What is the weekly mettle maker? It’s a weekly shot in the arm, a semi-fortnightly kick in the pants — your helpful heckler, hammering away at you to stop hemming and hawing and hurdle headlong into becoming your own hero!
WORKMAN: METTLE MAKER #289
Those of us who work sitting (or at best standing) behind desks can’t imagine how it’s possible for a manual laborer to toil all day in the soul-sucking heat of summer or the aching cold of winter. Those who hold a tool for at most five or ten minutes at a stretch, to put up a curtain rod or perhaps hang a picture, can’t comprehend how a man can swing a hammer from dawn to dusk or move a couple of tons of dirt or gravel in a few hours with just a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
Right now you may think that many capabilities are beyond your reach. But the carpenter begins his career as a helper, carrying tools, hauling wood, and fetching nails, working his way up over the course of years. It takes years for a landscaper or construction worker to develops his muscles and hone his technique.
Daily effort and a workmanlike approach is the key to success in all things.
Work.
~Excerpt from my forthcoming book, The Craft of Dying Well
Self-defense: Put on work gloves and safety goggles, pick up your live training knife, and get in front of your forging post or pell. Put in four rounds of Double-slash and Stab. Alternate hands each round, aim at both high and low targets, and vary your slashes (2-8, 8-2, 2-6, 6-2, 3-7, 7-3, etc. ). Be sure to select a specific point for your stab — aim for a tiny knot or make a pea-sized dot with a marking pen. If any of this doesn’t make any sense, you should question your training methods. Consider enrolling in the Heritage Self-Defense Distance Learning Program (it's free by the way because we’re a charity).
Fitness: Form matters. The old-timers were really big on form, and many of the current greats are too. Try doing 12 each of the following calisthenics with perfect form on a 10-second pace per rep (4 count up, 2-count hold, 4-count down): Push-ups, Zombie Squats, Jackknifes, Neck Crunches, Sit-Outs, and Back Bridges. If this doesn’t take at least 12 minutes you’re going too fast, and if you’re not a little sore tomorrow I’ll eat my hat. Want more? Click here to sign up for the free Heritage Fitness Program. Did I mention it’s free?
Wildwood: How do you develop cold tolerance better than a dog’s? By regularly going outside in the cold while wearing the least amount of clothing you can stand (within safe limits of course) . Did you read the quote at the top of the page? No? Go read it, I’ll wait. Good. Still don’t believe me? Dig this:
“The Powhatans [native Indians of Virginia], being active outdoor people, dealt with winter cold as long as possible by merely acclimatizing and oiling themselves. [John] Smith was amazed at the men’s ability to go about nearly naked in weather such that “a dogge would scarse have endured it.” However, when they finally bundled up they wore fur cloaks called “matchcoats.”” [p. 69]
“[T]he English did notice that the Indians washed every morning in the nearest stream, whatever the weather, after which they staged a prayer ritual. They told the English they washed themselves and even their small children in order to make them hardy and inured to cold.” [p. 78]
~Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatans of Virginia (1989, University of Oklahoma Press)
And lastly, go read this great article by Mark Hatmaker about cold tolerance. Get there. Want more? Sign up for the Heritage Wildwood distance learning program..
Spirit: Here is another excerpt from my forthcoming book, The Craft of Dying Well.
“Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” ~1 Corinthians 15:55-57.
Assume your meditative posture of choice and set a timer for 10+ minutes. Any posture will do (in a chair, cross-legged, kneeling, seiza, virasana, doesn’t matter) as long as your back is straight and your hands are close to your body so your arms don’t get tired. Breathe in as you silently ask, “Where, O Death, is your victory?’ Hesitate with lungs full as you silently ask “Where, O Death, is your sting?” Repeat as you breathe out and hesitate with lungs empty. Keep airways open when you hesitate full and empty — don’t clamp down. As you do this, imagine every possible way you could be suffered to die. By slow and painful disease, in a bed in an old-folk’s home abandoned by family, freezing to death in cardboard box under the overpass, shot, stabbed, car accident, tortured by terrorists, by every method your mind can conjure — especially the ones that terrify you the most. Begin to do the work of hardening yourself to the inevitability of death, for only by banishing the fear of death do we truly live.
If this sort of thing interests you, come to this blog every Sunday for Holy Communion and worship with us.