11:14 – Here’s an article by Kurt Schlichter that’s worth reading: Buy Ammo
FTA:
[…]An armed, trained populace is not only prepared for when things go bad, but the fact that it is armed and trained makes it much less likely that things will go bad in the first place. Last year, Americans voted for liberty by buying well over 15 million new guns. That’s roughly 40,000 a day, every day. That’s enough to arm three infantry divisions.
Every. Single. Day.
Just don’t forget to buy ammo.
That’s simply stunning. I’d never thought about it that way. Many of those 40,000 new guns per day were black rifles. Sure, 40,000 new guns a day doesn’t really translate to three infantry divisions or anything close. It is, nonetheless, a significant number, to say the least. And it’s pretty obvious that any attempt to confiscate guns on a wide scale would be impractical, particularly in rural areas, not least because many/most of the people who would be charged with doing so are more in sympathy with gun owners than with the government. Not to mention that it would be hideously dangerous for the people doing the confiscating.
On the prepping front, I’m still making up a shopping list for our next Costco run. Barbara said last night that we have enough rice, especially since we have about 200 pounds of it in stock and don’t routinely use all that much of it. She has a point. But she doesn’t object to adding to our stocks of bulk sugar, flour, egg noodles, vegetable oil, and so on, which we do use a lot of. Speaking of which, she volunteered the other day that she’s going to bake cornbread, which we haven’t had in a long time.
We need to get some two-liter soda bottles ready to fill with sugar, flour, etc. I’m fully booked right now with administrative stuff that needs to be complete by 31 January, so that’ll be a project for early February. That and getting shelving set up in my office and getting stuff moved from boxes onto the shelving.
A LOT of AR’s are being sold daily and also a LOT of small concealable handguns. A quarter-million firearms per week, a million a month. On TOP of what’s already out there.
I can see that the anti-gun ass-hats are never gonna stop chipping away at us, but I fail to understand what possible chance of success they have anymore.
Yes, don’t forget to BUY AMMO. And get TRAINING, one way or the other. If you are so inclined, learn RELOADING and get the components to do so for at least one cartridge for under a couple of hundred bucks.
Criminals in Albuquerque, NM are finding it tough sledding lately when busting into citizen homes:
http://theunarmedcitizen.blogspot.com/2016/01/justifiable-homicides-spike.html
And in other cities and rural areas, countless stories lately of this.
Alligators and Crocodiles do a fair job too…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-09/burglary-suspect-killed-by-alligator-while-evading-officials/7015026
In most cases of guns saving lives the guns are not fired. My very young wife and I moved into a dilapidated rural home in 1973. One day a pickup truck drove the long dirt driveway from the road and pulled up in our front yard while I was at work. Three male teens jumped out of the truck and started toward the house. My wife came out on the porch and the boys stopped. I think they suspected the house to be deserted. Yes, it did look that bad. My wife asked if they needed directions. They started making suggestive and filthy remarks and walking to the porch. My wife stepped inside the front door and picked up the rifle we kept there, then stepped back on the porch. She just stood there, not pointing it at the teens. The boys immediately started backing away, saying they were sorry to bother her and they must be lost. The pickup threw gravel and dirt getting out of there. Often just showing you are not an unarmed victim is all it takes to prevent a crime.
That’s true throughout the animal world. That’s why the worst thing you can do if you come up against a threatening dog is run. Someone who is obviously afraid or runs is clearly prey, to be chased down, killed, and eaten. Someone who stands his ground isn’t.
Back when I was younger and somewhat intimidating, more than once I found myself facing groups of hostile punks. Although my weapons were not on display, I never had a problem with the punks because I knew that if they started something I’d finish it. And I suspect that came across non-verbally.
My Walmart in Sugar Land has all types of ammo now. Except 22 LR. I almost bought more 9 mm JHP over the weekend, Winchester 100 round box for $30.
Same here. .22 LR is the only caliber rationed at my Wally World. Two boxes per customer. What’s with that?
.22 LR rifles are cheap?
OK. 22 LR guns have always been cheaper than center-fire calibers. That hasn’t changed. What HAS changed? I don’t have the answer. We do know that many Government agencies like the FDA are buying hundreds of thousands of rounds of 9mm and .223 as they build SWAT teams. Don’t ask me why the FDA and the FHA need military quality SWAT teams. But perhaps the ammo manufacturers are devoting more production capacity to these more profitable lines than 22 LR?
