasons to do isolated single joint type exercises. The first is body building. As a brief sidebar body builders lift weights, typically doing lots of isolated single joint exercises to develop their physiques to have bigger more shapely muscles. Olympic and power lifters lift weights to get stronger on a given set of lifts. Body building is all about show and power lifting (or oly) is all about the go. Body building is not particularly useful in terms of performance (Though a body builder is going to be much stronger than most folks simply because he actually lifts weights regularly, even if it is in pursuit of a given look instead of performance.) and I see no reason to discuss it further.

The second is rehab/ prehab. If doing a circuit of shoulder exercises lets you stay in the gym then doing them is a no brainer. Ditto for other body parts (typically knees). Also one could make a good case for training areas like the neck which are prone to injury. Sometimes, especially if you are lifting heavy and have old injuries, it is smart to get ahead of these things and do them before you have a serious injury AKA prehab. The last  reason to do isolated single joint exercises is to support or aid in the big exercises. Maybe you hit a wall on bench press so you start doing tricep extensions or shrugs to help with the lock out on dead lift or whatever.

It is still important to keep the small exercises in their place. Jim Wendler who is well, really big and strong, has a saying "majoring in the minors" about folks who give too much attention to the far less important little lifts. You do not get big and strong by doing reverse cable tricep extensions and calf raises; you get big and strong by pressing and squatting.

 As to farm work for fitness John pretty much nails it. If you do a serious physical job (I'm talking stone mason, blacksmith, laborer who lifts heavy things all day, etc) then maybe less effort needs to be devoted to strength but it is still not an end point in fitness.

Some closing thoughts:

Start slow and easy then build up progressively in terms of speed/load/distance. You didn't get fat and out of shape in a day so don't expect to fix it in a day either. Exercise should be challenging but there is a fine line between hard and stupid. Trying to run or ruck 50 miles this month when you haven't covered that distance in the last 6 months would be stupid. Going from 0 to running/ rucking 20 miles this month, 30 the next, 40 the one after that and 50 the month after that would be hard but probably doable.

For folks with lingering injuries or who are just plain old or whatever I think it is important to really be honest with yourself and consult doctors or physical therapists as needed. My first question is often about body weight. Your body is meant to haul itself around at or around a healthy body weight. If you are 60 pounds over weight and have a back, knee, ankle or foot problem getting to a healthy weight will go a long way towards fixing it. Also there may be something in terms of physical therapy/ rehabilitation to get things back to the point where you can really exercise again.

If getting to a healthy weight and rehab will not fix a problem then learn to deal with it. Work right up to the level of what you cannot do. If shoulder injuries make bench press not an option work out with dumbbells. If you cannot ruck with 60 pounds then do it with 55 pounds. If you cannot run then find a huge hill to hike up. The point is not to say "well I can't work out" and turn into Jabba the Hut.

Anyway those are my thoughts on that.

Oh yeah and I am 15.5 miles into this month's due. A bit behind glide path but not unfixable. This week I have ran 7.5 and rucked 3 so far. In the rest of the week I will probably ruck 6 more and run 3-4 more. A rough week but it will get me back to where I need to be. Also as my capacity has increased this becomes a lot more doable. I am kind of fiddling with a routine of alternating long and short ruck and run. So a week might look like long run, short ruck, break or lift, long ruck, short run. Will let you know how it works in a couple weeks if I stick with it.

Free and Low Cost Survivalist Actions

After my recent post "I can't afford to prepare" I got to thinking of ways to prepare yourself that cost little to nothing. First we will talk about free ways.

1.Physical fitness. Start a running program. Put on your ruck and do some marching. Do body weight exercises like pushups, situps, pullups, planks, dips and plunges. Lift heavy things because well, it makes you stronger and more awesome. If you cannot wrangle free access to weights (or theoretically other good heavy things) to lift I recommend that you check out Beast Skills and Convict Conditioning  (brief description, you tube channel, I have heard you can find a PDF of the book online if so inclined) for some ideas on serious body weight training.

2. Dry fire practice. Do it. Drawing your pistol, ready up drills for the rifle, mag changes and trigger squeeze drills. Somewhere awhile back John Mosby talked about this if I recall.

