Are You Training For War or The Mirror?

Note: I apologize for infrequency of poasting. This year, zog attacking me with writers block on top of a lot of change IRL. I do almost all my writing on my phone(about 90% of my book editing is done on my phone), which recently I’ve noticed getting carpal tunnel like feeling in thumbs oh god what a first world problem lmao. So I’m going to transition back to full keyboard for writing, we’ll see how it goes.

I don’t consider myself an expert in physical training. Little-known Frontier Disciple trivia is I came online because I wanted to be a dirty ebook merchant selling workout programs. What I found, however, was the subject became boring really quickly. I’ve trained consistently for over fifteen years now. My first introduction to physical training outside of PE in school was weight training for football in high school. From there, I went and tried out almost everything: CrossFit, Starting Strength, running, martial arts, bodybuilding, and powerbuilding.

There is a faction on the right called “right-wing bodybuilders” or RWBB for short who have come to prominence in recent years. Now, I don’t claim to know 100% what their training goals are or that they all even believe in what I’m about to attack. What I’m about to attack is something even I believed in for the longest time. This belief in aesthetics and physique over almost all else. Next to this, there is the bro idea spurred on by strength community that being strong is king. Both of these ideologies lead to imbalances. You aren’t creating Nietzsche’s “more complete beast” when you adhere to them militantly.

What’s more interesting about these fitness beliefs is oftentimes, their adherents have a strong reverence for our warrior ancestors and classical heroes. How often do you see people poasting photos of Grek statues, for example? Many are trying to LOOK the part without BEING the part. This is a damning example of our character as men. There can be a false confidence attached to a nice bodybuilding physique. A bodybuilder may look imposing, but how reliable would he be in the field during wartime? I forget where the original source came from, but I remember twatter account Quintus Curtius talking about a book about prisoners from the Vietnam War and Curtius was saying how the men with muscle were often the first to break. Losing all those gains, apparently, does a number on the MIND.

You have to also realize that most specialization in fitness and sport is for the circus. They are the gladiatorial games of the Romans era. Sure, a man may make it his genuine hobby. He may genuinely enjoy the sport, but the world as it now must force you to reflect on how we got here. Few will argue with the idea that we are slaves in the “land of the free and home of the brave.” Is he better than the fat redditor? Of course, but to add a lame clique, “at the end of the day,” they are one and the same. Thrall to the slave state.

This isn’t a call to demonize physical training as it is a GATEWAY to our side, but effort must be made to guide those being shown nature for the first time toward more effective training. How do modern warriors train? This should be what we should be moving our kin towards. Doesn’t matter who you are, you will have to fight. Nature demands that you fight if you want to be at the top and our race has developed a bad habit of checking out of life and the great game. I’d argue that most who have seen nature, who understand our ideas, are still checked out of life — and that is why we lose.

You can’t be checked out. You have to be in the game and you have to play to win. What does it take to survive and thrive in our age? Our people as a whole have forgotten that you have to fight. Avoiding the fight is not winning. It’s surrendering the field. Now I don’t want to get off track with the subject at hand, but they ARE related. There is so much time spent bodybuilding. So much time making sure you look good in the mirror, but do you perform as well as you look? What did one of Plutarch’s heroes think about training for sport vs training for war?

“Because he was naturally fitted to excel in wrestling, some of his friends and tutors recommended his attention to athletic exercises. But he would first be satisfied whether it would not interfere with his becoming a good soldier. They told him, as was the truth, that the one life was directly opposite to the other; the requisite state of body, the ways of living, and the exercises all different: the professed athlete sleeping much, and feeding plentifully, punctually regular in his set times of exercise and rest, and apt to spoil all by every little excess, or breach of his usual method; whereas the soldier ought to train himself in every variety of change and irregularity, and, above all, to bring himself to endure hunger and loss of sleep without difficulty. Philopœmen, hearing this, not only laid by all thoughts of wrestling and contemned it then, but when he came to be general, discouraged it by all marks of reproach and dishonor he could imagine, as a thing which made men, otherwise excellently fit for war, to be utterly useless and unable to fight on necessary occasions.” -Plutarch

Our ancestors cared about what worked and how you could be “of use?”

A people adopt the customs that help them survive. They make it a part of their religion. There is no exception to this rule. Even our American ancestors who brought their own customs and religion to the new world had to change those beliefs in order to survive and thrive. In that time of change, function became important. The new world had no comforts, no security. Our ancestors were forced back into nature and had to build a new civilization.

They learned to appreciate function. They cared about how a newcomer could be of use to their community. What could he do to help them? They understood that they were on their own out there in the wild and so any weight they picked up had to be of use. They couldn’t be weighed down by useless fats or demented leftists. This mentality is how the new world was won. Early Americans imagined God as a great mechanic if you want to get an idea of how much they were influenced by the idea of function. What is Disciple trying to say? Should the right be doing CrossFit?!

To reiterate, I’m no fitness expert. I’m not suggesting you start doing CrossFit, but if you care about being a WARRIOR, you should look into what warriors actually do. As great as the old Arnold movies are, warriors don’t look like Arnold. If you want to be a warrior, you look toward the military. Sure, maybe you look back to say the ancient Greks and see what they did. There’s an argument that the training for a warrior probably hasn’t changed a whole lot. I understand that I’m opening up a whole other can of worms by equating the military to warrior training. That conversation is for another time. To sum it up, however, the military profession is the ONLY way you can effectively train for war.

You have to deal with the world as it is, not as you want it to be. You look at bodybuilding and you will hear something like “Back squat is the king of all exercises.” Maybe someone else will say it’s the deadlift. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those exercises, they’re great exercises, but if you’re talking about being a warrior, the one constant throughout history is his ability to move. Running for the warrior may be the “king of all exercises,” followed closely by the weighted march or ruck. Even before the creation of the military, our ability to survive and thrive in nature came down to our ability to move great distances. We outlasted our prey. Wore them down.

The Greks marched to war in full armor. How many miles did they cover before a battle? The Romans did the same. Their military discipline was unmatched. Not only would they march under load all day, but at night they would build fortifications their enemies were never ready for the following day. You look back to American history, you see the RANGERS who were formed before the War for Independence to hunt Indians that had attacked settlements. They were required to cover the great distances of the frontier. You saw the Texas Rangers later on moving great distances to engage much larger Mexican forces. All these warriors likely were not like Arnold. During the Civil War, the average soldier was around 150lbs(but they also had deadlift power to lift 400lbs).

If you want to find your BARBARIC VITALISM, the first step may be movement. The Army Rangers today demand that recruits be able to run five miles in under forty minutes and ruck twelve miles under three hours as a MINIMUM. Where do you stand?