Centerfire and rimfire require two very different production lines to make. Demand for centerfire like .223 and 9 mm should not cause a shortage in .22 ammo. It is possible that companies are reluctant to invest money in setting up new rimfire production lines as they don’t believe the demand will last, but so far the shortages don’t seem ready to end.
Don’t ask me why the FDA and the FHA need military quality SWAT teams.
They don’t. Just run through your head the obvious agencies that are armed.
Military police – all branches
FBI
ATF
DEA
NPS
USFS
BLM
Post Office
Federal Marshals
Border Patrol
Federal Prisons
Homeland Security
a shitload that I missed
Now add in all state and locals.
Nope, no police state here
Yeah, .22 rimfire is made in dedicated factories. The last time I checked, it cost something like a quarter to half a billion dollars to build such a factory, so the manufacturers don’t want to build new ones and have them idled if the demand drops off. I understand they’re running 24×7 in their existing factories, but they still obviously can’t keep up with demand.
Factories for centerfire ammo aren’t caliber-specific, within reason, but setup to change calibers is pretty costly. That’s why they do huge production runs for a caliber while they’re set up to do that caliber. So if the government orders, say, a billion rounds of .40 S&W, they usually end up with a pretty decent size overrun, which they don’t want to carry in inventory, so .40 and other popular calibers are less expensive than oddball calibers. You might pay half as much or less per round for .40, 9mm, .45ACP, 5.56, 7.62, etc. as oddballs like .44 Special.
“Nope, no police state here”
As I believe Mr. SteveF would say, more ammo and weapons for the taking later. From badly trained cretins and airheads for the most part, like up here, the State Police trooper who left his cruiser unlocked outside the COURTHOUSE and got all the weapons stolen (handgun, shotgun, rifle), a badge and police ID, and a State Police jacket with a badge on it. The perp was later caught red-handed in the middle of a burglary at a local biz where he was shooting the place up in the middle of the night for some reason. With the cop weapons. What if he’d shot the cops responding or just some citizens caught in the crossfire?
Make a note and observe all these guys be-bopping around in your AO; find out where they live, their vehicles, plate numbers, shifts worked, etc. Gather the local AO INTEL!
Obviously we all hope things never get that bad, but hey, best to semper paratus, amirite?
“… so .40 and other popular calibers are less expensive than oddball calibers. You might pay half as much or less per round for .40, 9mm, .45ACP, 5.56, 7.62, etc. as oddballs like .44 Special.”
.40 seems to be getting less popular and you can probably find scads of cop surplus weapons in that caliber for sale, cheap. Sharp recoil and fewer rounds in a pistol than the 9mm, which has much better stopping power these days. 7.62 is kinda pricey and also kinda heavy to tote around for any length of time, as I have personal cause to know. And .45ACP still seems to be a good seller out there; over a hundred years old.
Yet another reason that it makes sense to standardize on common calibers like .22LR, .38/.357, .45ACP, 5.56, 7.62, and 12 gauge. I suppose if money is no object one could also have weapons to fire 9mm, .40, .30-30, 20 gauge, and several others that are more regional-specific, but I have other priorities.
And if I do have spare money to spend on extra weapons and ammo for them, it’d be spares in our common calibers. Before I lost them all in the lake, we had several spare .22 rifles, 5.56 rifles, and 12 gauge riot guns. I figured we might have friends/neighbors who didn’t have their own, and I’d like to be able to arm them. I guess that makes me a bitter clinger.
“I guess that makes me a bitter clinger.”
Indeed. Even if non-religious. You now live in literal fly-over country out in the sticks with more bitter clingers, too, many of them also clinging to their religion.
I’ve standardized here on 5.56/.223, 12- and 20-gauge, .22LR./.22WMR, .38/.357, 9mm, and .41 Magnum, but I have an unholy and unseemly lust for 6.5 Grendel.
I would like to additionally standardize on .308/7.62, 40mm grenade launcher, and 90mm recoilless rifle, and if able to do so, feel that I could give a very good account of myself in the face of multiple assailants in this AO.