3. Planning. Put thought and research into things that worry you.

4. Organize your stuff. Build thought out systems to suit your needs using things you already have.

5. Cross training, If you are a skilled mechanic the other members of your group or family should be also. Same if you are an MMA guy or a competitive shooter or an ER nurse.

Revenue neutral ways to prepare. These ways are not free but are ways to get more out of things most folks already do.

1. Shooting. If I had to guess about a quarter of the US based readers of this blog shoot monthly. Probably half (50%, not half of the remainder) shoot at least quarterly. Be intentional about this shooting. Don't get me wrong dumping mag after mag into empty beer cases and such is fun. Plinking is one of my favorite things to do. However if money is tight (and probably anyway) you need to really get something out of shooting. Shoot to zero a weapon, improve or test a skill, not to destroy cheap pumpkins you got the day after Halloween. Again I have to refer you to John Mosby's excellent site for specifics, half because he talks it better than me and half because I don't feel like working hard enough on a post at this time to do the topic justice.

2. Food Storage via normal food purchasing. This takes a few bucks to get going but is definitely worth it. By purchasing THINGS YOU NORMALLY EAT in quantity when they are on good sales you can then wait until they are on sale again. Thus you can eat stuff at sale prices (almost) all the time. Also by not needing to purchase baked beans (or whatever) every week it frees up dollars to buy extra peanut butter when it is on sale. By dropping the average price of much of the food you eat it lowers the cost though that money will likely be sitting in the pantry, not the checking account. You can eat better and increase food storage without spending more. Talk about a win.

Working coupons helps a lot also. So many folks talk this better than I do. Also learning which sales are when helps a lot. This is best when you can work 2-3 big stores. Buy meat once a month at the big sale at store A, canned goods when store B does BOGO, or whatever you can work.

I noticed that the sidebar with my links, ads and such was gone from the main page. Since I didn't change anything I am going to wait a couple days in the hope that the problem is a glitch that will correct itself.

Anyway I hope you all enjoy the post.

 

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

Yeah, I failed in that I am doing this regularly weekly post on Thursday which is just about end of the next week. I might skip doing it in 4 days and get back on track. This week I started doing some afternoon workouts in addition to the usual M-F PT in the morning. I got 2 afternoon workouts in this week  (since monday) and am going to shoot for 3 next week.

Last week was a deload (a very light week to rest or get back into training) and this week I got back into it for reals. On the downside I had to decrease the weights I am working with more than would be ideal. Really what happened I was pretty strong since I was sticking with a solid program and just lifting like a beast so I adjusted my maxes upward towards the end of the deployment. Shortly therafter training wasn't consistent for a couple months or so and then I got really sick and didn't touch weights for about a month and a half. Anyway I am where I am today. Next month I will be a little bit stronger and in 6 months I will be stronger still. I am incorporating power cleans into my routine for the first time in more than a year. I hate them but darn it they work.

We got Wifey a free bike. It is missing a pedal and has 2 flat tires. I got some pedals for $7 and will figure out the tires this weekend. Last week we saw a bunch of Germans with kiddo seats on bikes and thought it was pretty cool. Wifey got onto the used boards and found one for $30. I will put it onto my eco friendly 2 wheeled transport.

I sort of stumbled into some really good stuff today. A set of multicam wet weather gear, a softshell jacket and a winter "michaline man suit" as well as some boots and random multicam stuff. I don't know if the boots are quite the right size for me. However worst case they will be held onto just in case or given to friends. I was seriously blessed by getting this great gear.

We talked about plate carriers earlier this week. I am pretty sure that a Condor plate carrier and some plates will be ordered this weekend. I have the case but just have to sit down and do the registering for the site and that ordering hassle.

Anyway unless I forgot some stuff that is what I did to prepare this week.

So You Wanna Be a G?

The topic of armed paramilitary groups has always been a subset (or maybe they are separate with some overlap but let's not overthink it) of the survivalist movement. In the 70's and 80's folks talked about fighting off Soviet invaders Red Dawn style. After the fall of the Soviet Union the concern shifted to some sort of UN invasion. The latest concern seems to be more domestic in nature. Since I do what I do for a living there are a lot of things I do not talk about. To paraphrase Glen Beck "I believe everything that I say, but I don't say everything that I believe." This topic partly falls into that arena. It directly leads to some areas I choose not to talk about. Also it doesn't especially interest me. Maybe somewhat because of what I do for a living the kinds of skills and attributes needed to conduct small unit unconventional operations are largely already present.

