Tuesday, 4th March 2008

This weekend I took a long urban hike around the city. This is something I like to do maybe once a year. Part reconnaissance exercise, part endurance training, I typically cover the entire local area—about 70 kilometers—in a two or three day period. I visit old haunts and new developments, silently examining the lay of the land and re-familiarizing myself with my environment; the major areas but also the nooks and crannies; alleyways and lanes, subway routes, little known areas and shortcuts known to very few. Over the weekend I don’t sleep, and I always return home exhausted. But I inevitably learn a great deal.

70 k is a long way to walk over hard concrete and ashphalt, particularly with no sleep. Although I bounce back after a day or two following an urban hike, I inevitably pick up temporary niggles, perhaps an aching knee or swollen Achilles’ tendon. All athletes get aches and pains now and again—in fact, all human beings do; sedentary couch potatoes probably get more than trained individuals. When I was younger, I got a lot of injuries from heavy training in martial arts, and when something happened I instinctively reached for the modern, contemporary cures. You know; painkillers like paracetamol (found in Tylenol and Panadol), as well as anti-inflammatories like aspirin and ibuprofen. On one occasion I went so far as to get a cortisone injection for an acute elbow injury.

But as I get older and wiser, I’ve learned to shy away from this type of easy reliance on pill-popping and modern chemicals. Don’t get me wrong; I believe in western medicine. In an emergency some knowledge of medical techniques is vital. This is why those who order The Urban Warrior’s Bible will automatically get The Urban Warrior’s Field Medicine eManual as a free gift. It's part of the system. The Urban Warrior doesn’t shy away from using modern medical equipment and techniques when he really needs them. They are very powerful.

That said, my interest in survivalism has always made me cautious of becoming dependent upon modern medicine and its chemicals for minor matters of body maintenance, like aches, pains and minor joint injuries. For example, in a crisis—Hurricane Katrina is an example, although there are many more—the easy availability of medical supplies may come to a sudden halt. Local stocks of analgesics and anti-inflammatories will dry up or be seconded elsewhere. The same is true of other common medications such as antidepressants, sleeping tablets, cold medicine, etc. When this occurs, you will have to learn to maintain your body without such quick fixes—and this is important because it’s during a crisis that you need to depend upon your body functioning well most of all!

For this reason I started to wean myself off the casual use of medications about seven years ago. Instead, I learned to use healing techniques which require very little or no external equipment. These techniques include acupressure and self-massage, as well as postural training and advanced movements that naturally drain swellings, enhance recovery and prevent re-injury. After a year or two I got to the stage where I never used over-the-counter medication, even following repeated combat injuries. I just didn’t require it anymore; I was able to do a better job by myself.

Most of the techniques mentioned above are associated with eastern medicine, particularly the Chinese system. For beginners who are interested in learning to maintain their athletic functioning using more natural arts, I’d recommend the excellent text: A Tooth From the Tiger’s Mouth, by Tom Bisio. Sifu Bisio is a well-known kung fu instructor based in New York, and although his book is really a compendium aimed at martial artists, any serious athlete can benefit from it.

Most urbanites overuse over the counter medication. If you are currently a big user of any of this stuff, learn to wean yourself off it if you can, replacing it with more natural alternatives—alternatives that won’t suddenly disappear in a major crisis. The Urban Warrior depends upon himself first and foremost.


Saturday, 15th March 2008

Here’s a little story for you.

A man goes into a nightclub with his younger wife. After a few hours drinking, he decides that the twenty-something Hispanic man sitting opposite them is staring at his pretty wife a little too hard. After a few more drinks, he decides to take exception to this, and confronts this Hispanic man, spitting in his face as he screams insults at him, seemingly uncontrollably. After having his say, he sits down again, satisfied.

About forty minutes later, he leaves the club and is attacked and stabbed by the Hispanic man and his older brother, who was also there that night. He survived the attack—just—but now will require a catheter for the rest of his life, due to his wounds.

This is not a made-up story; it happened just two nights ago in a club near my building, and is now splashed over page four of the local newspaper. I bet you could tell me similar stories yourself. They are all too common.

Many martial arts claim “spiritual” roots, but very often modern exponents have trouble explaining what these roots are. But here, you can see the origins. Psychic development—including the eradication of negative, “unspiritual” emotions—is essential in developing becoming a superior warrior. Our psychological vices slow us down. They make us weak. The best disposition is one of cool rationality; the further you depart from this calm, collected (yet alert) mental state the weaker you become.

You see this in the news story I’ve just related. The husband’s anger blinded him to the dangers around him—namely the presence of the brother of the man he was screaming at. He could have walked away early on, but his vanity forced him to take his “enemy” to task. He could have gained his revenge at a more appropriate time, but he was too lazy to wrestle with his own dumb impulses. And if he had really needed to act, he should have done so, rather than shouting and making a spectacle of himself. But he held back. He was afraid to launch an immediate attack (which wouldn’t have been legitimate anyway).