….assuming my knees and lungs hold out for more than ten minutes or so…and I don’t keep dropping things with my left hand, which seems to be more frequent these days…regular butterfingers…
Surprising response from the VA. Went in last Tuesday to the local state VA office, not really the VA but state provided to assist in VA matters. Need to get to see a VA doc so that I can determine if I need part B of medicare. Also may be able to get the VA to pay for my prescriptions. Not much but every dollar helps.
Got a call Friday from the VA wanting to know why I needed to get in their system since I am already in the system. Then just today I got a call from a scheduler who got me an appointment on Feb. 5.
Seems quick relative to my other adventures with the VA.
Bullets and toilet paper, two commodities that will have real value when the SHTF. That’s my plan. Better than precious metals which the gooberment will confiscate. If you think your numismatic coins will be exempt this time around, I don’t think so, the gooberment is not going to make the same mistake they made in the 1930s.
“Went in last Tuesday to the local state VA office, not really the VA but state provided to assist in VA matters.”
Ditto for me tomorrow with a state vet service officer regarding my disability claim paperwork; we’ll see how it pans out from there.
“Bullets and toilet paper, two commodities that will have real value when the SHTF. That’s my plan.”
Ditto again. Hard goods, land and other real estate that’s owned by us/you and not the banksters, and skillz. I’d forget about stocking up on silver and gold coins; after SHTF, few peeps are gonna take ’em for goods or services rendered, as their only familiarity is with the current debased coinage and fiat paper currency. Those will probably be OK for a while and then we’ll be on some kinda barter system after that, I reckon.
Feeling pessimistic (or realistic?) today.
@OFD
I fail to understand what possible chance of success they have anymore
Reference dkreck Just run thru your head the obvious agencies that are armed.
Th government doesn’t need to outlaw or confiscate guns. They just need enough laws to justify killing enough gun owners that the casual gun owners roll over
How frequently do we read about accountability after a government agency has wrongly killed someone?
More often we read the wheels of justice has determined it was the individuals own fault for getting killed or that the agency individual doing the killing was correctly operating under policy and so is exonerated.
We live in crazy land. Our current world seems to be all about stirring up hate and discontent and fear. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
“We live in crazy land. Our current world seems to be all about stirring up hate and discontent and fear. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Agreed.
“They just need enough laws to justify killing enough gun owners that the casual gun owners roll over.”
They’d have to do it very quickly and make brutal examples of us bad enough to scare off the multitudes, but I don’t think they have the manpower to carry it off; as RBT and others have pointed out, a lot of the cops outside the cities tend to be on our side and hope we’re gonna be on theirs. This even includes the street cops and rank-and-file in those cities; ditto for at least half the enlisted and lower NCO and line officers in the military. Yes, a bunch of those Fed agencies and departments are tooling up for supposed SWAT-type operations but can they carry them off with the usual shitty training they get? Against millions of trained and experienced veterans out here?
Hell, a goodly number of ex-Fed, ex-cop and ex-military guys are out here with us training us nowadays, on the latest weapons and tactics, too. If they decide at the higher levels to go the violent route, they will have bitten off a lot more than they can chew. Besides firefights in the streets and fields out here, they also have families and property and a stake in an orderly and civil society when much else is falling apart.
Molon labe, I say. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Read the late Solzhenitsyn’s books, and how the zeks wished to hell they’d attacked NKVD raiding parties with whatever they had, picks, shovels, frying pans, and maybe if they’d butchered enough of them, they would have stopped.
Speaking of which, she volunteered the other day that she’s going to bake cornbread, which we haven’t had in a long time.
The wife made me tuna salad and banana bread last night for supper.
She made “build a taco” on Sunday night. Flaxseed chips, ground turkey, ranch style beans, diced onions, lots of shredded lettuce, and cut tomatoes. I ate about a pound of it. Was so good that I forgot to throw salsa on it.
Who cares about this eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper thing?
Mrs. OFD likes a baked spud with tuna salad. If I do that, I use blue cheese dressing in the tuner salad instead of mayo and a good splash of Frank’s Hot Sauce. See Cooks Illustrated for a killer banana bread recipe; uses a LOT of banana.
