Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Personal space?

If you're serious about survival, then a survival plan is a MUST.  You and your loved ones must know what to do and where to go in the event of a natural disaster, civil unrest, and so on.

Not only that, but once you and your loved ones are together, a military style chain of command is essential.  Who is going to be in charge, what will the roles be of each person in "your unit"?

Additionally, and this is where many plans trip up ... what personal space will each person have?

In the event a "suvival situation" is necessary, living quarters tend to get tight.  That means that some amount of personal space will be important.  Further, it is just as important for that personal space to be honored.  NO ONE should violate the personal space of another person.

Now let me be clear about something.  I'm not talking about "personal space" to mean the area around you, I mean a box, a bug out bag, some (should be small) space in your house if you can stay there ... some small space where personal things can be kept that no one else is allowed to go into.

Each person should have something like this.  Even on the International Space Station there is a "personal space" (a small box not much more than 3 or 4 inches along each dimension).

This is important and absolutely should be part of your plan.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Male Mistake

With a firearm in our hands we men can feel pretty invulnerable, especially if we know how to use it properly.

The problem with a firearm as a weapon of self defense is that VERY few adults can actually shoot someone without a fair bit of hesitation.  The military has to spend time training this natural hesitancy out of its infantry.

An adult typically understands what it means to squeeze the trigger in a way a child does not.  Believe it or not, a well trained, reasonably accurate marksman of a 10 year old child will find a firearm more valuable as a personal safety weapon than a 40 year old Dad.  The 10 year old is much less likely to hesitate should the need arise than the 40 year old.

This is exactly why I have spent most of my posts here on a blog about survival on self defense.  In my opinion, someone planning to survive a disaster that can't adequately defend themself isn't really planning to survive a disaster.

That means men need a way of defending themselves against other men.  Personally, I really like a plain old walking stick.  It doesn't look like a "weapon" the way a knife does (thus potentially lulling an attacker into a false sense of security) but when used correctly can cause insane damage.

Now here's the thing.  Far too many people swing for the head or even the body.  The truth is, you want to go after arms and especially legs.  A male will need to keep another male "at distance" until the attacker is disabled and can then move in to incapacitate.

So, if you're a man do you have a hardwood, decent length walking stick as part of your bug out bag?

Monday, December 26, 2011

Where women go wrong in defending against a man

When women try to defend themselves against a man, they will often try to keep the man away from them.  They will lash out, often trying a kick at the groin, and then running away.

This is a HUGE mistake.  First, it's much harder than most women believe to actually kick the groin.  So what happens is that only the inner thigh somewhere is hit, which does hurt a little.  But now, when she runs away, she's dealing with someone that is now going to be much more aware of potential attacks and will be ready for them.  Not to mention being much more likely to react violently.

A woman needs to keep a male attacker VERY close until he is absolutely incapacitated.  At arms length distance, a woman has preciously little hope of defeating a man.  At elbows length distance however things are different.

In fact, ideally a woman will get a man so close to her that she can raise her foot and stomp down on the top of his without him even seeing it happen until the small bones along the top of his foot break and he's in excruciating pain.  The top of the foot has a lot of small bones, is easy to hit, and even the strongest "jack boots" don't protect this area very well.

Now that he's suddenly in pain and bending down, the next areas to think about are the nose or the back of the neck, depending on his reaction.  Even a relatively tiny woman can easily knock a full grown man out with a blow to the base of the skull.

Or, if it's the nose, kicking the head back (even if you don't break it) then leaves the man little ability to defend against a KNEE to the groin.

At no time should a woman try to "kick with her foot" at the groin of a man.  A knee however is entirely different, especially if his head is back or he's back pedalling because he just got smashed in the nose.

Finally, once a woman has started something like this SHE CAN NOT STOP until he is on the ground and absolutely not moving. Keep attacking, keep going after the back of the neck, the throat (strikes, not strangles), even the abdomen if he's fallen and the woman is on her feet (stomping down on someone's stomach is likely to leave them unable to move very far for a while).

Bottom line ... the age old saying "keep your enemies close" applies here.  If you're a woman then you want a male attacker as close to you as possible until he has no ability to even get up and walk after you, let alone chase you.

Friday, December 23, 2011

The missing bug bag item

If you've been studying or following survivalism for any period of time, then bug out bags are something you're at least familiar with.

In fact I talked in my last post about how to learn how to go beyond simply survival during a bug out, but actually thrive and have fund doing it.

However, no matter how much "thriving" you do, a bug out is going to be a very high stress situation.  Therefore, I find it almost odd that NO ONE talks about the necessity to have some pictures of loved ones in your bug out bag.

Now, I'm not talking about pictures in frames.  I mean just the paper.  That way you can keep a sense of connection even if your bug out location is extremely remote (and the more remote the better).

So add some pictures to your bug out bag ... smallish ones that you can keep one picture to a single sandwhich bag so that even in bad weather they stay in decent condition.

What do you think?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Bug out bags and thriving during a bug out

In survival, few things are talked about (and for good reason) as the bug out bag.