For no particular reason I can think of this topic interests me today. Maybe it is the fact that a capable survivalist and a potential guerilla are both grounded in the same basic skills, I don't know. In any case I got to thinking about the sort of skills and capabilities and logistics one needs to develop in order to be a reasonably viable potential guerilla.

#1 Physical Fitness. I should not have to explain why this is really important. There is no way you are going to be able to fight anybody unless you are in some resemblance of decent physical shape. One of the funniest moments I can recall on this part of the web was when a man who could only be described as morbidly obese talked about how he plans to overwhelm (whoever it was) with "hit and run tactics". His fat ass couldn't hit and run the 2 blocks from his usual super sized ultra McFatty lunch at McDonalds to Baskin and Robbins for a post lunch milkshake; let alone outrun a bunch of 18-25 year old's who run multiple times a week, if not daily. Physical fitness or a lack theirof goes a long way towards establishing legitimacy as a potential or actual guerilla/ partisan or lack theirof. There is a sort of running joke that a militia is a bunch of fat guys sitting around calling each other Colonel. If I was a slightly different person with a very different life looking to join some sort of group and I got there to see they made group buys of extra extra fat multicam uniforms/ body armor/ chest rigs I would do a quick 180 and move on.

Aside from being a foundation for everything a tactical athlete such as soldier or guerilla does the reason I put physical fitness as number #1 is that it takes a long time to develop. There are no shortcuts. Physical fitness is truly a slow cooker concept requiring consistent, if not perfect, effort over months and even years. If you spend a week and a half or so at a premier tactical school you can become pretty good with a pistol and a rifle and probably learn some basic tactics. In a day you could buy a good pistol and rifle, as well as a .22, a shotgun, a "precision rifle", body armor, night vision, a chest rig, a ruck and camping gear, cases of ammo and boxes of mags as well as a years worth of food for your family. It would be a heck of a bill that very few people can afford but it could strictly speaking be done. Physical fitness does not work that way. There is no rush turkey fried/ pressure cooker way to significantly speed it up. When you realize that you need physical fitness there is unfortunately no way you can develop it in a manner timely enough to be useful.

That means you have to start yesterday. If you are too heavy then stop eating junk and have some discipline with portions. Start walking until you can work in some short jogs. Jog a telephone pole/ 100 steps/ a block then walk one. After a bit jog 2 and walk 1. Eventually cut out the walking from all but the longest runs. Take that backpack you bought and fill it with stuff then walk around. Do body weight exercises and lift stuff. In a slow and progressive manner add reps and sets to the body weight stuff and a few pounds at a time to the lifts.

#2 Build basic skills. Learn to shoot. Learn first aid and CPR. Learn some basic camping skills like starting fires, cooking over fires or backpacking stoves, building a shelter, land navigation etc all.

#3 Acquire basic weapons and equipment. We could talk about this one for a dozen blog posts but let's not get bogged down. Buy a fighting rifle and pistol. Get a setup to carry mags and ancillary stuff. At least one .22 is very useful and if you can afford it a shotgun and some sort of scoped precision type rifle are nice to have. Obviously you need plenty of ammo, mags and some prone to fail spare parts. Get sufficient wet and cold weather clothing, gloves, boots and headgear to operate in your region during the worst it has to offer. Get basic camping gear like a backpack/ rucksack, a sleeping bag, some sort of shelter like a bivy or tent, a water filter and all the little stuff in between.

#4 Acquire food, fuel, batteries and other logistical necessities. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to play Guerilla all day long then run out for a pepperoni pizza and a 6 pack of tall boys. If you are worried about running to the hills to play Red Dawn then it would be prudent to have a bunch of food, medical supplies, batteries and some fuel set aside to meet those needs. Also the kind of times when fairly normal folks are shooting at some sort of organized group are chaotic enough that even if you are not a G normal commerce will likely be disrupted.


Once you have this stuff it is prudent to put some consideration into where and how it will be stored. Unlike somebody with a more survivalist outlook your plan is probably not to stay at home (or your alternate location). If things are bad enough that you are playing G a basement full of food, while a great thing to have, may not cut it. Particularly if you have to leave in a hurry be it in a car or on foot having all your stuff in one place is problematic. Having some stuff at your home, more at some sort of bug out location/ basecamp and the rest in a couple caches around the area you plan to operate in is a much better answer.