That taco sounds great, only with not as much lettuce. I’d eat a pound, easy, and dump the salsa and cheese on it, too.
Also ground turkey makes a lighter-tasting, leaner-tasting chili.
Supper tonight will be a spiced roast beef sammich wid lettuce, tomato, cheese and my own kicked-up mayo. Fritos on the side….
I’d have sent the kids inside and told them to call the cops, grabbed the rifle, and killed them all. The “lost” teens obviously intended to be dangerous, and simply shooing them off left them free to be a threat to someone else, or even to come back for revenge. At the very least, I’d have made them lie down in the dirt and wait for the police to take them away.
Happened again just this evening. Three members of poor, oppressed racial minority swaggered up toward me, looking, to my jaded eye, intent on mischief, then veered off when they met my glare.
Too bad, sort of. The stress of day-to-day life, which keeps me at a steady one-step-from-boiling-rage, could use some venting.
This statement is soon to be known as Exhibit A in SteveF’s upcoming trial. 🙂
Bah. Clearest-cut case of self-defense anyone ever saw.
Not that it’ll come to that. Even stupid young men in groups steer clear of me.
“At the very least, I’d have made them lie down in the dirt and wait for the police to take them away.”
I would have gone with that from the git-go and looked for an excuse to shoot ’em. Wait for the cops and hope to hell they don’t shoot me. Hmmmm….on second thought….
“…then veered off when they met my glare.”
We don’t have any oppressed minorities up here, just surly and miserable white trash types. I’ve had groups of them cross the street to avoid coming near me if I’m walking “downtown.” Of course groups of women do that, too, for some odd reason. Older folks don’t, however. I’ve had days when I sorta wished somebody would “make my day,” but have thus fah managed not to have that come up. I’m really just a genial, jolly old fart who believes in live and let live and stay at home nights reading and listening to classical music on the radio.
Fuck that up for me and I’ll blow your ass to Kingdom Come, though.
And…speaking of violent confrontations…
http://katu.com/news/local/leader-of-oregon-occupation-ammon-bundy-three-others-arrested
Oh my. Previously the Feds were rolling in hundreds of agents and vehicles and a drone and so on, so who knows WTF has really been going on out there all these weeks; black flag op? Righteous ranchers pissed off? Tempest in a teacup? Another Waco in the making?
Wow, Trump wants a 35% import duty on all stuff entering the USA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl_34BeiMvg&feature=youtu.be
You know, some days I am ok with that. 35% is a little much though. I would be happy with 10%. On everything, no exceptions.
How ’bout just a damn level playing field with all the other countries, like the Chicoms, and also how about shit-canning the H-1B program and hiring and training American citizens as workers?
Class-action suit now in progress against Disney and a couple of offshore/contract companies for conspiracy under the RICO statutes, in regard to the H-1B stuff. Feds supposedly investigating under the new tribal commie AG. Sure, they are.
How ’bout just a damn level playing field with all the other countries, like the Chicoms, and also how about s***-canning the H-1B program and hiring and training American citizens as workers?
That is NAFTA. How’s that working for ya ?
They could not pass it as a treaty so they passed it as a bill. I am sure that was 100% constitutional, Obola guarantees it!
@OFD
They’d have to do it very quickly and make brutal examples of us bad enough to scare off the multitudes
I don’t think brutality will be a problem. Again, feeling pretty pessimistic and sure would like to be wrong. I think there are a lot of people who would fight back, I’m not convinced there are enough.
I had a nice long articulate post that tied in bits about Waco and Ruby Ridge and the current standoff. I then managed to dump it. Ah well.
Solzhenitsyn. Fabulous stuff. Had a great English teacher in high school that fed me Solzhenitsyn and lots of other great writers. Probably saved me from becoming a liberal like others of my generation.
@SteveF, venting rage. They are an odd bunch, but consider finding a local SCA group and getting into armor. I played with a group in my twenties. You put on ~20 lbs of medievalish armor (including a helm, still have mine). Then beat the hell out of each other with duct tape wrapped rattan sticks. It’s weird. And the people can be a little obsessed. You encounter the occasional jerk. But it’s really good for rage and nobody gets seriously hurt most of the time. Did I mention it’s weird?
