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Mettle Maker #385
What’s the weekly mettle maker? Training tips and educational information in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? According the American Heritage Dictionary, mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
Heritage Self-Defense: What should a typical training session look like? It’s very hard to train consistently, day in and day out. Some days you have a really hard time overcoming inertia and getting started. But if you have a plan laid out in advance its much easier — especially if you train early in the morning like I do and you’re a little bleary-eyed. What’s your plan? Need some ideas? