This blog is not intended to contribute to the MRA movement, but MGTOW has many parallels with the life path espoused here. As such, it is appropriate for this blog to discuss the way that western culture has attempted to annihilate male identity, thereby attacking martial valor by extension.
If you live as a man in western culture, you face a greater enemy than any physical threat. Those who educate you, raise you, and even those who train you for battle have systematically discouraged, denigrated, and shamed your identity for no other reason than you are male. These cowards have not even had the courage to attack you directly. Rather, they attack your "masculinity." This culture is not involved in a gender war, but a bloodless gender ethnic cleansing. In a metaphorical sense, western culture has attempted to castrate all male behaviors with the tools of political correctness, "offensive" language, and other ways of portraying perfectly normal male behaviors as pathological. If you want proof of this, simply attempt to do the following activities that used to be normal and unoffensive in the past:
*Start a male only athletic club, fraternity, or even a group of men who just meet and discuss issues.
*Strengthen your body for any reason other than looking more attractive to the other gender.
*Say NO to a person of the other gender... any person... for any reason.
*Own a weapon and support the use of weapons for self defense.
*Reward and punish males and females equally for the same behavior.
*Support the martial arts as a social institution and train to improve your skills.
*Teach children, or insist on being a father to your children.
I'll make the outcome easy for you: your club would be labeled discriminatory against women or outright dangerous, your strength would threaten others, your saying no would be seen as evidence of misogyny, your weapons would be treated as dangerous, your equal treatment would be deemed disrespectful or even hateful, your involvement with children would implicate you as a predator, and your martial training would be seen as evidence of your malicious intent. These activities, when performed by men, generate suspicion, political debate, and even outright attack.
Now pretend that it is women participating in the above activities. Do they receive any negative social sanction WHATSOEVER? Female only clubs are normal. Girls in the martial arts who own weapons are empowering themselves. A woman saying no is just asserting herself. A woman strengthening her body for health alone is a yogic inspiration. A woman treating men and women exactly alike for the same behavior is fairness. A woman taking care of her children is normal. Women receive copious praise, you-go-grrl platitudes, and the endorsement of the media and the state merely for doing their fucking jobs and taking care of themselves and their families. Of course they shouldn't be punished for doing these things, but NEITHER SHOULD ANYONE ELSE.
It's important to realize that NONE of the above actions are political. In 1940, if a man undertook these actions, he would neither provoke nor impress any typical citizen. Today, these issues are POLITICIZED wherever men dare to undertake them. Usually a society will politicize an unpolitical action when they seek to deny that liberty. All the items in the list above are being systematically DENIED to men only. Men are being discouraged from starting families, associating freely, speaking freely, and improving themselves. What begins as social shaming will eventually become legislative restrictions on freedom of association, freedom of speech, and private property, all for the ostensible benefit of women, though everyone will ultimately suffer.
The busybodies of state have long known that the best way to control a free society is not to utilize physical coercion, jails, and public punishments. If anything, these tactics have the tendency to make heroes out of insurgents. No, the best way to restrain groups of free men (the greatest threat to totalitarianism), is to treat men as dangerous, shame men's sexuality, disincentivize healthy relationships between men and ANYONE ELSE for ANY REASON, incentivize the destruction of families, and let the resulting wave of female social dissatisfaction beat men down harder than any government purge.
Eventually, the only way to live as a man in this culture who is not punished on a constant basis will be to live single, have no children, work a minimum wage/low prestige job, reflexively apologize to women, disconnect from one's family, and play video games all day in a shitty apartment. The men who live in this fashion have made a totalitarian state's job easier. Rather than the state going through the trouble and effort of housing all possible dissidents in prisons, men are imprisoning themselves in lives of weakness, solitude, depression, and sexless guilt. If you are a male and find yourself slipping into this dystopian lifestyle, wake the fuck up. You are castrating yourself for someone else's benefit.
Some men will say I am shaming them and telling them to "man up." Quite the contrary. I'm telling you to take a stand against those who deny you fair treatment. No one has the right to deny a peaceful man a family, a career, and a fulfilling life. Fear and escapism are not political actions. They are cowardly ways of surrendering to an enemy who had no right to drive you away in the first place. None of this country's political elite and none of the feminist shrikes are avoiding marriage, wealth, and inheritance. WHY SHOULD YOU?