Had a chance to practice radiating hate and ‘don’t fukc with me’ yesterday. Got the call to do my civic duty, (under threat of violence and fines), and had to disarm to sit at the courthouse and wait to see if any of my “peers” would need my judgement.
Since anywhere the city and municipality .gov abide, there are also a multitude of scroungers and ne’er do wells, and the mentally unfit and chemically altered hanging around in ‘their’ public spaces, I had ample opportunity to get my hate face on going from my vehicle to the waiting area, and back again when the security checkpoint caught the mag I’d forgotten to leave behind. This being TX, I was politely given the opportunity to return to my vehicle and stow it there. I offered to let them have the rounds, if I could keep the mag, just to save the walking. I ended up walking.
I don’t know how it works for y’all, but for me, I just concentrate a little pinpoint of absolute hate right in the center of my forehead. That seems to do the trick. As I was fast walking back, so as not to miss my slot and have to do the whole routine again, it occurred to me that it was a skill I’d have to pass on to my daughters. Or at least try to.
nick
800,000 roughly, that’s the total number of sworn law officers in these U.S. Even with another 100,000 in federal agencies, we have that many CHL holders in TX alone. FL has 1.2 MILLION CHL holders.
I think the trick would be opening people’s eyes to the true numbers, if things got sporty. One of Robert Peal’s principles was that the police must be of the community and part of it. They’ve gotten so isolated and us v. them, that they mostly aren’t part of the communities they ‘serve’ any more. That is one difference that the TX county constables have. They are part of our communities, since we directly hire them, and interact with them as “our” cops. Very different from other agencies that receive tax funding.
nick
I don’t know how it works for y’all, but for me, I just concentrate a little pinpoint of absolute hate right in the center of my forehead. That seems to do the trick.
Y’all have the more “interesting” neighborhoods, apparently. At worst, I occasionally have to walk past a collection of teens whom I don’t entirely trust. I mentally go back to my martial arts days days, and walk like I’m expecting someone to attack in the dojo: lower center of gravity, flexed knees, general alertness, etc..
Never had a problem, though. Which is as well: Whatever we may feel, we geezers are a lot weaker, slower and more fragile than guys 30 or 40 years younger than we are.
I’ve had groups of them cross the street to avoid coming near me if I’m walking “downtown.” Of course groups of women do that, too
Knuckle draggers will have that effect.
“Y’all have the more “interesting” neighborhoods, apparently”
All that helpful diversity, great big bubbling melting pot, sarc
My neighborhood is nice, the surrounding area, less so. Some of the nearby areas, with high concentrations of certain demographics, are dangerous. And downtown is not a nice place come sunset, especially the areas around the courts, where you can always find crims coming and going on official business during the day. Since they know the area, they often hang out there too.
nick
Oh, and the scary fringe types that are ‘urban campers’ tend to congregate in ‘public’ spaces where they claim the right to squat.
“Mrs. OFD likes a baked spud with tuna salad. ”
When we moved to Nottingham, I learned to love Jacket Potato with tuna as a lunchtime treat from the street vendor. Tuna is also popular on their pizza but that just crosses a line for me.
“Buy Ammo”.
Amen. Ammunition is the bottleneck as far as firearms-preparedness is concerned, and it is also the weakest link for anti-gunners to attack. If ammunition is no longer (readily) available, many, many firearms are just expensive, unwieldy steel and wood clubs.
Deep preparedness would indicate having a black-powder firearm (or firearms) and the wherewithal to make propellant and projectiles. So how do we get potassium nitrate and sulphur after TEOWAWKI? Is there a resident chemistry wizard?
“Tuna is also popular on their pizza but that just crosses a line for me.”
I love tuna, but on pizza? No thanks. Same goes for chicken.
Norwegians put some weird crap on pizza. So weird I brought the menu home with me to share! Of course, wolfgang puck puts some weird stuff on pita bread and calls it pizza here at home too.
nick
My elder nephew just married a Norwegian (lady), I’ll have to ask her about their pizzas.
WRT Oregon shooting, according to KSFO (San Francisco, I stream their morning show in the morning) the guy that was killed had his hands up as well as the others that were wounded. We will never know the truth as all cell phones were confiscated. Sound to me like this was a setup by an gooberment infiltrator.