Ninjutsu philosophy takes this basic idea of warrior-weakness further. In accord with their Shinto theory of the five elements, they saw five psychic weaknesses to which every man (and woman) is heir. They are:

• ANGER
• VANITY
• LAZINESS
• FEAR
• SYMPATHY

To this, I would add a sixth weakness: GREED. The type of greed that renders the body fat and feeble, or encourages the misuse of substances like alcohol or recreational drugs—which simply retard reasoning and decision-making capacities and throw the perceptual skills out of whack.

Eastern philosophy embraces the five elements

Each of these states make you potentially weak in any self-defense scenario. But how do you combat them? There are two essential inner arts you need to develop. These arts are the powers of introspection and extrospection.

Introspection will allow you to identify these negative states arising in your own mind; over time, this practice will also teach you to control those states. When you master this ability, you will have slashed your personal vulnerabilities in multiple areas.

Extrospection is the next stage, and will allow you to identify these negative states in the minds of others. Over time, you’ll learn to engender and fan these states in your enemies, exposing their vulnerabilities in various ways.

This kind of manipulation is too complex and wide-ranging to discuss fully here, but is fully covered in The Urban Warrior’s Bible. But you can start right now; look at your emotions today. Examine how you respond to stress. Do you simply react mindlessly, or can you follow a plan? How would you have responded in the situation outlined above?

Be wise. Control your mind and body. Retain psychological awareness at all times. I don’t want to see you in next week’s newspaper.


Wednesday, 19th March 2008

COVERTLY BYPASS VIRTUALLY ANY LOCK—IN SECONDS

Today I completely terrified a friend of mine, who happens to be a Close Protection Professional. (That’s a bodyguard to you and me.)

How did I freak him out? Did I petrify him with my awesome marksmanship ability? Scare him half to death with my martial arts skills? Intimidate him with a dazzling new self-defense theory? None of the above, I’m afraid.

I got into his brand new “impregnable” steel-plated front door in under five seconds. I didn’t have a key, I didn’t “pick” the lock, and I didn’t damage the door or lock in any way. The door was locked securely before I started, and nobody let me in.

It sounds like the beginning of one of those trick riddles, huh? You know the type; a man is sitting in an empty room with no doors and no windows, how does he escape? But it’s not a riddle. It is, however, a trick. A very sneaky, very scary trick than can allow you to bypass ninety percent of the world’s locks in seconds—and with very little skill!

Let me fill you in on the background of the story before telling you about the technique I used. My buddy knows how paranoid I am about security, so he was proud to show me his new stainless steel “super door” he’s fitted at the front of his house. He lives on the outskirts of a pretty rough neighborhood and was excited as he pointed out that the door (which cost him hundreds of dollars) was totally bullet proof and barge proof. He locked the door and stood back in admiration. “Nobody’s getting through THAT unless I say so!” He beamed.

Antagonistic bastard that I am, I took my special key from its permanent location on my keychain, and started tapping it briskly with the solid end of the keychain, putting turning pressure on the handle as I did so. After just seconds, bingo—the lock popped open, the handle turned, and I effortlessly opened his “super door”. It might as well not have been there.

Those of you in the know will recognize the description given above as the technique called “lock bumping”. This requires a special blank “bump key”—you can make one from any cylinder lock key by filing down the teeth to the level of the key shoulder. Alternatively, you can buy them ready prepared from the internet.

Lock bumping works using the laws of physics. Most locks are pin tumbler locks; cylindrical pin tumbler locks were patented by Yale over a century and a half ago, and the design has hardly changed to this day. These locks work by securing a cylinder (called a plug) with spring-loaded pins of different sizes. In theory, only the correct key will push these pins slightly beyond the border of the plug (to a point called the shear point). When this happens, the plug can be freely turned and the lock opens.

Inserting a bump key with the correct profile will cause the stumps of the key to come into gentle contact with the tips of these spring-loaded pins. When the extruding end of the bump key is struck, the key’s metal transmits force along its length, which causes the pins to jump away from the key in unison for a split second.

This phenomenon is not unlike the desk toy known as “Newton’s Cradle”, where metal spheres strike one another, forcing the end balls to swing away. The principle is the same—Newton’s Third Law of Motion (i.e., “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”).

When the pins jump up, they jump clear of the shear point, and the plug is able to move freely—in other words, you can turn the lock, opening it.

Lock bumping requires very little skill—it’s more accurate to describe it as a knack—once you have it, you can bump virtually any cylinder lock with just a few tries. It’s fascinating to know the theory, but you can do it even with no knowledge of lock mechanics; I’ve seen little kids do it, in fact.

