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!
INTENSITY: METTLE MAKER #291
“Consider the ravens, that they sow not, neither reap.” Luke 12:24
Self-defense: The fourth week of the month is always weapon week. Set a goal to execute 200 strikes per day (100 with each hand) using either a mock weapon vs. your heavy bag or with a live weapon vs. a pell or weapon post. If a carpenter can drive nails all day, 7 days a week for 30 years and call it a job well done, you should be able to summon up enough intensity to play pretend combat for 5 minutes every day for one lousy week. Get there.
Fitness: What’s “intensity level” in weightlifting terms? If the max you can bench press for 1 rep (“1RM”) is 160 lbs. then you should be able to do a set of 10 with 75% of that number, or 10 x 120 lbs. The percentage of 1RM is generally referred to as “intensity level.” The higher the intensity level the higher the drain on your central nervous system (CNS). If you’re a power lifter, you like intensity. Lifting is your sport. “Intensity means gains bro!” CNS drain from lifting is expected and accepted. But if you’re a martial artist or a tennis player, and you’re lifting at more than about 75%, the CNS drain will tend to steal the intensity from your martial arts training, your tennis training, or what-have-you. Put your intensity where it belongs! Need help tweaking your program, or want help designing one from scratch? Enroll in the free Heritage Self-Defense Distance Learning Program or maybe click here to sign up for the free Heritage Fitness Program. Did I mention they’re both free?
Snow tracking is fun. Done that lately?
Wildwood: Lots of snow this week in the East and Southeast, plenty right here in Richmond, VA. Something about the snow really makes being in the woods more intense. Perhaps it’s because it’s relatively rare where I live. Anyway, snow tracking is great fun. You can spot animal tracks with incredible ease, and snow dampens the sound of your approach if you’re careful and slow in your stalking so that every footfall doesn’t make a scrunch that is. You might even be able to sprinkle salt on a rabbit’s tail. The old timers used to say that sprinkling salt on a wild animal’s tail made them way easier to catch. Why not test out the axiom and have some fun in the bargain? By the way, do you know how to appropriately camouflage yourself in snowy conditions? Unless you’re a soldier trying to make yourself invisible to aerial recon, the best plan is to wear white pants (and boots if you have them) with a camo jacket. Common sense really. Just look out into the snowy woods. White on the bottom, camo on top, right?
Spirit: Here is another meditation from my forthcoming book tentatively titled The Art of Dying Well: Forty Memento Mori Meditations.
Jesus said, “Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more than the food, and the body than the raiment. Consider the ravens, that they sow not, neither reap; which have no store-chamber nor barn; and God feedeth them: of how much more value are ye than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit unto the measure of his life? If then ye are not able to do even that which is least, why are ye anxious concerning the rest?” Luke 12-22-25 American Standard Version
The Raven is the dire black bird that leads the spirits of the departed toward the afterlife in the old myths. Whenever the Raven enters the story, he reminds us that every breath may be our last and, as everyone knows but few embody, those who live their lives steeped in this knowledge live to the fullest. Just as the raven was the first bird released to find dry land after the flood, in the old art of Alchemy, the raven was the first of the animals associated with the four stages of development in the Great Work – the perfection of the soul in preparation to meet one’s maker and the fabrication of the heal-all known as the Philosopher’s Stone.
Rest assured the Jesus Christ, the Word Made Flesh, the Author of Life, did not randomly select the raven for his sermon. Let, therefore, the knocks and rattles of the Raven’s eerie call be as a proclamation to you. Fear not death. But rather take flight!
If this sort of thing interests you, come to this blog every Sunday for Holy Communion and worship with us, and click the button on the right to subscribe to the church newsletter.