WRT to Norwegians and pizza: you may recall I have mentioned my Norwegian AFS Exchange Student Brother. He had to have a least pickled herring on his pizza. You haven’t lived until you have had lutefisk on pizza. For the ultimate nasty he had his Mom send him a can of surströmming, I’m surprised they let that hazardous waste be shipped . She also sent a can of reindeer meatballs that were pretty good, but my Sister would not eat any Rudolf.
Keeping my powder dry.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for this discussion of tuna on pizza. It has greatly helped me build willpower to continue with my decision to dramatically reduce my carbohydrate intake to lose weight.
No weird friggin’ ingredients on pizza, dammit. We rarely even put any meat on them here; mostly just shrooms olives and onions. And we likes our Mexican pizzas, but no way is anyone in this house EVER gonna put tuner, chicken, or pineapple on a pizza.
We have a pizza stone and peel; heat up the stone for an hour at 350, sprinkle some cornmeal on it, then kick the oven up to its highest temp and throw the pizza in; done in ten minutes. The stone is also great for baking baguettes and other bread.
Not trying to lose weight so much as restore flexibility to joints nowadays and increase wind without wheezing.
just shrooms
Why bother? You have already ruined the pizza. Fungus! Pffffttt.
and increase wind without wheezing.
It’s always about the farts with you, isn’t Mr. OFD, sir.
oh, pineapple is ok, in fact good with ham and onion…. more basil in the seasoning mix than oregano….
but no chicken! or feta cheese, or bbq sauce.
nick
I weigh 238 lbs and I’m four inches shorter than you are. I haven’t lost (much) flexibility yet. I’m tired of carrying around extra weight. More importantly, I’m tired of seeing the extra weight in pictures. What really makes me mad is that there are little old ladies like Willie Murphy and Harriet Anderson who scare the crap out of me.
I started with changing the diet. Monday I start a home exercise program. I want to be stronger, more flexible and have more endurance.
“Why bother? You have already ruined the pizza. Fungus! Pffffttt.”
WTF? U don’t like mushrooms? Eat them with steak? Turkey stuffing? Salads?
“It’s always about the farts with you, isn’t Mr. OFD, sir.”
Hey, I was an enlisted man! Not officer scum!
OK, let me rephrase that for the less than hyper-literate: I need to increase my endurance so that my lungs don’t wheeze like an old accordion bellows.
“What really makes me mad is that there are little old ladies like Willie Murphy and Harriet Anderson who scare the crap out of me.”
I want them beotches on my fire assault team! Tunnel rats! Willie already got the cammies and Harriet the tatts. Put it on rock-and-roll and git some!
First of all, they’re half our size and a lot closer to the ground. Secondly, one of them even mentions the “endurance gene” she thinks she has; a lot of this is genetic. My dad’s family were all Big ‘n Tall, of mostly Anglo-Saxon and Norman ancestry, thus am I and my siblings. We seem to have more trouble with neck and back issues throughout life and my days of humping a ruck or a machine gun over miles of hostile terrain are long over, as are my days of track and field events and football. I just hauled in enough firewood for the day and evening here and although I COULD do some more physical labor outside or in the house, I don’t much feel like it.
I’ve been doing some fast walking and baby-version pushups and situps but it’s a long slow haul and my biggest concern is the knee joints and lower back now. The lungs wheezing is partly a function of the periodic bronchial asthma, originating with exposure to Agent Orange and exacerbated since by several bouts with bronchitis and pneumonia. That ain’t how I wanna go out, not by a long shot. So I’m getting VA med diagnoses and treatments while also trying to do a bit of PT. I’d like to get to the point I can haul some serious weight across country again, at the least.
. The lungs wheezing is partly a function of the periodic bronchial asthma, originating with exposure to Agent Orange and exacerbated since by several bouts with bronchitis and pneumonia.
Hey, it sounds like you need to move to a nice dry desert environment, buddy. I can help with a VA loan for a high rise condo in Vegas.
OFD,
You’re going to laugh at me, but Monday I’m starting a bunch of exercise videos that incorporate yoga and are sold by a former pro-wrestler on an infomercial. Which was exactly what I wasn’t looking for when I started my search for an exercise program. I’ve tried it a couple of times and just didn’t stick with it. This time I’m going stop trying and just do it.