#5 Build better skills. This was almost part of #2. The reason it is not is that while it is absolutely true that people are more important than stuff without some basic stuff it is pretty hard to do much of anything. I am pretty confident about the outcome of a gunfight between my boringly average self and just about anybody if I have a gun and they do not. If a guerilla war went on long enough there would be some extra stuff floating around but for awhile (and much more so without a convenient outside benefactor) things would be aweful tight. I would not say that a man without a rifle (and all the support stuff he needs) is exactly useless but he is a lot less useful than another shooter. In Afghanistan early on the Muj had to turn away volunteers who did not have weapons because they couldn't arm them. Now is the time to look at filling holes in your skillset's. Anyway.....

Getting some sort of professional firearms training from a fighting oriented school is an aweful good idea if you can possibly afford it. Medical skills are pretty darn important too. The new TC3 training and it's associated spinoffs are very worthwhile quality training.

#6 Find some friends. The whole lone wolf/ Rambo/ Chuck Norris/ Arnold one man army of death and destruction thing makes for a great action movie but that doesn't translate to real life. You need friends who are like minded and can work with you toward some sort of common goals. A sniper needs or at least can really use a spotter and local security. It is pretty hard to ambush a group by yourself, at most you can probably harrass them. Everybody needs somebody to pull security while they sleep and watch their 6 o'clock or help them should they get injured.


#7 Train with your new friends. People without an understanding of basic individual and team movement tactics as well as squad and platoon sized operations likely greatly outnumber those with an understanding of these things in most groups. If you somehow happen to have folks with meaningful experiences in these areas you all need to get onto the same page. Some of the most tragic accidents in military history come from ad hoc groups of otherwise trained individuals working together. If Bob zigs when Jim think he is going to zag or Tom is halfway down the wall when Rob thinks he should be at the corner people get shot. Training together will get everybody onto the same page, work out the kinks and build group cohesion.


#8 Develop plans. Based on your area, the local players and whatever sort of worst case scenario you guys see happening you can start to plan. Like any fight eventually it takes on a life of it's own but right away having a plan is priceless. Also the process of developing a plan leads you to see all sorts of interesting stuff like specific training or equipment or other preparations that should be made. Obviously doing things like making explosives or breaking federal firearms laws would be pretty foolish. However you can do all sorts of other stuff. Walk the terrain in your area to confirm or deny what map recon tells you. If you wonder how long it takes to move from Anderson butte to the ridgeline above Highway 25 then pack a lunch and go find out. If you wonder whether Deer Creek can be crossed on foot during the spring runoff go find out.

#9 Take advantage of your group's purchasing power. Make group buys to save money. I suspect if you call a school and ask them what kind of discount you get for filling the whole class they will work with you. Depending on your group dynamics consider the purchase of expensive or specialized equipment that is not practical for an individual but make sense for a group. Take advantage of the economics of scale which can be achieved. Renting a piece of specialized equipment you will only need for a short time is much more affordable if several folks can use it during the minimum time.

#10 Develop those around you. Some discretion is essential here but the more prepared that your extended family, friends and buddies are the better. Also a few may go whole hog into it and become assets. Also this is a great place to find and develop useful folks who could fill a more auxillary type role.

Note: One and two should be done successively as in one after another. You need to get started in physical fitness today (though you can pursue other things while developing your fitness) and work on basic skills until that requirement has been satisfied. They are really the basis for everything else. Three and four should probably be worked together. Six could really be done whenever but obviously has to be done before seven. The rest are somewhat more flexible, just use common sense.

Monday Randomness

So France elected a Socialist president. I am pretty ambivalent about this as I do not live there or have any meaningful ties to the place. This could be interesting because it would push back against Germany's austerity measures when it comes to their broke, dysfunctional and still running a deficit southern neighbor Greece as well as not far behind Portugal and Spain. Right now Germany is the only one that can really try to bankroll continued enabling temporary aid. As their smaller, poorer, weaker and generally far less masculine next largest European partner France has really helped this be a united front instead of mean old Germany. This could be fun to watch.

