A Primer on Defending Yourself – Part 1.

First up: I’m no Chuck Norris, I’m not a High Speed Low Drag guy, I’m not a fighter, and I haven’t had too many encounters with violence as I’ve gotten older.

I have taken a punch to the face a few times, I have been mugged at knife point, I have been chased by a gang of blacks intent on beating me up, I have punched first, I have taken some fighting related courses, I have done some BJJ/MMA training, and I have run defensive drills with friends putting into action techniques and strategies. All in all I’m a pretty normal guy who grew up with some unpleasant experiences and has taken some time in working out how to defend myself in bad situations.

The information presented here is to introduce Alt-Right readers with less time to the fundamentals of self-defense. None of this information is original, it’s just my rehashing of it from DVDs, lessons, and reading. I don’t make any money from this blog, my only motivation for this post is to help educate people how how to protect themselves.

Part 1: Managing threats

This is perhaps the most important part of any discussion on self-defense. It is also routinely overlooked by many who instead jump to which caliber they want to CCW or whether an elbow strike is preferable to a kick to the bollocks. A lot of this section has been well developed by figures in the self-defense community like Southnarc, Geoff Thompson, Marc McYoung, Rory Miller etc.(again these aren’t my original ideas).

Threats come in many different forms from the aggressive pan-handler to the dangerous driver. You must understand you can’t defend yourself from threats you are not aware of. There is no magic skill that will stop someone stabbing you in the back whilst you’re listening to headphones and not looking around.

Awareness is the first line of defense.

Col Jeff Cooper established a very good way of thinking about awareness and mindset. He broke it down into a colour code:

• Condition White – you are relaxed, unaware and unprepared to act. An example would be sitting on your sofa at home reading a book.
• Condition Yellow – You are actively scanning your environment for threats and aware of your immediate surroundings. This should be your default condition when out in public with very few exceptions.
• Condition Orange – You have identified a potential threat and are prepared to act or evade if necessary.
• Condition Red – An active threat that you must deal with now.

The code is designed to allow you to elevate your responses and not get caught out by a deteriorating situation. If you are in Condition Yellow walking down the street and suddenly see someone running very fast out of the corner of your eye you would pay attention. This signifies a potential threat so now you’re in Condition Orange. You’re attempting to workout why this person would be moving so fast, are they trying to escape something, are they coming towards you, etc? Unfortunately in this scenario gunfire follows the person fleeing and you see down the block someone with a rifle shooting. You’re in Condition Red and now acting.

OODA. OODA adds another layer to the colour code. The colour code is basically part of a system that allows you to break the bad guys OODA loop. OODA stands for:

• Observe
• Orient
• Decide
• Act

You have to understand that OODA is at the heart of everything. When you saw that person running you Observed them, you Orientated yourself to better face what is happening, you Decided to move to Condition Orange and then you Acted. Putting all those things together you did something.

An ambush works because it disrupts the OODA loop. Whilst the victim is still staring dumbfoundedly the bad guy has already shot/punch/attacked them. The victim was not able to make the decision in time to defend themselves or run away. This often happens because they were in condition white and it all ‘happened so fast’. They were always behind the bad guy, they were having to respond to what he was doing and were unable to seize the advantage.

These two concepts make up this first fundamental of self-defense: awareness. Some people have trouble adapting to this ‘always on’ mindset, we often do drift off in routine and get caught out. One way to combat this is to run a narration to yourself about everything around you.

“Two guys crossing the street in front of me, one wearing baggy pants, shop keeper putting up a new sign in front of me, blue car driving too fast” etc.

Once you have an awareness you now need to move onto handling threats. Before that we should talk a bit about threats and how they arise.

Unknown Persons

In the case of street violence the threat is clearly going to be from other unknown persons. Now whilst paranoia is detrimental it is good to develop a fixed routine when it comes to interacting with unknown persons that becomes automatic. Until someone has established they are not a threat you need to be on your guard.

Criminals want to win, they will do whatever they can to stack the odds in their favour. This means weapons are going to be likely. This means there are likely to be multiple attackers. This means they will want to get close to you before attacking. This means they don’t want witnesses. It will help to think like a criminal at this stage, if you were going to mug someone how would you do it?

