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Notes from the Mud-Covered
Part 2
Mark Hatmaker
Recently we discussed the probable value of participating in at least one obstacle race/terrain challenge in the course of your training if you are a street combatives enthusiast. To recap, some of the benefits are...
- A chance to test the adaptability of your current conditioning. Come through just fine, you may be properly calibrated. Find some areas that didn't go so well? Re-calibrate.
- The opportunity to test mental adaptability as well--that is, determining how well you respond to a variety of tasks in less than ideal conditions or sequences.
- A chance to ponder your arsenal and cull a few nonsensical tools that just ain't gonna work when the terrain chips are down.
- And, of course, as I've already said, these events are fun, fun, fun.
As of this writing I've completed 4 of them and am hip-deep in my one a week tour of them (Thus far, 2 Spartans, 1 SEAL Extreme Challenge, 1 Barbarian Challenge, and in approximately 24 hours 1 Rugged Maniac + 3 more over the next few weeks). I am seeking different events so that each course, set-up, obstacle class, terrain choices, directives, et cetera, are unfamiliar to me.
As a rule I seek to discover nothing about the event before attending beyond where and when. I don't try to learn distances, number or classes of obstacles, terrain, nada beforehand. (I am aided in this ignorance by my wife, Kylie, who books them for me so I can conduct my experiment in blissful ignorance).
I choose to be ignorant about what will occur in the hopes that each event and individual obstacle will be an experiment in adaptability. I don't want foreknowledge to cause me to conform my training beforehand to what's to come. I find it more informative to take each bit as it comes and allow the event or obstacle itself to let me know if I'm on the right track or if some re-calibration is necessary.
A few specific examples of adaptability come to mind.
- I climb a pristine rope fairly well, but I will admit mud-slicked hands (I'm talking caked mud, crew) plus the addition of swamp mud to the waist sucking you tight can make rope climbing a whole new ball game.
- What's the best way to train for electric shock while running thorough water? All I've got is close my arms in to reduce contact surface area and take it. (I bring up the shock because due to my ignorance policy I had no idea that was on the table--that was a fun turn the corner into, "You're [Insert expletive here] kidding me!"
- Plans can shift as soon as you make them. At a recent event a 200 yard zip-line into a cold lake swim went from me spotting the zip-line and planning how to ball up and gain all the distance I could to a snapped zip-line and a much, much farther cold water swim than anticipated.
These events are meant to test you with a variety of stressors, and apparently (as the zip-line incident teaches us) the variety can change even against the whims of the course planners. And this is all to our benefit. Street combatives enthusiasts should embrace the uncertainty of such events as the nature of assault itself is always uncertain.
For those of us who merely enjoy approaching these events as conditioning gut checks I think the big take-away lesson is that nature is not smooth whereas gyms are designed for safety and comfort. Yes, no doubt all reading this condition themselves until they feel discomfort, but we must ask ourselves questions such as these...
- How many objects that we may have to actually lift in real-world situations have convenient handles or camming mechanisms to make the job a bit easier?
- How many areas in the real world where we may have to actually flee for our lives have rubberized track surface? Zero obstacles? No gradient changes?
- How often do we think a fight or flight event will repeat itself in the exact same manner?
- If, we think potential fight or flight scenarios will be of varying chaotic natures then we might ask ourselves...
- Why does our training either never change, or change so seldom when what we are training to face will never occur the same way twice?
Again, just some observations on what might be gleaned from pondering your own reactions to such events if you allow yourself to go in as ignorant as possible and keep your mind's eye on what is and is not working for you, and also, on what will and will not work if an overlay of violence were added. |
