Protecting the Free-Range Kid

[StCapps]

I don't know, man. The best troops in history were trained in that way. They used to beat Spartan boys into a pulp. The other boys would beat each other to death in some cases. End results were some bad hombres.

End result is a lot of bad hombres ending up beaten to death needlessly as well before they can fight the enemy. Everything in moderation, especially heavy sparring, too much iron on iron can dull a once sharp blade.

[Speaker to Animals]

Maybe. I just think our ancestors based the old ways on many, many generations of wisdom. Perhaps also many generations of prejudice as well. So perhaps that side of training does not work as well as it seems.

[Smitty-48]

I don't know, man. The best troops in history were trained in that way. They used to beat Spartan boys into a pulp. The other boys would beat each other to death in some cases. End results were some bad hombres.

End result is a lot of bad hombres ending up beaten to death needlessly as well before they can fight the enemy. Everything in moderation, especially heavy sparring.

Ah, well, the Unarmed Combat Course; is not flogging, though heavy sparring it indeed be, train hard, fight easy, but no need to flog me to the breach, sir, I assure you, God, Queen, and Country will suffice, a blood oath I did swear, in the name of my fathers before me, and the fathers of the nation, from the Plains of Abraham, to the Heights at Queenston, our patres familias, we shall not fail.

[StCapps]

Ah, well, the Unarmed Combat Course; is not flogging, though heavy sparring it indeed be, train hard, fight easy, but no need to flog me to the breach, sir, I assure you, God, Queen, and Country will suffice, a blood oath I did swear, in the name of my fathers before me, and the fathers of the nation, from the Plains of Abraham, to the Heights at Queenston, our patres familias, we shall not fail.

Don't train too hard though or you won't make it to the fight or if you do you'll be overly compromised heading into the fight. Hard sparring is a useful tool, but is far from the only way to make a skilled unarmed combatant.

Train smart, fight easy. Over-training because of an obsession with training hard needs to be avoided, sometimes lack of work ethic isn't the issue.

[Smitty-48]

Ah, well, the Unarmed Combat Course; is not flogging, though heavy sparring it indeed be, train hard, fight easy, but no need to flog me to the breach, sir, I assure you, God, Queen, and Country will suffice, a blood oath I did swear, in the name of my fathers before me, and the fathers of the nation, from the Plains of Abraham, to the Heights at Queenston, our patres familias, we shall not fail.

Don't train too hard though or you won't make it to the fight or if you do you'll be overly compromised heading into the fight. Hard sparring is a useful tool, but is far from the only way to make a skilled unarmed combatant and should be used sparingly. Train smart, fight easy would be more accurate.

Meh, you gots to get to the dirty areas, go in the corners and finish your checks, stand in the blue paint and screen for the point shot, can't be worried about getting hurt, injuries are all part of the game, next man, stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door.

[ssu]

The best troops in history were trained in that way. They used to beat Spartan boys into a pulp. The other boys would beat each other to death in some cases. End results were some bad hombres.

Some SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger were bad hombres too, but I don't assume they were the best German outfit ever. There's a huge difference in training hard and being violent to whom you train.

For me the idea that the best troops are the ones that are the most brutal, that have endured brutal violence, come from broken families, are some totally "different breed" of men from "civilian men" and hence cannot at all adapt to the "civilian" society, but are great at the time of war and in killing is a myth common to those that never served in the military. It's taking this "warrior"-thing to resemble some whacky professional wrestler act or something. True warriors are something totally different.

Same kind of people often genuinely worry that "our boys" are too "soft" if they haven't been inflicted physical pain through violence. And fear that the brutal and violent enemy has some kind of advantage.

Yet if officers and noncoms do use violence on their men, what it usually just ends up is an attempt to make the soldiers into unquestioning robots, which makes them likely hate the system and kills their initiative and motivation. Hence such a group of fighters is an easy picking once you kill the commanding officers as they have learnt not to use their initiative.

Initiative and using your own brains is quite essential. And not only in war, but also in life.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I was just a wee lad, and my father had his drinking buddies over, one lipped off to my mother, my father just sat there not knowing what to say, my mother waited until the guy got up, then pounced on him from behind and threw him down the stairs, he called her a name from the bottom, head already split, she came back with a knife, and he ran for his life, never to return again.

Jesus Christ, dude...

[StCapps]

Meh, you gots to get to the dirty areas, go in the corners and finish your checks, stand in the blue paint and screen for the point shot, can't be worried about getting hurt, injuries are all part of the game, next man, stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door.

Well sure, but you don't have to be stupid about it. If you are the coach and you run your team ragged in practice because you are too worried about working hard, that won't help the team fight easier, just the opposite. The whole "train hard, fight easy" ethos can often lead to over-training and that should be avoided to the same extent as not training hard enough.

[Smitty-48]

I was just a wee lad, and my father had his drinking buddies over, one lipped off to my mother, my father just sat there not knowing what to say, my mother waited until the guy got up, then pounced on him from behind and threw him down the stairs, he called her a name from the bottom, head already split, she came back with a knife, and he ran for his life, never to return again.

Jesus Christ, dude...

I believe my father must have invoked the Messiah at the time as well, he was a little in shock as he remembered it, but my mother didn't take kindly to drunken louts sassing her in her own parlour, she was a country girl after all, tiny little thing, but ornery as a rattlesnake if you ever crossed her, and deceptively strong, my father was a big lad, but he never would have stepped to her in a million years, if he had ever laid a glove on her sideways, she probably would have killed him where he stood, and he well knew it.

No doubt one of the reasons he thought she was so damn hot, and she was a looker, there's no doubt about that, he always said she was way out of his league.

[Smitty-48]

Well sure, but you don't have to be stupid about it. If you are the coach and you run your team ragged in practice because you are too worried about working hard, that won't help the team fight easier, just the opposite. The whole "train hard, fight easy" ethos can often lead to over-training and that should be avoided to the same extent as not training hard enough.

Bah, you sound like one of these new schoolers, I come from the old school, train as you fight, where we pushed ourselves to the limits and beyond, to find out where the limits were, and how they could be broken.

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further; it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea

If it don't hurt, you ain't doin' it right.