Proximity is going to be preferred by the criminal, it’s easier to launch an effective surprise attack up close to you. Using this information we as the good guy want to prevent unknown people getting too close to us before we can judge their intentions.

We also want to make sure we aren’t being flanked or ambushed by an accomplice meaning we need to think about how we angle up to the potential threat.

So managing unknown persons comes down to effectively managing space. Avoiding conflict by effectively managing threats makes you into a hard target. Criminals often want an easy win so by acting correctly we can dissuade criminal intent. The battle you win without fighting is the true victory.

Let’s pause for a second and consider an approach by a normal person. A normal person with no ill intent is going to more than likely respect your personal space and attempt to appear nonthreatening. If I’m approaching someone to ask the time and they ask me to hold my distance I’m going to stop and listen to them. The bad guy however is going to keep sidling forwards.

A common mugging tactic when mobile phones were just getting popular in London was to ask for the time, when the person drew out their phone to look it would be snatched or the assault would be initiated. The bad guy used the request to close distance and commit the crime. We need a way to stop this and manage the potential threat.

The Fence and Verbalisation

Geoff Thompson, a British bouncer and now self-defense instructor/life coach, is credited with coming up with the fence concept. When you fight your hands are up, it is much easier to throw a punch or deal with a punch and defend yourself with your hands in front of your face. Having your hands up in front of you also creates space and acts as a visual boundary that most people will react to.

The fence is a basic tool that with practice can simply become ‘talking with your hands’. Here is an example of a woman employing a form of fence.

I would also strongly recommend watching this Youtube clip of Thompson talking about the Fence and the part 2.

The fence accomplishes a few things:

1. It puts you in the frame of having to fight. Your hands are up and ready.
2. It acts as a boundary to create space
3. It signals you are not an easy target.

A strong overt fence can end interactions with unknown targets. I’ve employed an overt fence to a homeless guy who was encroaching on me very fast babbling about some sob story and as soon as my hands came up he stopped in his tracks and then wandered away.

The fence does not work alone, you need verbalisation to back it up. Again when managing unknown persons we want to keep space between us. Space lets us run and get away, it also lets us arm ourselves. Someone coming at you with a question needs to be told to stop. There also needs to be an escalation, some people won’t back up the first time requiring a harsher verbal command.

1. “Hey can you hold up please?”
2. “Hold up NOW”
3. “Back the FUCK UP”

This is a simple escalation – the first is a polite request and most people with good intentions will listen to you. Drunks however or dodgier people might continue approaching you so you escalate it further to a louder more decisive command. The final escalation would be the most forceful hence the use of crude language. It’s important not to swear at the person “You fuck” but swearing is the language of the street and is a good final escalation. Someone continuing to encroach after this is displaying they are a likely threat. Remember, normal polite people will respect your desire for space.

Threat awareness – aggression clues.

Once you’ve ID’d a potential threat and are engaging with them you need to be looking at further clues that suggest they have criminal intent. Some of these are:

• Grooming gestures, touching face or head.
• Looking about them for witnesses.
• Touching areas where a weapon might be located.
• A weight shift – this signifies imminent violence, they are adjusting to strike you. Example here.
• Face draining of colour usually indicates blood rushing to the rest of their body in preparation for action.

All these clues can happen very quickly. This is why it is important to establish your verbal commands automatically. It doesn’t actually matter what the unknown person is saying. What matters is their behavior and language. If they stop and are non-threatening at the first request then you can perhaps engage in dialogue. If not you want your verbal routine to run so you can pay attention and look for the pre-assault clues.

Movement and positioning

You don’t want to be flanked or snuck up on. Being aware of your environment as discussed earlier is key to this, tripping over a kerb whilst moving to maintain distance from the potential threat could be terrible. A good balanced fighting stance should be maintained, you want to be firm to resist an attempted bum rush.

As you engage with the potential threat you want to be moving, ideally in a way that benefits you. Orientating the situation to an exit where you can get away. If you remain static and face the threat you’re less aware of what is behind you and to your sides so movement is your friend here.

