By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato Once you learn something and acquire the ability to do it well you normally will never lose your ability entirely. Learn a foreign language and discontinue practicing it for a couple of years and you’re sure to be less able to communicate effectively than you were. However, you will...
Category: TRENDS IN SURVIVALISM by Bradley J. Steiner
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PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE!
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato In any art, martial art, visual art, performing art, art of clothing design, art of building weapons, houses, or vehicles, etc. or the art of persuasion or argument, doing, once the mechanics have been learned, remains the only path to perfecting, and to truly expert, masterful performance. Because the...
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THE NEED FOR OVERWHELMING FORCE
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “overwhelm” as meaning: “To be too much to deal with”. Think about that. There are low-level scumbags who amount to little more than petty pains-in-the-ass. Many, if told firmly to do so, will simply leave the person whom they are bothering alone. Others...
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GET IN GOOD SHAPE AND STAY THERE
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato While physical strength and condition will never, alone, guarantee that you will be prepared to react well to violence, there is no doubt whatever that strength and condition—and internal good health—are assets in any physical encounter. They may enable you to survive an attack. In order to be in...
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NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR ASSAILANT…OR YOURSELF!
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato Students of self-defense tend in their early months of training to make one of two potentially serious mistakes. They become so enthusiastic about their new found skills and confidence in their ability to defend themselves, that they tend to underestimate their would-be attackers; i.e. the scum and filth in...
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HANDGUN, KNIFE AND STICK
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato They are the most useful and effective personal weapons. Yet how many who train in martial arts today for self-defense recognize this, and are enthusiastic students of these weapons? Not too many. “Weapons of the martial arts” are customarily thought to be nunchucks, the nine foot pole, the manriki-gusari,...
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SPARRING: IS IT AN ESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF CLOSE COMBAT/DEFENSE TRAINING?
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato You hear it all the time: “Without freestyle sparring in whatever you are doing, there is no preparation for self-defense. You must spar.” With all due respect to those who honestly believe that (and with utter contempt for those who know better, but foster the lie because it serves...
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FINALLY… IT’S UP TO YOU
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato When that awful moment arrives and it’s time to trip the wire and go after your assailant (either preemptively, or after he’s seized, grabbed, shoved, or menacingly moved in on you, etc.) there can be no success, no matter how hard you’ve trained, and no matter how excellent the...
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THE NINE CORE PRINCIPLES GIVEN US BY THE WWII SYSTEM COMBAT TRAINERS
During WWII the arts of personal close combat reached a pinnacle in practical evolution. Necessity pressed those on the allied side to produce the toughest and most workable doctrine for their fighting forces. Most likely the reader knows the names of the key figures of that time: W.E. Fairbairn, Eric A. Sykes, Dermot (“Pat”) O’Neill,...
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IN THE EVENT OF SOCIAL CHAOS
By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato If we are correct then the term for those who are rather constantly concerned about the prospect of society’s collapse, and of subsequent urban chaos, is “preppers.” Obviously, we believe in being prepared, and so we respect those who occupy themselves with activities that are intended to see to...