Here are some ways to fight back in your own life: If you are a male martial artist, train in secret with other martial artists. Men sharpen other men just as iron whets iron. Go out of your way to praise your male friends and relatives, especially if they have taken some initiative to improve their strength. Take time to associate with other men in the absence of women merely to talk. Train your body and mind for conflict and support the training of other men. Do not supplicate to women or make excuses for their shitty behavior: treat women fairly, just as their feminism dictates. Lastly, appreciate the women in your life who are strong enough to resist the social rewards for hatred of men. If a woman is loyal and reliable to you, reward her with the same loyalty and reliability, but VERIFY she is trustworthy. Finally, respect your family above all else. These are the only ways left to fight back against the languishing death of our culture. Your actions as a man can be part of the sickness or part of the cure.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Martial Conditioning: The Pushup
Intro: The pushup serves numerous functions in martial conditioning because it is one of the simplest, most comprehensive exercises and movement skills: pushing one's body away from an external surface using the musculature of the upper body.
Muscles worked: The anterior chain. Dynamic: Chest, triceps, anterior deltoids, rotator cuff, serratus anterior. Stationary: Entire abdominal wall, quadriceps, hip flexors. Stabilizing: Latissimus dorsi, upper back, biceps.
Why do pushups?: The pushup serves as equal part physical conditioning tool, punishment tool, and tired tradition. Contrary to popular belief, the pushup is not a superior upper body strengthening tool, even in its one armed form. The overhead press claims that title, in the opinion of this author. Rather, it is an intermediate movement ability which develops healthy shoulders and can be tailored to build muscle endurance which is especially useful for punching and blocking.
Also, completing the tedious ritual of pushups demonstrates will power and discipline in a student. Pushups represent an immediately accessible form of austerity training in addition to a decent strength maintainer. Regardless of how martial artists feel about this exercise, it is ubiquitous in training schools and can be successfully used as a sole strengthening tool in the absence of feasible alternatives, especially with beginners. They are free and they keep students busy.
Pushups can be performed numerous ways to reap a variety of rewards. Here, I will outline the use of the pushup as a rehabilitation tool, strength builder, and muscle builder.
Rehabilitation: Pushups can be used to gently rehabilitate the shoulders, elbows, upper back, and midsection after injuries both large and small, to the muscles, bones, and joints. The trick is to stimulate healing blood flow through those areas and create enough micro damage to elicit tissue repair. This requires the use of the easiest pushup variations with virtually no momentum and very high repetitions. This enables the trainee to maximize the "burn" associated with pushups while minimizing tissue damage, thus resulting in a healing stimulus without a high risk of further injury. An example of this training would be 3 sets of 50 wall pushups with metronome timing (3 seconds down, 2 seconds up). For best results, push 20 repetitions past the burn during each set. If the set does not burn intensely, no healing stimulus is occurring.
Another benefit of this method is that the stabilizers, which normally do not receive adequate stimulation during normal exercise, are able to reach the point of lactic acid burn and failure. This increases their strength relative to the main movers, which are mostly under-challenged by wall pushups. A trainee who performs only regular pushups might have never worked their stabilizers to near failure.
Strength: Pushups can be used for strength by working up to the one armed pushup with full range of motion. This movement will tax the midsection most of all, but will develop impressive pressing strength as well. This method is best with stringent form and low repetitions. For progression ideas, purchase a copy of Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade.
One way to augment strength development is to maximize the strictness of form. Hands free pushups are now part of the US Army's physical test, which require the trainee to rest on the ground with the hands removed, push up to a full lockout, then return to the ground and remove the hands before the next repetition. This method ensures that EVERY repetition is equally difficult and therefore lowers the maximum achievable repetitions and maximizes the strength benefit of the exercise.
Muscle: This is the most common function of pushups in martial arts schools. Without weights, martial arts schools have few other options for building muscle in trainees: partner drills, isometrics, and technical drills have little effect on the physique. Pushups are therefore the most accessible muscle builders possible. To most efficiently craft muscle from pushups, perform high repetitions with maximum speed. For example, try to perform 1,000 pushups in one day with as many repetitions per set as possible without reaching failure. Go for volume. This will guarantee muscle breakdown and stimulate hypertrophy of the entire upper body and midsection.