Summary

In this section we’ve talked about the need for awareness, the need to understand how criminals and bad guys think, and some basic tools to allow us to manage these situations. All these things can be practiced with a group of friends.

It is very important to practice. It might seem silly telling your friend to back up as they approach you but it will make a difference when it happens. The other thing to practice and build upon is employing a fence, at first it may feel unnatural but over time it can become an incredibly normal looking habit.

In Part 2 we’ll look at how this basis allows us to react to active threats. There is no magic punch or elbow strike coming down the line. The importance is rather on establishing mindset and working on different skills that can be adapted to different scenarios. With that in mind we’ll discuss options to train for and suggest a framework on how to train.

 

 

No escape from a ‘cucked’ society

Ronin at TheRightStuff has an article up on How Strength Training Saved Me From Being A Cucked Leftfag.

It’s his personal tale of how lifting weights helped destroy the Leftist rot setting into his brain and it is pretty interesting and much I agree on. However it also reminded me of a man standing in a burning building with a firehose and not realising the dry-rot had completely compromised the structure. Whilst individually we can all avoid becoming cucked leftfags there is no escape from this cucked society we live in.

Central to Ronin’s article was about his attitude to women and the changes that happened from his weight lifting.

After my will had transformed my body into something powerful and pleasing to the eye, women began showing me attention in near-absurd amounts. At the risk of gloating, women were all but falling over themselves to meet me. If I wanted a partner for an evening (or longer, the choice was invariably mine), I only needed to put on a nice, tight fitting polo, hit a bar, and strike up a conversation with an attractive woman. Chances were, she’d invite me back to her place.

In my travels and interaction with women and men across the world I have to say this is a very Anglo/Scandi experience. The sexual revolution and feminism is why these women are inviting him back. The Anglo West is alone in how much emphasis it places on looking like underwear models to attract women, and it is alone in telling women that they should strongly desire such a man.

In fact the only other similar experiences I’ve heard of have been muscled friends complaining about prostitutes in South East Asia. They would come up to the muscled guys, compliment and pester them most to purchase their services. The similarity is striking to me, women in Britain, the US, Australia, and Canada are the most comfortable in seeking out men in this way. The reduction of a man to a slab of desirable meat to be used and discarded.

Even the mainstream media of the Cathedral are aware of this change in attitudes. Mark Simpson, who coined the term metrosexual, has this to say about millennial men of today:

With their painstakingly pumped and chiselled bodies, muscle-enhancing tattoos, piercings, adorable beards and plunging necklines it’s eye-catchingly clear that second-generation metrosexuality is less about clothes than it was for the first. Eagerly self-objectifying, second generation metrosexuality is totally tarty. Their own bodies (more than clobber and product) have become the ultimate accessories, fashioning them at the gym into a hot commodity – one that they share and compare in an online marketplace.

….

Glossy magazines cultivated early metrosexuality. Celebrity culture then sent it into orbit. But for today’s generation, social media, selfies and porn are the major vectors of the male desire to be desired. They want to be wanted for their bodies, not their wardrobe. And certainly not their minds.

Simpson went on to call them “Spornosexuals” and whilst his analysis is not perfect it is revealing. It is a continuation of the sexual revolution that has continually benefited a small number of men and harmed a great number of women. In encouraging women to throw off their natural inhibitions about promiscuity society has created a space for these Spornosexuals to thrive.

In a cucked society this is the end-game. No woman wants to settle, she is always looking for that alpha but that alpha is now just the ripped body and bad boy attitude that convinces her to invite him back to hers. In a cucked society you are either the cuck or the one she is cheating with and objectifying.

We want to move away from a cucked society and back towards one where men are valued more than simply being able to repetitively lift weights and look good on a beach holiday.