However, too often this is looked at too much from a survival perspective.  The truth is that if you want a really GREAT bug out bag, instead start thinking from a "backpacking in the deep wilderness" perspective.

In deep wilderness backpacking, you have to carry literally everything that you need for the entire 10 day trek.  Shelter, food, a way of food preparation, water, a method of making water safe, something to sleep on, and so.

And much like the idea of a bug out bag, everyone "carries their own weight" except the very young or old.

Not only that, but deep wilderness backpackers actually make "bugging out" an incredible amount of fun.

So where am I going with all of this?

If you truly want to understand how to create a bug out bag and how to THRIVE during a situation that requires a bug out, then consider learning deep wilderness backpacking.

In this regard let me highly recommend checking out:
The Backpacker's Field Manual, Revised and Updated: A Comprehensive Guide to Mastering Backcountry Skills 

This is a great book that can explain all the ins and outs to living "in the back country".  The same set of skills that would serve you well in a bug out.

Monday, December 19, 2011

3 Quick Tips For Better Shooting

I see a lot of people shooting and most of them have what I call "buckshot" on their targets.  In other words, their shots are all over the place with very little grouping.

In a survival situation that can mean not hitting that animal you're hoping to use as a meal ... or worse, not hitting an assailant and being killed.

I'm going to be going much more indepth on this subject, but here are 3 tips you can put into place immediately to shoot better.

1) Squeeze the trigger
I see it all the time, and even more often I hear it.  People "pull" the trigger.  Folks, pulling the trigger will also "pull" your firearm slightly off target.  A trigger is supposed to be SQUEEZED.

2) Squeeze on the exhale
When you are firing, try exhaling only about half way ... basically to where it's comfortable.  Re-find the center of your intended target, RELAX, then squeeze.  The reason for firing from an exhaled position is simple ... your muscles will "twitch" less, there will be less "tremor".  That makes it much easier to fire on target, especially if your target is some distance off where minute changes mean a lot.

3) Squeeze SLOWLY
Again, too many people "slap" at the trigger, pulling at it quickly.  Your trigger probably has a half inch distance to go before the firing pin hits the round ... not very far.  Take your time, squeeze the trigger slowly focusing on your target.

Put these three together and what you have is a situation of firing in an easy relaxed manner.

Most people, if they just follow these three tips will find that they get much more accurate.

Now I know that I said this was going to be 3 tips ... but let me give you a forth.

4) DO NOT anticipate the firearm going off.  Keep yourself relaxed and watching the target without flinching or closing your eyes just before you get to the top of the trigger squeeze.  Eyes always on target!

Hope this helps

Friday, December 16, 2011

Survival starts with self defense

In far too many cases online, I see "survival" sites talking about survival in terms of food and water, "bug out bags", starting fires, and so on.  In those few cases where self defense is talked about, it's in terms of using some kind of firearm.

The problem is that not many people can easily shoot another person.  For that matter a fairly significant portion of people can't even shoot an animal, let alone a person.

That means if your primary mechanism of self defense is your firearm then you are actually extremely vulnerable to an attacker.

You see here's the problem, while having food and water to survive a disaster is important ... it's EVERY BIT IF NOT MORE important to be able to defend the food and water that you have.

Fire's create light and often smoke, both of which are fairly easy to see from a long distance in the event "the grid is down" or you have "bugged out" and you're in the woods or something.  That means in the event of some kind of event which requires you to use your survival skills the only question is, "how long will it take until I must defend myself, my family, my food, and my water?"

The question is not IF you will need defense ... only when you will need to do it.  And in the event of massive civil unrest, you can count on that happening much sooner rather than later.  Not only that, unrest happens with very little real warning which means you may find yourself in a situation of having to defend yourself quite quickly.

Where it becomes even more important is with women.  A woman NEEDS to know how to defend herself against a man.  Where it gets really ugly is that most martial arts and MMA classes will not teach anything remotely close to the correct strategies and techniques a woman needs.

A woman attempting to use normal martial arts, or even some of the more extreme MMA techniques is going to get hurt.

I'm going to try, in later posts, to talk about self defense for both men and women separately.

Then I'm going to cover PROPER techniques for how to correctly shoot a firearm.

And of course I'll get into firebuilding, what should go in a "bug out bag", and those sorts of things as well.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and ask.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

True Survival

With a background in the military, special operations, and several other things, I have a unique perspective to how to survive and thrive in the event of a disaster or civil uprising.

Now I have to admit that even just a couple of years ago I would have thought the possibility of civil uprising in most of the first world countries to be extremely unlikely.

I not only no longer see civil uprising, and needing to survive an out of control mob as likely ... at this point I believe it's only a matter of time.

Further, far too many of us live in places where there is a very real possibility of major natural disaster than can take down water, power, gas, and every other service along with leaving your home absolutely decimated.

Now if you want to be a sucker, you can hope that maybe the government will take care of ... but we all know that the government plain and simply doesn't do a good job of that.  Take a look at what happened with Hurricane Katrina for just a small example of the massive ineptitude of the government in this area.

No, if something happens you need to be able to take care of yourself and your family.  This blog is going to be dedicated to showing you how to do that.