Here is the YouTube video that made me decide to try this crazy course of action. The results are unbelievable, but somehow I decided to try it anyway.
I am skeptical of the “scientific” explanation of the diet that goes along with the workouts, but I can’t argue with the apparent results. Still, I’m doing my own thing diet wise.
WTF? U don’t like mushrooms?
You got it oh winded wheezing ex-warrior.
“You’re going to laugh at me…”
Nope. Whatever works, man. That dude kept going past all his setbacks and pain and did himself good.
Just met with the state service officer for veterans here; she’s taking over my “case” and running with it, looks like. Now I gotta get set up on the Agent Orange Registry and get a TBI screening. And submit more paperwork. Good luck them finding anyone who treated me over forty years ago for TBI and shrapnel; they were local med people and a couple of ours and probably long since dead or unknown whereabouts. I got the “treated and released” stuff, that peeps get nowadays when they’ve been in an accident but had no significant injuries. “Rub some dirt on it, cupcake, and get the fuck back out there!”
But whatever; let the chips fall where they may.
“You got it oh winded wheezing ex-warrior.”
Well, sometimes we don’t put the friggin’ fungi on our pizzas; and sometimes we throw on some Italian sausage or pepperoni.
Won’t be doing yoga stuff like the remarkable Arthur dude or Mr. Dave, but I’ll keep grinding away at the usual situps, pushups, stretching, and walking real fast around here, until I can increase the speed, add weight, decrease the times, and go up and down more varied terrain.
I like the chinese ‘soft’ martial arts and exercises. Specifically tai chi chuan, and chi gung. Add in stretching and I’m good to go. Of course it’s been a number of years since I had easy access to classes and teachers, so I’ve let that slide significantly. The slow movements and stretching are very good for older/less athletic folks. Some have even been adapted to sitting in a chair for those who can’t do them standing.
I did yoga for a number of years WAY back in the day and saw lots of good results.
In the end, it’s all about what works for you, and what you’ll stick with.
Anything is better than nothing.
nick
Tai Chi Chuan is, indeed, a martial art … if taught that way and if practiced. Otherwise, it’s just a dance class.
Same for most martial arts classes, at least in the US. If you don’t practice against someone who’s trying to hit you for real, you’re not learning a fighting skill. Sure, I understand insurance and liability, but the fact remains that most “martial arts” classes, aren’t.
@steveF,
There is a movement among some practitioners away from traditional teaching methods. They posit that the traditional methods were used with conscript peasant soldiers, and were taught to hated western conquerors by reluctant, angry teachers and are thus NOT the best way to teach. Unfortunately the movement has had their name hijacked by some asshats who use the ideas as a way to promote their own stupid and brutal methods. So there are some changes happening in martial arts education. The reason I mention it, they make the same point you did- martial arts classes, especially as taught to kids in the US, do very little good and perhaps a lot of harm as a defensive or offensive system.
That still leaves them as good exercise programs, esp since many of them emphasize flexibility.
Lots of thought gonna be going into this subject as my 6yo is expressing interest in taking some sort of class. In that case, tai chi has the benefit of being a ‘sneaky’ form that really doesn’t emphasize the martial aspects until much later, but establishes the basics and the muscle memory. Little girls love to dance and move, but don’t love fighting.
nick
Excellent. Do something and see if you like the results. If you like the results, keep doing it. If you don’t like the results, do something else.
“Tai Chi Chuan is, indeed, a martial art … if taught that way and if practiced. Otherwise, it’s just a dance class. Same for most martial arts classes, at least in the US.”
This.
I remember taking karate as a kid, in the US. At some point, it came up that I was supposed to hit something or someone, as a demonstration. The lessons had totally ingrained it into me: you pull your punch 1/2 inch before the target. So that’s what I automatically did in the demo. Laughter all around. Real useful…not.
The judo I did here was a lot better. Even our geezer group had real, full-force randori. Plus I practiced with the young guys competing in tournaments (at least, until one of them blew out my knee). That was useful. The karate, not so much.
yeah, NO interest in any of the forms as a sport. Karate, Tae Kwan Do, etc or even worse, MMA.
nick