Likely Results of Pushups: To judge any exercise, observe the bodies of its masters. Google the world record setters in the pushup for an indication of results that can be attained through diligent practice.
Notice the shoulder hypertrophy and overall leanness of physique. Pushups will lean out fat trainees and thicken up skinny trainees. For martial application, the importance of lean muscle mass as an expression of one's strength is implicit. The body types above demonstrate martial capacity, which accounts for the inclusion of pushups in nearly every martial art in human society.
Muscles worked: The anterior chain. Dynamic: Chest, triceps, anterior deltoids, rotator cuff, serratus anterior. Stationary: Entire abdominal wall, quadriceps, hip flexors. Stabilizing: Latissimus dorsi, upper back, biceps.
Why do pushups?: The pushup serves as equal part physical conditioning tool, punishment tool, and tired tradition. Contrary to popular belief, the pushup is not a superior upper body strengthening tool, even in its one armed form. The overhead press claims that title, in the opinion of this author. Rather, it is an intermediate movement ability which develops healthy shoulders and can be tailored to build muscle endurance which is especially useful for punching and blocking.
Also, completing the tedious ritual of pushups demonstrates will power and discipline in a student. Pushups represent an immediately accessible form of austerity training in addition to a decent strength maintainer. Regardless of how martial artists feel about this exercise, it is ubiquitous in training schools and can be successfully used as a sole strengthening tool in the absence of feasible alternatives, especially with beginners. They are free and they keep students busy.
Pushups can be performed numerous ways to reap a variety of rewards. Here, I will outline the use of the pushup as a rehabilitation tool, strength builder, and muscle builder.
Rehabilitation: Pushups can be used to gently rehabilitate the shoulders, elbows, upper back, and midsection after injuries both large and small, to the muscles, bones, and joints. The trick is to stimulate healing blood flow through those areas and create enough micro damage to elicit tissue repair. This requires the use of the easiest pushup variations with virtually no momentum and very high repetitions. This enables the trainee to maximize the "burn" associated with pushups while minimizing tissue damage, thus resulting in a healing stimulus without a high risk of further injury. An example of this training would be 3 sets of 50 wall pushups with metronome timing (3 seconds down, 2 seconds up). For best results, push 20 repetitions past the burn during each set. If the set does not burn intensely, no healing stimulus is occurring.
Another benefit of this method is that the stabilizers, which normally do not receive adequate stimulation during normal exercise, are able to reach the point of lactic acid burn and failure. This increases their strength relative to the main movers, which are mostly under-challenged by wall pushups. A trainee who performs only regular pushups might have never worked their stabilizers to near failure.
Strength: Pushups can be used for strength by working up to the one armed pushup with full range of motion. This movement will tax the midsection most of all, but will develop impressive pressing strength as well. This method is best with stringent form and low repetitions. For progression ideas, purchase a copy of Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade.
One way to augment strength development is to maximize the strictness of form. Hands free pushups are now part of the US Army's physical test, which require the trainee to rest on the ground with the hands removed, push up to a full lockout, then return to the ground and remove the hands before the next repetition. This method ensures that EVERY repetition is equally difficult and therefore lowers the maximum achievable repetitions and maximizes the strength benefit of the exercise.
Muscle: This is the most common function of pushups in martial arts schools. Without weights, martial arts schools have few other options for building muscle in trainees: partner drills, isometrics, and technical drills have little effect on the physique. Pushups are therefore the most accessible muscle builders possible. To most efficiently craft muscle from pushups, perform high repetitions with maximum speed. For example, try to perform 1,000 pushups in one day with as many repetitions per set as possible without reaching failure. Go for volume. This will guarantee muscle breakdown and stimulate hypertrophy of the entire upper body and midsection.
Likely Results of Pushups: To judge any exercise, observe the bodies of its masters. Google the world record setters in the pushup for an indication of results that can be attained through diligent practice.
Notice the shoulder hypertrophy and overall leanness of physique. Pushups will lean out fat trainees and thicken up skinny trainees. For martial application, the importance of lean muscle mass as an expression of one's strength is implicit. The body types above demonstrate martial capacity, which accounts for the inclusion of pushups in nearly every martial art in human society.
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