They were given a gift they did not earn. They inherited a freedom that they cannot defend.

American freedom was not passed in the blood to future generations. It was not passed in the culture, songs, patriotism, or ideology. Thus it became diluted. And with a diluted life force, the Tree dies.

When the skin breathes and is free, it’s easier to evade blows via instinct or non visual senses. Air pressure, heat/cold, sometimes provide a person with so called preternatural senses in avoiding a death blow.

However, if a person is using armor, they don’t really feel much and when they do, it’s a bad thing, they got hit. Get enough of that and one’s bones will break and organs will rupture. It’s far easier to lock onto a target visually, rampage through them using strength, and overwhelm using the attack. In that sense, it’s far safer than relying on the armor to absorb hits. Any kind of armor.

Arrow deflection and other deflections usually only work because skin contact transmits information faster than visual. Or at least it transmits the information faster to the part of the brain that controls physical coordination. It’s not particularly a skill that is easy on mistakes, though. Armor plating can do the same thing, it just needs to be angled correctly. Meaning, more focus on visual arts.

Concerning H2H skill intensity and manhours, it is pretty intensive to get good at any particular thing. Although much of that can be slimmed down by getting rid of techniques, replacing it with a Tim Larkin esque principle or movement based system. Tony Blauer I think his name was, used the reflex method where a person raises his forearms up, and uses that as the base or foundation to start other attacks or defenses. Krav Maga was said to do the same, although it’s changed quite a bit now for public consumption.

For firearm users, though, H2H does provide one essential tool in the box. Which is the ability to disarm or stop disarms upon one’s person or arms. If a person grabs your gun and you have it locked ready to shoot, just fall on your back/behind, and let them straighten your arm out by pulling on you, then shoot them in the torso/face. It’s easy to aim that way, but it uses H2H techniques to get there. It’s not a struggle for the “weapon”.

Police officers are paranoid and afraid (often verging on cowardice in the line of duty) because they want to preserve their firearm and not allow it to get taken away by other people like crims. Without sufficient H2H power and control of their personal space, they just scrunch in like a turtle, going all defense. That’s not going to control or deter criminals. If a person wants to control his side arm, then they have to attack the threat, destroy the arms, break the legs, shatter the enemy’s brain cage. That will “protect” your sidearm. In many cases people only rush armed individuals because they think they can get there before the armed guy pulls out the gun. And in the case of some blacks on drugs, they are too high to think clearly and will charge regardless of what happens. They will run away and then “charge back” because they got stupid all of a sudden. Then 5 bullets won’t stop them because meth and cocaine is like a combat stimulant.

So H2H is still critical for the all range warrior or fighter. Urban fighters more so than rural ones that have longer range options.

Here in Baltimore, the same, rioters are the heros, police officers are the villains. So what’s the message you keep sending to society?

The Leftist alliance is pulling the strings. They create the thugs, they control the police, they send the police out after peaceful citizens while ordering them to protect the thugs. So in these circumstances, I don’t cheer for the LEOs, the thugs, the civilian who called 911, or the lawyers either. The problem isn’t that the factions fight each other, it is that the faction heads are planning it all together to enrich themselves.

So hypothetically, if Gray got executed by the police, due to the police hating thugs. Why do the police hate thugs? because the unions keep using the thugs to attack the police, and the police are told to make nice with the thugs by their higher ups. The police won’t refuse to obey, because the police are afraid of lawyers making their life hell and ending their career. And the lawyers and the unions are in it together to make more money. So it’s Gordian Knot, it cannot be solved, it can only be cut.

Another thing about fighting using contact, once a sword becomes part of my nervous system, I can generally visualize its exact length and dimensions. Meaning, if something impacts it, I can also feel where it came from. I can read visual ranges based upon how far my weapon can reach. The weapon masters of the medieval period, I presume, would have relied a lot more on weapon contact to give them tactical information. This would promote the European focus on “tools” as well as efficiency. Since a sword is generally longer and tougher than a forearm, even armor encased.

In my opinion, the loss of Martial Arts in Europe is due to differences between asian and western culture. Western cares more about “efficiency”, asian about “tradition”, and when gunpowder arrives, martial arts become basically useless.

And they are still useless, even though they look great in movies, real wars are fought with firearms. Of course, you can still use them in melee, but the investment needed is too high in exchange of their usefulness. A simple knife is far more practical. You can see how thugs prefer to carry an switchblade instead of years of MA training.

