Practical Witchery!, John Stormm [ap literature book list txt] 📗

"lucky" for you, or not, depending upon whether they use that time, to gather weapons or reinforcements. You must take out, maim, cripple or kill, any remaining combatants, and leave the area quickly.

 

 

Do NOT Knock Out The Guards!

 

 

The same is true when attacking a fortified installation. One does not simply "knock out" a guard. There is absolutely NO guarantee of exactly how long, that they will remain unconscious, before they awaken to alert the rest, and cause you to fail in your mission. We do NOT throw away lives in useless missions, and expect to win any battles. An Ultra will kill the guard, often with a skull fracture or a broken neck, and immediately twist their head upon their broken neck, in order to twist their larynx shut, so that there is no possible chance, for them to move or utter a sound ever again. Broken necks, do NOT always kill their victims. In the jungles of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, this effect of turning the heads backwards on the corpses, also had an unnerving psychological effect upon the more superstitious, and timid among the Viet Cong, Pathet Lao, or Khmer Rouge, who eventually found the bodies of their comrades. It made them afraid, and inclined to run from nearly any shadow, or distraction that we could throw at them. This is how a few men, make war against many more men successfully. If you trust anything to luck, then luck will betray you. Like any wise witch or wizard: We manufacture all of our own luck.

 

 

Training and Conditioning to WIN!

 

 

 

This is war craft, or martial arts: the art of making war! It is not the glitz, glamours, and delusions of Hollywood, or chop socky flicks. Where you can hold onto a ten minute knuckle jousting with your opponents. If you take the time to set up a potentially lethal combatant, with a “popper” of a wheel kick, that will take only a split second for them, to recover and continue the attack. You’ve wasted valuable time and energy; only to hurt your own efforts in the end. This may work as a strategy for scoring points in a YMCA kumite competition, but it will work against you in an actual mortal combat scenario. For an effective Ranger, Marine Recon, Delta or Ultra, these ineffective techniques are put behind us like childhood toys. We hone all of the deadliest, and most effective crippling and disabling moves in our repertoire, and keep them in the forefront of our minds continually. It is wiser, to practice full contact moves on a heavy bag, or other such boards, bricks, dead trees and other inanimate objects. The practice of constantly pulling your punches and techniques on a live, friendly sparring partner, are detrimental to your effectiveness as a soldier. It creates a subconscious “habit” of pulling punches, and failing to focus your blows THROUGH your targets, instead of merely AT them. If you are going to trust your life and your efforts in deadly combat, then you need to condition yourself to that EVERY time, so that you will have even less chances of failing.

 

 

 

 

Lao Tzu is credited with saying: “Wheels move best, along established ruts.” This has become one of the main precepts in Shaolin training and weapons forms. The constant repetition of perfect form in unarmed and armed techniques of combat, creates a “body memory” of those moves, that makes such quicker and easier executed under combat conditions. It is important for the student or practitioner to understand that these techniques must ONLY be practiced while they are fresh, and unfatigued. If you start getting sloppy with your moves, due to pain or fatigue, then you are training your body memory in bad habits, that will ultimately be your undoing. You need to stretch and oxygenate your musculature, before taking on these other exercises. Likewise, when you become aware that you may be about to enter a combat situation, you need to prepare the same in yourself, except on a more discreet level. I’ll explain a little bit about the science involved, as these are not merely “mystical” things, but highly practical medicine!

 

 

The Science or Magick of Oxygenation

 

 

During the kamikaze attacks on American ships, during WWII, an interesting fact about the effects of “oxygenation” in a healthy or even an injured body, was discovered. As Zeroes exploded in flames on the decks, killing and injuring so many sailors, the Sick Bay filled up, all too rapidly; forcing the medical officers to utilize the hyperbaric decompression chambers, as hospital space for the injured and burned survivors. Much fresh oxygen was pumped into these to properly circulate air as they were designed, and they found it best for keeping bacteria out of all the damaged flesh. It was interesting to note that of so many burn victims, that the ones housed in the hyperbaric chamber, were the ones that healed the best and with the least scarring from their burns. But then, an Ultra warrior in the field, has no access to the benefits of a hyperbaric chamber. Or do YOU?

 

 

There’s a technique among more traditional Asian martial arts practitioners, called “Square Horse Breathing”. Practitioners will assume a wide stance, with their shoulders back, and their spines erect, and breath deeply and slowly from their “tan tien”, or the area just below their navel. Rather than trying to fight their own rib cage, expanding it in a deep breath, they are expanding their lungs, through the bottom of their ribcage, by drawing them down, by breathing and expanding their diaphragm. This has effectively increased their normal lung capacity, by a FULL THIRD! In concert with this breathing, they will flex their arms, legs, hands and feet, during the lengthy exhale, forcing all that fresh oxygen rich blood into every portion of their bodies, and brains. This makes their bodies, quicker to react, easier to heal, and their minds quick and clear. Like the old “fastest gun in the West”, they utilize every edge that they can make for themselves, to always operate at their peak performance, and recover quickly.