Micro-Exit

Two Cathedral pieces handwringing about the modern state of the dating market:

1. Commitment, Monogamy? They’re so last century
2. Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”

One addresses the UK, the other the US. The dominant narrative is that online dating, and in particular Tinder have helped caused considerable disruption to millennial dating. They also note of course that feminism has had a large impact in making women ‘independent’ so young twenty year olds can ride the cock-carousel whilst making shitty wages in their mediocre PR job. The pieces make for amusing reading, the Vanity Fair piece making a strong push for the Polyamory stance (which I previously ridiculed but will eat my hat as this does seem to indicate the next thing they will push for).

I found these pieces fascinating largely because it is coming up to 4 years since I exited Facebook, and thus ruled myself out of even the temptation of using a service like Tinder. I’ve never used the more oldschool style of online dating either and so this whole notion of meeting women without actually encountering them is unusual to me. I did my women chasing when I was at Uni and before I became interested in the Alt-Right/DE.

Not having Facebook as a late 20 year old provokes interesting reactions. Ex-girlfriends have expressed open frustration, and gratitude, that they can’t spy upon past relationships. Newer friends have complained about keeping in touch, and old friends and acquaintances have fallen by the wayside. It’s not something I’ve ever regretted, it’s a form of signalling that can of course be debated, but it is an effective micro-exit for an individual to take.

Exit is often sneered at by many in that it isn’t practical. That Leviathan is all around and you’ll end up like Randy Weaver. In some sense these criticisms are valid but as someone who has turned towards a Traditionalist path exiting from parts of modern degenerate culture is important to me. Facebook and the hedonistic dating market are to be avoided, as are women who use them. The pervasiveness of Tinder amongst millennial women is pretty high I would assume but it’s hard to think of a better filter*.

Exiting in small ways from the pervasive destructive culture around is is NOT going to change things. It won’t save the West or Civilization but I believe it will help your own sanity, and is part of a path to becoming worthy.

*No doubt filtering those who had Tinder and jumped off the carousel to settle will still be an issue however. Similar to those women who have a Christian awakening at 31…

Grrrll Power Rousey and the White Knights

Female MMA fighter Ronda Rousey is doing the rounds on the net after apparently winning her UFC bout. She defeated her opponent in 34 seconds.

Rousey seems to have an incredible amount of support amongst modern men and it is very odd. Women’s sport has always been quite odd, it is generally less interesting and less competitive in most cases. Women fighting in MMA though is about as low as it gets.

Fighting is a celebration of strength and violence, a homage to the Gods of war. In today’s form it remains a contest of wit, strength, guile and sheer violence. Men may not like Mike Tyson but they sure as hell respect his ability in the ring. His sheer aggression led to other problems but it was an virtue that made him great and you accepted that. He was good at being a man.

Rousey is effectively being good at being a man. A culture that treats this as an achievement is broken. In this case it is the most extreme form of being a man you have, to violently beat another person into submission. In this case it took 34 seconds, something that most people would consider something of a rip off for paid entertainment.

Rousey is clearly good at what she does. She may even be a nice person and help animals or whatever other metric you wish to use for measurement of niceness. This however does not change the fact she is unlady like and violent. Not traits generally sought out in women last time I checked.* This sits alongside the modern day phenomenon of men claiming they find overly athletic and masculine bodies attractive. Washboard abs on a chick should not turn you on. Don’t get me wrong women can be fit and healthy but the Dana Linn Baileys of the world are again chasing a masculine goal.

Supporting Rousey or Bailey puts you in the same camp of the genderfluid tumblrs of the world. Gender is only a construct and so we can remake the natural order for our sheer enjoyment or fetish. The Grrrrll power here feeds the acceptability of female centric hiring and promotes encroachment on male space.

Why do men profess admiration or attraction to figures like Rousey and Bailey? Perhaps it is because traditional male roles are so under attack. The media jump on board and harp about how great it is. The entire media circus and common culture buys into it and the result is the baying crowd at the octagon willing two women to batter each other to what may result in death. At what stage will those baying realise this is a pure rebellion against nature, against the natural order and furthers the promotion of human suffering?

*: Women when they fight, fight to kill. Men will fight for many reasons, honour, fun, payment. Women only fight when they must and so they fight to kill, watching two women go at each other all the gloves are off. Likewise if she is fighting a man, she is likely fighting very seriously for her life.

