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The thesaurus states that “fighter” and “warrior” are synonyms, but I don’t believe they should be. Warrior should be a synonym for master.
Fighters move from struggle where a warrior moves from grace. Everything a fighter encounters is a fight. Everything a warrior encounters is a problem or a puzzle. A fighter's only solution is to fight, dominate and conquer. Warriors have the ability to use many different tools to create a solution. The saying, “when all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail”, describes the fighter mentality.
“Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.” -Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
I believe that Musashi was not referencing just men but referencing everything that a person encounters. The more you know yourself and the more time you spend developing yourself the more adept you will be at solving external problems. Everything on this website is designed to make you better at understanding and developing yourself.
"No new holes, the ones I have work, I don't need any new ones."
Mindset is the ability to notice the difference between discomfort and danger. Mindset is about knowing the difference between being cold and sucking it up which may cause physical or psychological distress or being cold causing physical damage. Mindset is the ability to understand how and why sacrificing something now for something later will make life overall easier. Using that small something you caught as bait to catch a bigger food source rather than eating it now. Having a strong mindset is not listening to that voice in the back of your head that says this is “too hard”, “too stupid”, or “isn’t going to work so why do it?” It is the ability to discern what is best for you and those that you are with, then being able to create and perform an action plan. The biggest idea here is learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Learning to make decisions while under stress takes a lot of practice but is the most important survival skill you can master.
Everywhere you look there is a survival, martial art, shooting, building, farming, or ranching instructor that will teach you what they know. Find one you trust who teaches in a way that resonates with you and then learn that skill. It is important to learn the same skill from multiple sources. Learn the skill but don’t hold on to it like gospel or the only way to do something. To get really good at any skill, you have to teach it. By teaching you will see what the fundamentals are, what concepts are most important and where you are lacking and need improvement in that skillset. If you can teach it to a novice and the novice can gain proficiency at the skill, then you know that you understand the skill.
Don’t just expect these skills to stay intact once you gain proficiency. You need to play with them and enjoy them. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Lastly, skillset and mindset can only take your vessel so far. If you are fat and out of shape your survivability drops. Mark Rippetoe said, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” and he is not wrong. You need to take care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally before you can expect to to take care of yourself in a scary environment. If you don’t take care of it, “it” being your mind, body and spirit, it will fail you.
Do things that safely push you out of your comfort zone and allow you to challenge your decision making process.
There are lots of places to learn, but what I have done is made it simple for you to get an unbiased and accessible way to learn body language. My goal is that you become proficient and successful in using this tool. I have put together a book for you to reference, online courses, printable worksheets, cheat sheets, maps and live events. If you follow the path that I have laid out you will be extremely proficient and you will have a very powerful tool for your tool box.
I am also working on and will be posting real time analysis of videos on vimeo. You will need to have a password to access these videos that you receive after you take any course online or live. This wlll be me, Russel Lipensky or both of us watching videos and commenting on what is happening, what the cues are and what they mean.
When I was 6 my mom married a Mexican man with 5 boys. I grew up in small town Texas living in a poor Mexican family with 6 step brothers. To further subsidize their 2 jobs a piece my parents tried things like raising rabbits and starting a small garden. These attempts were not successful but it made me start thinking about how important it was to be able to do these things well. While growing up, my best friend and his family had a small ranch and I would visit and sometimes help out. I got to see and interact with a family that was not financially well off, but providing for themselves by running cattle and goats and doing some farming and hunting. I didn’t notice how impactful that was on my thought process until later in my time in the Marine Corps. The town I grew up in was small but violent. My stepbrothers’ uncle was in the Mexican mafia, I had classmates that were murdered and raped and left in front of churches, and two of my step brothers were murdered in gang violence before my sophomore year of high school. Many of my friends were either in gangs or were also living in families similarly violent to mine. This violence norm put me on a path to learning how to defend myself. I began to look at two things, “how do I get out of this environment” and “how do I learn to protect myself in any situation”. My answer was to join the military. I met with a bunch of military folks and narrowed it down to being a Marine Sniper. The idea of being self sufficient in any environment was what I was looking for. Once in the corps, I made it to the Sniper Platoon and began studying survival skills. I left the Marine Corps and began studying this in the civilian world. I took my military skills and began working as a Private Military Contractor in Iraq. It sharpened these skills and these thoughts about what it means to be, “a warrior versus a fighter”, “to thrive versus survive” and how much more important mindset is compared to skillset. I have used all the things that I teach in real time to save my life and the life of my friends. I have used these skills to survive when running a tactical team in Africa, when walking down the streets in Philadelphia, backpacking, and in a stick up. It leads to my primary survival tactical goal: “no new holes”. I like the ones I have and they work great and I don’t need any more.
As a Marine Scout Sniper and as an “operator” for the last 20 years on the civilian side I have put together a list of places to go to learn in-depth information. I make it a point to learn from people that others in my field respects and from people with more information than myself. I encourage you to do the same. I also think it is important to learn from someone with a completely different background (as long as they are at the top of the game and have the respect of the community).
When you’re searching for resources, don’t just focus on the rating and reviews, make sure that you’re paying attention to who is giving the rating. It is easy to get good reviews from people that have never “been there done that”, but to get stellar reviews from other experts in the field is a better indicator of value. These resources are the standard. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is where I would spend my money when trying to hone or learn a new skill.
TMACS INC https://www.tmacsinc.com/
Roger's Shooting School https://www.tmacsinc.com/
Northern Red https://northernredtraining.com/
Direct Action Resource Center https://www.darc-usa.com/
Remember that when you learn a martial art you have to learn the art also. So, some of it doesn’t apply. Learn it so you understand why it was taught but as you get better at it you will pick the stuff that works for you and your mission.
Sayoc Kali https://sayoc.com/
Atienza Kali https://atienzakali.com/
Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts https://inosanto.com/
Eric Paulson Combat Submission Wrestling https://erikpaulson.com/
The Human Path https://thehumanpath.net/
Cat Bigney https://www.boss-inc.com/staff/cat-bigney/
Cody Lundin https://www.codylundin.com/
Bill McConell https://www.pastskills.org/
Ed's Manifesto https://www.edsmanifesto.com/
Team O'neil Rally School https://www.teamoneil.com/
Rawhyde Adventure Motorcycle Training, Tours and Special Events https://rawhyde-offroad.com/
