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Physical Culture with Alexey Faleev

At last, we’ve brought back our 15-part series on Alexey Faleev and his "80/20" system of power bodybuilding and physical culture as a downloadable PDF book! It’s available here, 100 pages for a suggested donation of $5 (or none at all). I am donating proceeds to charitable organizations doing works of lean, solid goodness around... Continue Reading →

Fourth Musketeer

“A wrestling tournament crash-landed at a Renaissance Fayre and they all intermarried,” was my thought. I'd tagged along with a trio of friends to SoCal Swordfight, a weekend-long HEMA competition: That’s “historical European martial arts,” three days of armored people fighting politely but hard with steel longswords, rapiers, daggers, and sabers. I’ve been practicing with... Continue Reading →

The Piñata & The Wrecking Ball: Why can small people hit so hard?

So it feels like an ever-new mystery to get overpowered in fight training by short, thin, or otherwise gracile people who, it seems to me, can’t possibly have as much power. Not just outmaneuvered and outskilled, but manhandled or just plain pounded. I’m talking thin teenagers, featherweight women, even a girl who’s too young for PG-13 and weighs less than my checked luggage. What gives?

Feet Are the New Core

Good news: The “core” isn’t the all-important missing link anymore. The cool kids have moved on. Now feet are the new core. Thank heaven, because I got bored of direct midsection work long before the fools in marketing renamed it the “core.” When did they coin that phrase anyway? I missed the Nineties, living in... Continue Reading →

Hats Of Defeat

A further installment in our series on French gear. Some people deal better than others with losing.    France doesn’t like to lose, but for a great power, it’s endured a tough couple of centuries. It lost its bid for global hegemony to Britain, and it lost Paris three times to Germans (twice before Germany was... Continue Reading →

Nutria Brown

Part IV of our series South African on surplus gear for arid climates. Please find the previous parts here, here, and here. In America, we’d see someone dressed head to toe in a brown uniform and guess “UPS delivery driver.” But if you put him in southern Africa, maybe with a gun as a hint,... Continue Reading →

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