A Society of Losers

WaPo proclaims

Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds

Quelle surprise some might say, of course these days harassment could mean simply disagreeing with women online so it’s actually comforting to note this study looked specifically at videogame playing and verbal nastiness in those sessions.

As they watched the games play out and tracked the comments that players made to each other, the researchers observed that — no matter their skill level, or how the game went — men tended to be pretty cordial to each other. Male players who were good at the game also tended to pay compliments to other male and female players.

Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers.

That men tend to be pretty ‘cordial’ to each other in a majority male venue is no surprise. For most young men today probably the only experiences of pure male space they have had might be in some form of gaming, be that virtual or actual sport. In this virtual setting of course much is removed, these men aren’t in physical proximity to each other there is no physical contact – they are playing alone together. A society that promotes this kind of alone togetherness is going to create these ‘losers’ who insult females intruding on the space.

The safe anonymity of the online game does allow for a degree of abuse that would not be tolerated by other men in reality. This is a bizarre and unnatural setting, for millennia humans have not had this kind of anonymity when it comes to dishing out threats or being nasty. It’s a modern phenomena, first with cities now online.

The real oddness of this WaPo piece is then revealed

Kasumovic argues that video games actually make incredible proxies for studying real-life behavior — Halo 3, especially.

So now real life behaviour can now be studied by some nerds playing Halo 3. The following justifications are offered up.

(1) players are anonymous, and the possibility of “policing individual behavior is almost impossible”; (2) they only encounter each other a few times in passing — it’s very possible to hurl an expletive at another player, and never “see” him or her again; and (3) finally, and perhaps predictably, the sex-ratio of players is biased pretty heavily toward men.

It seems that these justifications largely apply to the online realm, that traditional real life is different and does not offer up quite the same circumstances that would allow for such behaviour.

There are some exceptions – black and hispanic men routinely address women in nasty harassing ways on the streets. Fitting it into their narrative this shows these men are losers, and they probably are. Propositioning women in this fashion is what black immigrants do like here in Norway:

Feminism if nothing else is inherently anti-loser. The trope it is nothing but a societal shit-test may sound trite but it really helps understand it. Women have always disliked losers and chosen not to mate with them, men will always be more understanding of their fellow men’s shortcomings.

The irony is that the more feminised society becomes the more losers are produced. Far from creating a more egalitarian world they are creating a world populated by more and more men who can fall into the loser trap. These men then flock to areas where they hope to not be reminded of their loser status. When women encroach upon those areas the reaction we see from them makes sense.

The sexual revolution has benefited alpha males and certain women, the rest are left floundering in uncharted territory. The strength of traditional patriarchy is that it looks out for men. This in turn benefits women, taking women out of the job market automatically creates room for more men who can gain in status and become a more desireable partner. The current society punishes loser women as well as loser men, they are the ones who end up single mothers struggling pay cheque to pay cheque, and they are the ones who must turn to a large all controlling chaos enacting government.

The harassment of women online is the smallest part of this society of losers but it will remain a constant as the chaos continues.

 

 

 

LARPing to Victory

LARP is Live Action Role Playing – something most people probably did as children. I spent countless hours with my brother fighting invisible goblins, fighting each other with swords (sticks) and constructing fantasy narratives as we romped around the garden. To me it’s an integral part of being a child with siblings and having exposure to fantasy literature.

LARPing as an adult however is seen as pretty lame. Images of mid-twenties virgins throwing beanbags at each other shouting “fireball, fireball” or pretend fighting with giant plastic prop swords are more likely to spring to mind. The lameness of LARPing in popular pysche gives rise to its use as a derogatory term amongst the alt-right.

LARPing can take different forms. A lot of the Neo-Nazis are engaged more in LARPing than anything else, it’s wearing the boots, shaving your head, doing the salutes that matter to them. Southern Civil War Enactment is a more popular form of LARPing that is likely to come under increased scrutiny as the Cathedral continues its assault on anything Confederate. In the alt-right many think emphasis on paganism/heathenism takes a form of LARPing, a lot of libertarian anti-statism is seen as a form of LARPing, and NRx with it’s interest in traditional hierarchy structures such as Monarchy can be seen as LARPing.

