[Crackpot comments in brackets.]

Mr Lafond. I dont know how to thank you. 

The blade - I feel as though i have been reunited with an old friend. The answer has been staring me in the face the entire time. Obviously I'm not going to be able to match someone who towers over me in a fair fight... but why should i fight fair? 

If I am being predated, what choice do I have but to level the playing field. The only hope I have is a weapon. You are correct. If someone crosses that line where they decide they really intend to do me harm, my life is forfeit so why shouldn't theirs be. 

[Amen. This is the sermon that should be preached against bully-kind.]

Obviously, I do not intend to use this as a first defence, but its critical to know. as you said in "glass jaw compensation" I don't need to compete in a pugilistic spectacle of natural selection (although I very much intend to someday). I simply need to be able to improvise and survive.

[If you are determined on the outside not to fight—scrub fight from your self-defense framework—then your determination to stab your attacker will be buttressed. Use the knife like the Soviet’s used their nuclear threat against the Bully Uncle Scam, as a mutually assured destruction scenario. In so doing, do limit your contact with drunken or fanatic white people who think that they can molest you because they are friend, family, coworker, gym-mate, right, left, etc. These types have low instincts for knowing that you are about to shank them. Thus, the one guy I butchered, was a big dumb white guy I knew. Negroes on the other hand, they know in their bones when some evil cracker is fixing to stab their black ass.]

As it stands, I'm relatively inexperienced with knife fighting or any kind of weapon, and im not sure where to start. I believe you had a channel on youtube called lancaster agnostics and it had some ideas... any other recommendations?

[Hang a rope with a knot at the bottom from the ceiling. Buy a dull training knife. Practice moving, slashing, stabbing, slicing, butt checking, hand checking that rope and knot, which stands for the foe’s hip. Train with sticks and dead blow sand hammers, slow at first. Try my book Twerps, Goons and Meat shields for training advice. Stick work triples your knife ability and is the doorway to using common tools as deadly blunt weapons. Your goal is to be able to kill a goon with an umbrella in a few seconds.]

I have done a few sessions of arakan (some kind of burmese equivalent to krav maga) and i had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand the techniques were biomechanically sound and focussed on using the hands in various configurations to deliver overwhelming numbers of blows to stun an disable an attacker. There were also drills focussed on multiple attackers and weapons. However the whole thing seems so  choreographed I can't imagine it being effective.

[All martial arts are bullshit. You want to train to hurt people, to reduce them to a sack of meet housing a psychiatric crisis.]

You said in one of your articles about hand to hand combat that you could train a little girl to take out the best krav maga trainer, and im inclined to believe it. Having mucked around in the last few days with a small phillips head screw driver, I find it hard to believe someone could see the stab coming, let alone create distance and disarm the assailant. Additionally, these self defence classes are practiced by sissies and taught by trainers who seem to get off on showing students how deadly they could be. 

[Martial artists tend to be charlatans, sadists and psychopaths embedding themselves in a herd of potential victims and insulating themselves thence from other pscyhos.]

I've noticed the same thing with kung fu. It seems very logical, in that the circular movements and owning the centre line would apply to weapons, or unarmed combat, and the flowing patterns if executed correctly seem beneficial. However, If these things were any useful, why don't we see them in the ufc?

[Because they require cooperation or incompetence on the part of the enemy. Do, keep in mind that many attackers will be incompetent and this stuff can work in spots, but only from the platform developed in prizefighting sessions. If you have not fought with a knife, trained with one, sparred with one, you will be no more likely to be able to deal with a knife attack without a weapon of better profile, then a person who has never grappled would be able to survive in the cage.]

If you were able to close the distance and stun your opponent with multiple low impact high speed blows, why don't we see it? They claim some nonsense such as these moves are too deadly, and maybe they are. That said, if it were so easy to catch a punch and seo nagi an attacker, It would happen. 

[Most martial arts are mostly bullshit applied to a fantasy setting with the paint brush of delusion.]

It is probably effective against someone who cannot fight, but would be useless against someone who can. The reasoning may be that most would be attackers have no training, and that maybe true also. If that were the case, my intuition tells me that being able to throw a punch, deliver a powerful lowkick and pull off a single or double leg take down would be far more effective than drilling endless variations of set piece maneuvers.

And if there are multiple attackers, deliver said attack (punch to the head to cause them to cover up, kick their leg out from underneath them and then drop them on their fucking head) before running for your life immediately after.

[One thing martial arts get right, is that you should attack the eyes whenever faced with a more numerous, stronger or better armed foe. Thinking in terms of punching and kicking in armed and group encounters, is a mistake. Practice raking, spearing and jabbing that rope with your gathered and slightly bent finger tips. Develop hand strength and stability stabbing this into a bucket of rice or beans and you always have a knife, at least for their eyes.]

