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Notes from the Mud-Covered
Mark Hatmaker
Today's little missive is an informal offering of a few observations stumbled upon (quite literally) while enjoying 2 Spartan Sprints in the course of one month (got another mud-event tomorrow The SEAL Extreme Challenge).
I highly recommend participating in at least one obstacle racing event for all real-world self-defense enthusiasts. Why?
1. Because they are fun. Fun is an understatement. I find it difficult to wipe the ridiculous grin off of my face while playing in these giant playgrounds that others worked on so lovingly.
2. They are an interesting way to the test adaptability of your current conditioning. Got the lungs to blaze through the trail running and steep hill climbs? Excellent! Lack the grip and pull to haul your butt up a mud-covered rope while the swamp sucks your legs tight? Uh-oh. And conversely, got admirable guns straining at the Under-Armour but lack the wind to hit those hills consistently or "run" (and I do use the word run loosely here) through a 1/4 mile of waist-deep water? Uh-oh, again.
A loose profile of the events participants seems to turn up a wide variety of folks (all good folks in my experience). You've got your runners, your triathlete types, your Cross-Fitters, your military cadre, your contingent of Fill-In-the-Blank MMA/Krav Maga Club Tee-Shirt crew, et cetera. All good folks ready and rarin' to go. It has been my observation that you can't peg who will and will not thrive under these conditions. Back to this in a moment.
3. These types of races offer randomized challenges, you're never quite sure what will meet you around the next bend or at the top of the hill (and that is mighty awesome fun, friends). So in addition to testing conditioning adaptiveness you get to field-check a bit of cognitive-strategic fluidity and, of course, test your mettle throughout, your hardihood--a nice old school word that is ripe for a comeback.
(Side-Note: If you are planning on participating in an event of this type might I offer the following recommendation. Sign up and do no research on specific obstacles or distance. In other words, don't prepare for the race, but rather always be prepared like a good Scout. Foolish advice I know but I find approaching it this way interesting, but that might just be me.)
Now, I want to talk to real-world combat enthusiasts directly here. These races are Fun with a capital "F." Beyond the above benefits, for those of us who ponder situational chaos for fun and profit these races offer us rare chances to test our flight skills (flight should always precede fight in the "fight or flight" dictum). The better we are able to navigate challenging terrain the better we are able to navigate "easier" terrain. Obvious observation, granted.
Now, my fellow real-world combat enthusiast brethren, and again, I'm talking survival not MMA, boxing or wrestling, but do-or-die save your ass stuff--I want you to ask yourselves as you navigate these courses how well do you think you would execute your self-defense arsenal in any of this varied terrain?
Pick your pet techniques (if any, I don't buy the arsenal idea as we'll see in the soon to be released Outer Limits DVDs) and ponder how well you think that would do hip deep in mud?
How about on either side of a steep incline?
How about after you banged your knee scaling a 12' wall?
How well would you grapple in 18" of mud?
How well would you punch after you've dragged yourself under 50 yards of barbed wire?
How well do you move when you are soaking wet?
You good to go with a filmy coat of mud in your eye?
Now, this isn't a negative sales pitch for these races, on the contrary, as I've already said--simply a blast--I just want to offer the idea that even though these sort of races are not combative in nature they do offer valuable info for those who may not have winnowed their street/mud vocabulary to a single fistful of reliables.
I ask you to think of your current weakest technique, the one that you have trouble manifesting in the gym. Got it in your mind? If it's iffy in the gym it will be impossible when the chips are really down. Scrap it. Now think of your so-so techniques. Scrap them. Now think of your best techniques--run one of the races and then see how many of the "best" you think would still apply.
What disappears under the worst of conditions was never worth a damn to begin with. What manifests and applies under the worst conditions is truth. Cling tightly to these truths, my friends.
Enough preachin'. Have a great weekend, and if you haven't hit the mud yet, do yourselves a favor and get to rootin'. (Oh, the Southern does comes out in me today).
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