You´re right about the contact sensitivity. Years ago during some MA courses we had some practices about contact fighting. It was all about sensing with your forearms, since you were too close to see clearly what the other person was doing. Never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

About Martin… he was just a thug. There has been thugs the whole life. He was a minor threat, but this is not the problem. The problem is that a thug, who was a thug even though he never knew hunger and didn´t need to rob to eat, who tried to kill a man just because he was keeping an eye on him, he´s the bloody hero. Here in Baltimore, the same, rioters are the heros, police officers are the villains. So what’s the message you keep sending to society? That’s the big problem.

It is distressing how many people don’t understand – – they are Americans, born in America, given a gift of happenstance which is unique in the history of mankind.

The divisions in this country are distressing, as if freedom and the dignity of each person – – the unique American way – – were not enough to expect or hope for.

Unlike Martin and Brown, where the facts were quickly available to anyone interested, Gray strikes me as holding potential aspects which could go anywhere. I could very well be wrong, maybe it is all out there right now.

In reading the internet, I see the harsh judgments being rendered. There is a sort of triumphalist tone all around which may very well turn out to be “vindicated,” and which has a great deal of truth to it.

And I totally realize the Left is stoking and fomenting, exploiting, without regard to the truth.

But the specific details ought to concern us, and the desire for a truthful outcome be our goal.

France and German patriots are doing a good job recovering their culture and history, perhaps precisely because it is under assault by immigrants and their own Leftist traitors.

As for lost martial knowledge, I believe the industrial revolution made it un economical for fathers to teach sons the family fighting trade, and thus it died out. Japan or China treated martial arts as family heirlooms, to be kept and maintained, passed on to the next generation. That made a big difference, even though Japan went through several Western esque revolutions in culture and politics.

If one could make a living doing MMA, I’m sure the Europeans would have sustained their family fighting arts and passed their own individual skills down to future generations. But the mercenary work and the warrior/soldier trades were more and more about the matchlock, the arquebus, yes. Shooting skills made people less reliant on melee skills.

Swords were tempered differently, in order to hold the edge. Thus sometimes it was a lot more brittle than the axe and could take a lot less shock punishment. Modern steel, especially tool steel, is very good as improvised tools however. But the ancients didn’t have access to the magic steel. Or if they did, it was too valuable to be wasted on work.

Western full plate would explain how so many styles of H2H fighting had little to no focus on touch contact sensitivity. Forearm sensitivity to predict strikes and deflect attacks don’t exist, whereas the Asians had less armor and more skin contact, so they developed along different lines.

To me, criminals like Martin and company are a minor threat. They can definitely kill people, but then again, they aren’t the only ones. So it’s easier to deal with individuals like that. Dealing with a SWAT team raid that thinks you need some good killing, when they’re at the wrong house and I’m asleep when they bust through the door… that is much more challenging and stressful. From either side it is.

Maybe it occurred, but that’s not a justification. The justification is usually “Martin tried to kill me, so I shot him back.”

Or, “I shot that guy in the back, because he stole my taser from me”

Later on, the taser was planted, of course.

To some humans that panic, people running away from them actually engenders the “hunter” reflex of “kill them all”. It’s weird, but true.

Society and the police want a justification, even if it is a flimsy one.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to go back and read Branca’s earlier posts carefully and see whether I agree that he’s unclear or wrong on any points. I do know that, when I read them, they seemed quite clear to me. Doing this just from memory, I recall that he was dividing the encounter into the stop, and then the fleeing, and then the arrest, all of which have different standards required.

The thing with swords is that they are pretty useless in daily life.

Gunpowder, bows, they´re good for hunting. Big knives, “machetes”, hatchets… all of them can be used as tools. Swords are basically dead weight unless you’re fighting with another soldier.

Not to say that a sword is made almost 100% of metal. An axe needs less iron, and iron was quite an expensive luxury back in Middle Ages, while wood was almost free.

Swords were a symbol of professional soldiers, precisely because they were useless as tools. In my opinion, the “romantic aura” they have is due to that.

Anyway, I hightly recommend you this blog, which is very interesting, specially about the european pre-american age. It’s in spanish, but google translator rules.

http://amodelcastillo.blogspot.com.es/

Here’s a very good article about left-handed daggers

http://amodelcastillo.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/las-dagas-de-mano-izquierda-1-tridentes.html

One of the symptoms that show how swords became purely decoritives is how middle age fighting was completely lost. For example, there were martial arts in Europe, during Middle Ages. When gunpowder arrived, that was completely lost.

http://amodelcastillo.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/artes-marciales-medievales.html

Real sword fight techniques were lost too. Last years, they’re being recovered in France and Germany

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hlIUrd7d1Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFbQXpRvL2Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36KwfFZsnik

“Profiling is designed to stop crime, it is not designed to create convenient reasons to execute criminals. For that, one needs a different justification and setup.”

Like somebody striking your head against the concrete?