 

 

It is not always necessary, or advisable to go into a full ritual of adopting such a stance. If you are suffering something as minor as a “brain cramp” while taking a written exam; you can simply put your pencil down, sit erect in your seat, close you eyes and breath deeply in through you nose, via your diaphragm, and slowly out through your mouth for two or three good breaths, and resume your test. You’ll find that more of what you know will come quicker and easier to you, for your oxygenating your brain, to peak capacity. In a situation where it looks as if you’ll be facing a group of thugs: Stand up straight, and slowly and deeply, draw in your breath as described here. You’ll note that some of the shakes of your anticipation, and the rapid heartbeat will slow down of its own accord, as your blood is carrying enough fresh oxygen, to make the extra work unnecessary. Your mind will respond to stimuli quicker and more efficiently, and your muscle and nerve responses will quicken as well, giving you every extra edge that you can give yourself.

 

 

Arming Yourself With Knowledge

 

 

As always: Knowledge is POWER! Avoid wasting time and blood on the riffraff put before you to thin you out. Concentrating your efforts upon anyone that’s giving orders on any level, is going to either shut down, or slow down, that level that they control, until they can re-establish their own command structure again. Many elite troops are trained for this sort of contingency. But it is still possible to buy a few precious seconds, to get a better attack in place, and working on them. Never give them a moment to breathe and regroup. Take their control from them. Keep them running into themselves in confusion, and a smaller force can easier defeat, larger and better armed forces. Do not be discouraged of the disparities of how you are armed, or who has the better weapons. As long as you have mastered your own weapon, whatever deadly beauties they brought with them, are yours now, to use against them. You don’t need to deal with the Rothschilds to fund your war. You take their weapons, ammunition and supplies. No time to argue with bankers. You’re a warrior and you just fight well. In the end, you certainly want to hurt the bankers too, or they will fund your next enemy to attack you. Every action should be calculated to cripple their war efforts by as many factors as you can manage to affect on them.

 

A ”distraction” can buy you a *little* time to get your forces embedded nicely on their turf. However, they can turn about and reinforce from such in mere seconds. “Engaging your enemy with a distraction” takes more time and effort for them to pull away from it, to deal with your forces. I would rather divide 50 men, into 5 troops of 10 each, and attack a larger group from 5 different sides at once, than attempt to meet that numerically superior force, head on. By engaging them from more than one or two fronts; I can keep those superior numbers unfocused, and looking to be attacked from every direction. Which gives OUR forces more opportunities for hitting them from directions that they are not currently looking in. They need to be constantly looking over their own shoulders. Break their focus, keep them busy reorganizing, take away their attack, and rout them into a confused defensive action. Have you ever had a girlfriend, that always had kept you “off balance”? Did you notice, how easily it worked for her to manipulate you without being able to effectively resist this? Consider how effective this strategy can be on someone that you don’t have to coerce into buying you jewelry.

 

 

Intelligence

 

 

In an age when they bug, or tap everything from phones to computers: You need to learn to use your enemy’s resources, as if the were yours. When a compromised unit is located and identified: Use it as a “double agent”. The best computers and intelligence, are only as good as the data put in them. They can easily track you with supercomputers today. But the old adage: Garbage In, Garbage Out… GIGO, is still true and a fatal weakness in EVERY data gathering system! You use your compromised communications, to feed the kind of false data into their system, that will have them assailing the locations of YOUR times and choosing. You can use much of this same strategy to win in less lethal competitions.

 

 

Meanwhile, Back at the YMCA Competition...

 

 

Utilizing knowledge as power, even works in winning those very non-lethal open karate tournaments. Don’t forget the good breathing techniques. Your masters weren’t intending to be wasting their breath, when they took the time to teach them to you. You also should take the time for a bit of your own intelligence gathering on your honored opposition, before you face them in the fighter’s circle. I have an award winning short story on precisely how this works, entitled “When Dragon’s Debate” found among the many fine stories of BookRix.com, and my own author‘s page there.

 

 

 

 

The gist of this strategy, is to take a moment before the tournaments begin, to walk around and take note of your competitor’s placement of feet, hands, or stances, as they are warming up for the fights. They will most commonly warm up their favored techniques, above all else for the fight. When you see them adopting those stances before you: You already know what’s coming next, and you can be ready with your defense for it. The trick is to observe what those are: Are they high, or upper body techniques, that they favor? Plan to come in under them. Are they mid, or lower guard techniques? Are they long or short range moves? You may