The thing that lots of folks don't seem to get is for governments spending  and income as measured by taxes or growth as measured by GDP are related. Spending affects the economy through jobs, buying things, etc. Increasing revenues via taxes can also hurt the economy. The typical IMF style austerity plan is really a downward spiral. Imagine a company deciding to save by cutting out the advertising that brings in customers or in a more extreme case a dairy farmer cutting expenses by feeding his cows less. Obviously not a good plan. I don't know the answer is. You can tell the debtors to shove it (if you owe the bank 10k they own you but if you owe them 10 billion then you own them) which Greece is not big enough to do; or to not get into the situation in the first place.

Mexico is still a mess. Their government can't or won't stop the cartels from acting with total impunity and doing things like hanging a bunch of bodies from bridges or decapitating people. If there is anything good in the future there I am not aware of it and in fact the place seems to be in a downward spiral. I would not be suprised if I get a paid vacation there at some point in the next few years.
Metals are down a bit but I am not sure it is buying time. I feel a dip coming.

I have been trimming up some lately. I switched to light beer and have been paying more attention to what I eat as well as to portion sized. It seems to be working. Nothing huge really but I didn't need a massive course correction anyway. Hopefully in the next few days I finally kick this bug and can get back to doing some good PT. Don't worry I am still lifting heavy things in order to continue to be awesome. I don't believe in big changes in routines (powerlift for 3 months to "bulk" then do cardio and bodyweight to "tone" or whatever) but running, rucking and biking or whatever more during the spring and summer then hitting the gym a bit more in the winter when it is nasty outside seems like a pretty natural rhythm.
Anyway I hope you all have a decent Monday. Mine was pretty chill and I got to hit the gym so I will call it a win.

Stepping Back

It is nice to think that you will only move forward in life. That on any given day you are in the best physical and financial shape and the most prepared that you have every been. Things just don't quite work that way. This is hard for people to admit. Particularly when we talk about the sort of type A aggressive guys that tend to gravitate to the military and preparedness this isn't a trait we are good at.

Recently I have had to do this. The strength training program I am using (5/3/1) uses a slow planned progression. Every cycle you lift a little bit more. Pretty much every other credible program out there uses something similar. I have an excell spreadsheet that calculates all the percentages and weights.

The thing is that I haven't gotten stronger in the last 2 months, in fact I have gotten weaker. I left Afghanistan, spent a week and a half or so in transit and then got back to Germany. I took leave which included some traveling. I have had a bunch of off time and several weeks where I was just really unfocused. Not a huge deal, there was more important stuff going on than the gym. As a result I have probably had a strength lost of 6-8%. That means I can't do the reps at a given weight I should be able to by my current spreadsheet. The solution is to decrease the maxes I am using to calculate the lifts for the workouts. I took 10% off of all my lifts and will go back to the gym next week using the adjusted weights.

Also not too far back I came to the realization that some of our preparedness systems were in a serious state of disorder. In some ways we were quite prepared but there were some significant holes. We started plugging the gaps and stuff is getting back towards where it should be.

This sort of thing could happen to your fitness level if you get sick or injured. Or you might just slack off and gain a few pounds.Your finances could take a hit due to the bad economy, a job loss or some other unfortunate circumstances.

The thing I have realized is that it in cases like these where life happens or systems deteriorate due to innattention it isn't so much that you are taking a step back as that you are accepting the step backwards which already happened. I could work closer to failure and use bad form to get the prescribed reps but why. Actual progress decreases, injury rates go up, generally bad things happen from that plan. Instead of ignoring issues in our preparedness I am addressing them. The same thing with preps or money or whatever.

Other times you may plan to take a step back for whatever reason. Maybe  you are going to make a long distance move so you consume, sell or give away a bunch of stored food and supplies. You might decide to take a job you will enjoy more that makes less money so you adjust your lifestyle accordingly. Maybe you decide to pursue some sort of fitness goal. Fitness, more than just about anything else has a real push/ pull between different areas. If you gain a bunch of strength and muscle you will lose endurance. If you decide to start doing a lot of long distance running, biking or whatever you will almost surely see some loses in strength and muscle mass. This isn't a bad thing, it is just how our bodies work.