Security bypass skills are an important tool in your technical arsenal. Combat and sabotage are obviously useful applications. Getting inside an enemy location covertly can give you a massive tactical edge in an extreme situation, maybe in cases where the law can’t help you. In addition, during periods of anarchy or social breakdown, knowledge of how to get inside storage areas for requisitioning food and other supplies can mean the difference between life and death. So bypassing locks can also be a survival skill. I’ve spent literally years developing my lock picking techniques, but I’d advise anybody to learn lock bumping before the art of lock picking. It’s infinitely easier and quicker, and leaves no sign of forced entry—even to forensics investigators.

If you do want to learn more about bumping, you can read the best essay I’ve ever found on the topic here. It’s also a good idea to watch an illustrative animation, which will make the mechanics of bumping much easier to grasp than is the case with written text. There’s a helpful video here. If you want to get hold of some bump keys to train with, www.bumpkey.us have a wide selection of different types for different locks.

It’s also a good idea to be aware of lock bumping from a home security perspective. One way to make your base immune is to fit bump-proof locks (rotating disk locks, electronic locks and magnetic-type locks are invulnerable to bumping). If you can’t afford to change your locks, at least having internal bolts will prevent a lock bumper from getting into your house while you’re inside (although not when you’ve locked your door from the outside).

Knowledge is power!


Thursday, 27th March 2008

THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED (12 GAUGE)

I constantly get emails asking me questions like; what’s your favorite gun? That’s cool. But yesterday I received a more specific inquiry; I was asked my opinion on the top weapon for home defense. In fact, the question I received was even more specific than that. Here’s an excerpt of the email, reproduced with permission:

…what if somebody bursts in on you in the middle of the night while you’re asleep? Maybe my house is being over-run by attackers. What’s the best weapon for home protection in such a situation?

A scary question deserves a scary answer, I guess.

I do in fact keep a loaded weapon in the reach space under my bed, in case of this very scenario. I certainly wouldn’t advise this—ever—if you have kids in your home, or even if you share your house or apartment. But it works for me.

My weapon of choice is a firearm. Not a handgun or a rifle, but a small shotgun, the “Super Shorty”.

This is my Super Shorty shotgun. It’s got a pistol grip, and at 16.5 inches, is tiny for a shotgun. This means that it’s pretty nifty and agile, a highly useful quality in confined spaces. Despite its size, it’s a twelve gauge and packs one hell of a wallop. The shotgun spread means that aiming is not quite as much of an issue as for a pistol; and this might be an important factor if you are attacked in the middle of the night, potentially groggy and confused. In addition, the shotgun’s penetration (due to the pellet spread) is far less than for a handgun, meaning that in a confined space, there’s much less chance of ammo going through walls to hit neighbors or innocent bystanders. Yep, smaller shotguns like this are pretty much an ideal home defense choice.

No weapon is perfect, though. Perhaps the biggest downside with this gun is that it holds only two shells, with one in the chamber. If your home was invaded by a gang, you wouldn’t be able to confront them all in one go with this. You’d have to stop and reload. But for me, this gun is a weapon for the situation described above, when rapid action is the key. (I have quick access to other weapons for a more prolonged urban assault!)

That said, I do really rate this gun. It has close combat potential well beyond the parameters of home defense. In any urban situation when anarchy reigns and society has gone to hell in a handbasket, this is one of the weapons I’d reach for if I had to walk the streets. You can get thigh holsters for the Super Shorty now, but that’s far too showy; I’ve made a custom holster that easily conceals this gun under a three-quarter length coat. I’m pretty big, and I can even hide this gun under a normal jacket.

My Super Shorty is based on a Mossberg Cruiser. You can get versions of the Super Shorty based on a Remington 870, or (more usually) a Mossberg Maverick. Although I love Remingtons, I favor the Cruiser, because the Mossberg 500 series (of which the Cruiser is an example) all feature aluminum receivers making them surprisingly light and responsive to use.

I hope the email I’ve quoted has made you think a little about your own self-defense strategy in this nightmare scenario. Imagine it; somebody—enemy, criminal, lunatic scum—bypasses your defenses and winds up waking you by entering your room in the middle of the night.

What do you have to make your self-defense efforts more efficient?

I’m not saying you need to have a shotgun under the bed. That may be neither practical, nor legal. But you do need to work out some strategy, and back that plan up with a tool you can use against an attacker. A sheathed combat knife, metal baton, or similar weapon in a bedside drawer is a good alternative. But learn some techniques for defending yourself with these tools. Always drill.

And if you choose to keep pepper spray in the draw next to you, don’t confuse it with your inhaler in the middle of the night.

(Don’t laugh. It has happened.)

For next month's blog, click here.