LARPing is used by many to dismiss the dress-up the embellishment given to political ideas. It is a way of making an accusation that it is not a serious solution and that they are ignoring reality. That the person or movement is simply role playing how they want society to be. It seems however that LARPing is actually rather successful as a strategy in promoting change.

Paleo/Primal

When I first read about the Paleo/Primal diet it was in the context of some Cathedral journalist following some guys LARPing about being cavemen. They ran barefoot, ate only meat, promoted drawing blood on a regular basis, etc. Many scoffed I’m sure but many others were clearly enchanted and drawn to it – clearly the movement won out. Paleo eating is now hugely popular and has a dedicated following. Although not everyone buys into the ‘caveman’ aspect I’m sure it is a large part of it. That desire to eat as our ancestors did is essentially trying to roleplay as them as well.

The other aspect of the Primal scene has been that of movement, (and full disclosure I am getting into this currently). Primal movement is promoted as the route to original human fitness. See this video for an example

Crossfit and Barefoot running

Crossfit is hugely popular, it has hit the mainstream in a big way. A large part of its success is a form of LARPing. The Hero WoDs being the most obvious – people are in essence emulating and role playing as the soldiers these WoDs are named after. It is a crude form of hero worship that is hugely popular.

The explosion in barefoot running shoes is again a form of LARPing how early humans ran. Daniel Lieberman’s work on how running prey to death was part of our evolutionary story is a powerful one and again it has been hugely successful. Many products are sold in this fashion as people in part LARP about being an early human running prey to death.

Indeed part of the lifting movement promoted by so much of the alt-right is just LARPing. In fact it is pretty misguided probably but nonetheless looking like Arnold is seen as a goal and being a strong man with big muscles ala Conan is about as LARPy as it gets. Odysseus and Hercules did not look like that.

Political groupings

Jack Donovan wrote an article on a group of heathen LARPers (who no doubt would resent the label) but they have used LARPing principles to create and build a tribe that is living outside the norm of society. They have ritual, community, and a longhall.

Perhaps more palatable to many who aren’t heathens would be something like Orania, an Afrikaner community dedicated to preserving their way of life.

LARPing can be successful and has many benefits. The fact most Paleo dieters don’t pretend to be actual cavemen shows how dilution happens but that they are still drawn to a certain ideal. It is why the Hestia Society runs an aesthetic focused  tumblr account. They understand the draw LARPing has, as should we all.

 

Equal Opps

Soapjackal on Twitter

Tieing social media and employment together really was the moment the SJWs gained the upper hand

It very much has been how they have made their fight against white straight men most obvious. By now we are all well acquainted with the academics censored over obesity jokes, made to resign over lighter hearted banter and ordinary progressive men being fired from their jobs for some slightly risque jokes on Twitter or some dongle joking at tech conferences.

This is a simple tactic that SJWs have perfected, like it or not people are silenced. We are all silenced more and more as each event transpires. Most of us need to eat, want a place to sleep, and quite like that gym membership so we suck it up. We make anonymous accounts online to vent, we avoid places where progressive signalling is loudest such as Facebook, and many of us put up careful shields in the workplace.

Placing a system of control upon people is much easier when they risk becoming homeless pariahs. There is no free speech if you are a white straight male in the workplace. More and more obvious it becomes clear the system is designed to filter you out.

A recent job application I filled in requested not only my ethnicity, nationality, gender but also my sexual orientation. Being a homosexual or even bi-sexual is now simply a career strategy. The option ‘prefer not to say’ is essentially code for “white straight male”. The upside is that many young white men attempting to enter the modern world will start to see this obvious attack. They will wonder why that less qualified black lesbian has a job and they don’t. And in the workplace as automation increases it will continue to be the white men who suffer most.

The upside of this obviousness will be a growth in discontent, and a system that is filtering out straight white men means they will have stark choices to make. Either conform and beg at scraps for the table or start down the road of becoming worthy. White male networking is going to make a comeback at some point. By shutting people out they are forcing us to evolve.

Equal opps will ultimately break their system.