My point is that you need to be honest with yourself, your situation and abilities. Sometimes this means you need to admit that things aren't were they used to be and adjust your plans accordingly. It doesn't matter where you were a month or a year or 10 years ago. It matters where you are today and where you are going to be in a month or a year or 10 years. Take the lessons from your failures and use them to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

Winning and Losing: Eating Well, Couch to 5k, Berkey Water Filter and Solar Power

We have been making some changes lately. We have started eating a lot better. More fresh fruit and veggies, lean protien and better carbs. Less eating out, just plain junk and carbtastic blah meals. Most of it is pretty intuitive. If there are not chips in the house you won't eat chips. Having some discipline and not going out to eat every time we feel like it and that sort of thing. The carb thing is kind of a grey area with lots of folks taking different views. We have both tried the super low/ no carb thing before and it doesn't work for us. She just hates it and I am tired and weak all the time. Instead we are trying to eat more reasonable portions of wheat bread or tortillas and brown rice. Just avoiding the huge bowl of white rice or plate of pasta kind of meals. We both feel a lot better and are getting healthier.
Wifey has been doing Couch to 5k. She is midway through week 6 right now. While she, like many people, does not currently and probably never will like running it is working for her. She noticed that dragging the kid up stairs has gotten easier. I would say this is a real good program for lots of people to seriously look at. If you are a fairly healthy person who is of a reasonable (like not morbidly obese) body weight but have not been very physically active this is a great way to get back to it. Toss in some sort of weight training program and you will be good to go. If you are seriously overweight or woefully out of shape it might be wise to do some sort of build up to this program, like eating reasonably and walking 1-2 times a day several days a week for a month or two to build up some conditioning and drop some fat. As always everybody should consult a general practice doctor, a dietitian, a cardiologist and a physical therapist before any sort of change to their diet or beginning any exercise program.

Personally I am cutting back to 2 times at the weight pile a week and upping my conditioning. Still doing the big lifts, just a bit more geared toward holding what I've got while conditioning gets tightened up. The human body only has so much work capacity and most of us only have so much time so there is a sort of push/ pull relationship. If you add or up the intensity in one thing you are going to almost inevitably lose ground in some other. Also inherantly between weight training and running/ cardio/ conditioning there is an inherant trade off. It isn't a bad thing really, especially for someone without many sport specific goals. Unless you plan to be a competitive marathoner or powerlifter it really isn't an issue.

On the downside our Berkey water filter is currently deadlined. I couldn't get it to seal and pass the dye test then (maybe while slightly frusterated;) I broke one of the white plastic nut/ bolt combo's that seal up the holes without an element in it while putting it back on. So I am not sure what exactly was wrong but now there is a new problem to deal with. Talk about not moving in the right direction!

This happened about three weeks ago and I put it away in frustration. I am going to get a replacement nut/ bolt and some more elements (either to replace the faulty ones or as spares) then go from there. On the bright side the good folks at Directive 21 have been great in helping me trouble shoot things and have just been a huge help with this. If I weren't such a slacking procrastinator this problem would likely already be fixed. Had I bought our Berkey from some no name fly by night folks who knows where I would be.  There are no problems that money (hopefully not very much, I really want it to be just the washer, not the element(s)!) and time can't fix. It hasn't been a huge concern because we have another water filter. Maybe there is a lesson there.

On a nice sunny day recently I busted out my little solar charger. I fiddled with it until I had a decent idea how it was supposed to work and then plugged in my kindle. After several hours in direct sunlight nothing happened and my dead kindle was still dead. This lead to a good amount of not very nice language.

 I realised a few things from this. First of all I do not know anywhere near enough about electricity. Second since we have added all sort of stuff, some pure entertainment and some useful since picking this charger up we may have already outgrown it. Third I need to test it at it's primary purpose which will be charging AA and AAA sized batteries. I am waiting for a sunny day when I have time to mess with it. Another more substantial (probably 15-26 watts) portable solar charger and maybe some sort of battery bank could be in order. However I have to do some more testing and become a more educated consumer before putting something else onto the wish list. If anybody has good resources to check out on this front I would be interested. Specifically good primers on electricity in general and a good breakdown of what watt/ size pannels can charge what sort of stuff and in how long would be great.

These two events were pretty frusterating for me. Nothing like having to go back to the drawing board or adding something else to the shopping list in an area where you thought things were good. Then again testing stuff is a good thing, even if you don't get the answers that you would like. Far better to have issues now, with the worst case being spending a little bit of money (water filter) or adjusting my expectations and maybe searching for a new piece of gear (solar charger), then some time down the road during an emergency when I need this stuff to work.