In my biomechanics training it is explained that any large movement such as a strike is composed of infinite smaller movements. The aim is to segment the spine into as many moving parts so that power can be generated and transferred to the limbs. It is most interesting how throwing is composed of rotation beginning in the hips and proceeding to the ribs and finally the arms while sprinting is the exact opposite. If you see high level sprinters like that jamaican guy who eats chicken nuggets, he actually leverages his body around his elbow. The rotation travels from the arms, to the ribs, down to the hips and into the ground Truly fascinating stuff.

I am watching much slow motion footage in order to download these patterns into my movement. Which fighters would you suggest to watch for this?

[Willie Pep, for starters. Not getting hurt for a slight frame like you is number one.]

Another question, does the power for a punch begin at the foot and spiral up? or does it begin in the hips and the foot pivoting is a by product?

[The punch is a chain of synchronous action initiated, ideally with the hand, and ideally impacting as a foot or feet, land, pivot, push or rock, shifting weight through the target. The shoulders, elbows, hips and knees are all opportunities to increase, maintain or dissipate the building force. We are dealing with more than power, with deception as well.]

In relation to bulking, I am not training to put on useless vanity muscle. I am a lean 66kg currently, but I believe I have the potential to reach mid 70's through this training. The beautiful thing about this is how training your gait cycle actually helps develop power and strength simply by walking. If one can execute the small rotations, flexions, etc while walking, this will translate into throwing as described above. I have heard annecdotally that the ideal weight for a man is his height minus 100. So being 177cm tall, If i were fully devloped 77kg would be my ideal weight. A good example of this is reigning world champion freestyle wrestler kyle dake, who is those measurements. He has trained in the functional patterns methodology and is better than ever. Here is a video (hope youre able to watch it) of the training in action.

[Can’t watch videos anymore.]

What are your thoughts on the ideal build for an all round fighter? 

[He needs to be well knit, placing him in command of his active and inactive parts. That build is different on different frames and these frames interact in a circular, not linear way, with Frame A perhaps shutting out Frame B, who Crushes Frame C, who frustrates and outworks Frame A.]

I have noticed boxers often tend to be extremely lean and would be vulnerable to being manhandled. Conversely, wrestlers and rugby players who have solid physiques would be quite slow.

[Put knives in their hands. Who do you want to be, the butcher or the side of beef?]

There are some freak athletes like bo jackson who played both major league baseball and in the NFL or barry sanders (another running back) who could sprint like cheetahs and change direction in a way that made their defenders look like amatuers. How would such a man fair in combat?

[These guys would have been heroes in ancient combat. That is why they are in sports now, as a sublimation of the heroic into celebrity and passive spectatorship. You cannot compete in the same skill set with these people. That is why, when they decide to abuse you—you fucking stab them.]

In the ancient world, I would imagine he would need to be all of those. Indeed in modern warfare I would think the same. Ideally the soldier should be able to fight bare handed, wrestle, grapple, sprint, climb and march for huge distances. Only those with the ideal structure would make it. What does that look like?

[The Colonel and I were walking across country and I noted how much harder I had to work at 5’ 7” to his 6 feet. I inquired and he told me that the ideally ranger was no taller than six feet and no heavier then 170, but with a longer stride than my runt ass. Urban combat would select for a shorter more muscular man than such cross country infantry doctrines.]

Is there an ideal that is a jack of all trades? or is it a scissor paper rock scenario where different body types have marked differences compared to each other.

[Across all forms of combat, the man that is 5’ 10” and 155 to 185 is the most reliable customer. At 160 pounds you can KO any giant with the fist. Gyms generally have their most dangerous fighter in this size range. Blades, armor, clubs, axes, guns, these all select for different perfect frames, but will be found to be in this range. The man that is taller then six feet is a historical focus because he makes a better more visible leader, but is usually not the nastiest killer, with Soto taking that prize at something like 5’ 7” and 145.]

Finally, how do bladed and edged weapons alter this dynamic?

[Blades favor the quicker, slimmer, but still explosive man. Armor reverses this and turns it into blunt weapon combat favoring the goon.]

Obviously, we have wieght classes for what i would classify "honourable" combat - as in sanctioned and in arena, probably as a spectator sport. it goes without saying that a feather weight would be highly unlikely to deliver a blow with enough power to take out a light heavy wieght (correct me if im wrong).

In survival combat, it would be anything goes - you never know how big your attacker will be, and there are so many other variables - like aggression, surprise, willpower etc.

What about in stick fighting or real blade duals. Hopefully when the debt bubble bursts we will have gladiatorial games again. In such a scenario, is there an ideal physique?

[With a blade it is about getting your stroke in first and avoiding the counter stroke.]

What sort of weapons suit what sort of man?

[Twerps = blades, goons = clubs, meat-shields = empty hand.]

And can edged weapons (or deadly blunt ones for that matter) equalise the playing field so to make weight classes irrelevant?

[Blades erase size advantage. Blunts take you from 17 weight classes to 3.]

Thank you for your article. I learn so much from these.

Yours truly,

Marius

…

Good luck, Marius.