Keep Eating In Troubled Times

With's Steve's post about survivalblog.com, I'd thought I post some stuff I've found over the last few years that might help you guys plan ahead. A warning though, that some of these sites are huge, and you could spend days looking through it all.

Unfortunately, I still haven't learned how to hotlink on Blogger, so you'll have to cut and paste these.

First of all, there's the Old Timer's Page. This is a page devoted to living like they did in the old days, without power or refrigeration. There are also links to dozens of other sites with similar info.

http://www.waltonfeed.com/old/old/index.html

Next comes Alpha Rubicon. AR is pretty much a die hard survivalist site, that's easy to navigate, and has just about all the info you could want on SHTF scenarios. BTW, read the Distilled Message of Preparedness on the home page first.

http://www.alpharubicon.com/index2.html

http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/themainmessage.htm

Equipped To Survive is a site that focuses on the gear involved in SHTF undertakings. I found this site to be generally reliable and worth checking out.

http://www.equipped.org/

On Fighting

To begin with, we'll start on the unarmed category of fighting. My favorite for the WWII and conemporary combatives is gutterfighting.org. Gutterfighting is the bailiwick of the New Jersey combatives crew of the late Carl Cestari. You'll see Cestari's Bare Knuckle Boxing vid on the upper left corner. Gutterfighting has a slew of Carl's articles he wrote over the years, as well as a lot of other applicable stuff, and all of it is worth reading and learning from. Carl was the man.

Their forum is awesome as well, but it is readable by invite only, and I don't have the clout to get anyone else in, unfortunately.

http://www.gutterfighting.org/Main.html

One of the better sites I've seen is Lee Morrison's Urban Combatives site. Lee is a UK combatives trainer, and I own a couple of his training dvd's. The free stuff on his site is basic, but good. Give it a serious read through, and take notes.

http://www.urbancombatives.com/index.htm

Jimmy Fatwing has a bunch of links on his site worth reading. Much of this stuff comes from old texts, but the material is still just as useful as it always was.

http://www.jimmy-fatwing.co.uk/

For the use of the knife, here's a PDF of a good slam and jam knife book, Put 'Em Down, Take 'Em Out. A classic knife fighting manual.

http://www.zhivitam.ru/files/83d9f916f68c532.pdf

Here are a slew of the classic combatives works of the old masters such as Colonel W.E. Fairbairn, E. A. Sykes, John Styers, Col. Rex Applegate, AJ Biddle, and others. All of them are good reads, and are good manuals for beginners. Indeed, the WWII combatives curriculum evolved during the war to meet the needs of instructors who had to train thousands of beginners in combative principles in a matter of weeks, so the methods they designed had to be easy to learn, easy to remember, and easy to make work in the field.

Cold Steel by John Styers. His knife and bayonet work is excellent. Anytime you see bayonet, substitute cane or walking stick, 'cause the techniques are the same.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2346045/Cold-Steel-John-Styers

Get Tough by W.E. Fairbairn. The greatest hand to hand manual of WWII.
http://www.vrazvedka.ru/main/learning/ruk-b/fairbairn-01.shtml

Shooting To Live by Fairbairn and Sykes. The original point shooting manual. I've taught Jeremy and Kyle in these methods, and they can vouch for how effective they are.
http://www.gutterfighting.org/files/shooting_to_live.pdf

Do or Die by A.J. Biddle.
http://fliiby.com/file/41489/81blmvoowf.html

Kill or Get Killed by Colonel Rex Applegate. Another of the great WWII manuals.
http://www.gutterfighting.org/files/Kill_or_Get_Killed.pdf

Arwrology by Gordon E. Perrigard. Weird name, decent book.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3026801/Arwrology-AllOut-HandtoHand-Fighting-Gordon-Perrigard

That should get you started.

And remember when reading through these combatives books, that unlike martial arts, which is something you do with someone, combatives is something you do to someone. There's no sparring, no give and take, no cutting slack, no giving an even break. Just bare naked caveman aggression and killer instinct. Attack, attack, attack.