I guess the closing point is to look at eating healthier, getting into better shape plus alsp really start testing and retesting your equipment. Odds are something that should work might not.

Quote of the Day

"People change when they become uncomfortable"

"If nothing changes, nothing changes"

-The lady giving a leaders class on substance abuse.

Lets talk about the first part. People change when they have an incentive to do so. Uncomfortable can mean a lot of things. Lets look at weight for a minute. A 19 year old girl in Florida might become uncomfortable when she had a little bit of "muffin top"that would make her look less good at the beach but a 50 year old man might have a 48 inch waist and a heart attack scare before he becomes uncomfortable. In the context of the class it might be getting in trouble for drinking or realizing that one is no longer able to control theirself.

As to the second point. This is one a lot of folks need to really think about. If you don't change anything then things will stay the same. If you were broke last year, unless you change something you will be broke this year. If you are fat and don't tighten up your diet and or increase energy output you will continue to be fat. Whatever is wrong or less than ideal in your life, if you don't change the things that shape or cause it the issue will linger.

Why Does The Army Want Me To Be Weak?

Read an interesting article here.

Question of the Day- The Military and Preparedness

Commander Zero asked about my thought on...

The relationship, coinciding interests, practical applications, and relativity of military experiences in regards to preparedness. Or, put another way, what in the military is or has been applicable to preparedness.

Also, do you ever broach the subject with your comrades and if so what is their opinion?

TOR replies: To answer this question we have to look at what servicemembers do.
Let us say as a baseline a soldier is trained to shoot and maintain rifles and maybe handguns as well as basic individual stuff like pulling guard, searching prisoners and basic defensive and movement tactics. They have some exposure to first aid, map reading, land navigation, NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) type (yes I know there is a new acronym, I think it is stupid and am keeping the old one as protest) events as well as a variety of other skills. Theoretically every soldier should be familiar with all skill level 1 common tasks in addition to whatever skills are required for their individual job.
An Infantryman should be very competent at all skill level 1 tasks and able to effectively use every weapon in the US Army up to (and depending on the kind of unit they are in including) mortars and have a solid understanding of Battle Drills and movement techniques.
Note that I used the phrases theoretically and should. Some folks are solid above and beyond their skill and experience level and others not so much. Sometimes this is individual and other times groups or units show trends. In particular I can say that land nav is pretty weak in lower enlisted and support type folks.

[Before continuing this I feel that it is worthwhile to give a bit of a disclaimer. I can speak about being a soldier, an Infantryman and an Officer in the US Army and make some reasonable generalizations about the Army and the Navy's Army aka the Marines. The Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force are very different and while they all do great things a lot of what I am going to talk about does not apply to the vast majority of their service members. Also of course experiences vary among branches and occupational specialties. If I offend you it is not intentional.]
Most folks get some of these type skills to some varying degree in whatever branch or job they are in. Aside from what we could call basic soldier skills folks in support type jobs can learn other applicable skills. Medics, combat engineers, plumbers, electricians and diesel mechanics learn skills that are are clearly useful. Some folks are in such a position that their military experience, however valuable to our nation it may be, relates very little to survivalism. There are however some characteristics that military folks even an X Ray tech on a carrier or a an administrative type in the Air Force who hasn't touched a rifle since basic training still seem to have.

The ability to deal with stress is a big one. For a lot of reasons military folks deal with ton of stress. Being able to think clearly and make sound decisions under stress is something military folks tend to be good at.

Physical fitness. The military in general (and far more so SOF and Infantry types) is a pretty fitness oriented culture. You see some very fit people in the most random support jobs.

Planning. Beyond dealing with stress this is likely the biggest general contribution of military service for most people. There are surely some more general traits but I can't think of them right now.

As to the applicability of military service to preparedness. Survivalism and its better dressed more polished cousin preparedness could be broken down into a variety of different skill sets (each with logistical requirements but they don't really apply to this) which support the endstate of being able to survive and thrive in an uncertain and difficult future.

 One could, totally off the top of my head, break these down into: tactical, wilderness and primative living, food production and storage, physical fitness, medical, mechanical and building skills, communication and energy production.

It may be more useful to look at applicability by those skill sets:
In terms of tactical stuff Infantryman, other combat arms guys (and or course SOF) learn some pretty darn applicable things. While not a perfect stopping point these skills put them well beyond most folks. Other folks skills may be somewhat watered down and just give some basic firearms training or entirely absent.

When it comes to wilderness and primative living folks who spend a lot of time outside living out of rucksacks and in tents learn things. Typically these would be combat arms guys and those who go walk around with us.

Few folks learn much of anything to do with food production and storage. Cooks learn to cook but that isn't really a weak area for most folks anyway.

In terms of medical stuff obviously medical folks like doctors, nurses and medics know a lot. Soldiers typically have a better level of first aid and particularly trauma training than average folks who take a first aid class or two. The more current versions of Combat Lifesaver and various other courses are pretty good and are often pushed down to the lowest level. This is one of the areas where we have really gotten our act together in the last few years.

As to mechanical and building type skills folks whose job is in those areas like mechanics, electricians and carpenters or whatever obviously learn stuff. The rest of us not so much.

For communication lots of folks get what could be described as radio communication 99 and commo guys, forward observers and JTACs get more useful experiences.

Other than electricians and generator mechanics nobody gets much in terms of alternative energy applicable stuff.

Also, do you ever broach the subject with your comrades and if so what is their opinion?
Not really and even then not directly. However when you get to know folks you pick up on things (and they pick up things about you). Somebody who has a solid gun collection and keeps a good amount of ancillary stuff put away that is also fiscally modest as well as conservative/ liberty leaning probably has some stuff going on. With these folks I will offer a piece of advice in context. Example, somebody is talking about the rough price of magazines for their handgun, I might suggest that they should not pay more than $XX and that it is worthwhile to check out a website that has what they need like CDNN.
As I don't mention this sort of stuff with folks who are not at least partially in the club and still keep the cards pretty close to my chest I don't know how a lot of folks might handle it. I can offer my totally anecdotal observations. I would say there are some survivalists, more "preppers", a LOT of gun nuts and the balance made up of pretty normal folks within the military.
Also there is an interesting coincidence. While survivalists as a group are not necessarily a high percentage of military members I would say that a very high percentage of survivalists have some military background. This is not suprising as middle and lower middle class conservatives from the rural/ small town West and South tend to be a significant percentage of survivalists and this group is well represented in the military.

Anway again if I offended anyone it was not intentional. If you have anything to add please comment. Lets not get into a service vs service thing and if you try to say that some random admin or logistics type job is super ninja JSOC rambotastic I might make fun of you.

Quote of the Day

Listen, you wanna build a program for yourselves? This is easy. Some kind of strength training, some kind of conditioning and some kind of flexibility/ mobility those are the only three things. Depending on what your needs are what you will emphasize. "
-Jim Wendler

Fitness resources and Entertainment

Couch to 5k is a great proven resource for folks to get into running for the first time or after a long break. That means to get off the couch and start running!

If you do not want to be weak and pathetic I recommend lifting heavy things on a regular basis. Personally I am having a good time and plenty of success with Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program. Here is a short write up on it. Other folks like other programs and that is fine. As long as a program is based around big core lifts like the squat, deadlift, bench press (or power clean, clean and jerk, push press, whatever) and uses some sort of a logical programing method it should be fine.

[Begin tangent/ rant. I see two things that almost inevitably come up. First is the folks who do no leg work what so ever. That is fine if your only goal is to look jacked while fist pumping at the club. You can do chest and biceps one day, biceps, back and chest another and on the last day hit your biceps, chest and tri's. You will look good in an Ed Hardy or Affliction T shirt at the club.

However if you want some go in addition to the show you must work your legs.

The next thing that comes up is "I leg press instead of squatting". That is fine if you have some injury that prevents you from actually lifting weights at the risk of debilitating injury or death, you want to be weak and not awesome or are a 75 year old woman. Unless you fit into one of those groups I recommend that you squat and deadlift.

End tangent]

Lastly if you are looking for something to read check out The Advisor. It is a novel about economic collapse and one man's attempt to protect those he loves. Much about this book is true - however, many of the names are changed to protect the guilty. I do have fibromyalgia, I do live in constant and never ending pain, and I have been blessed to have a child with Down Syndrome and several mastiffs.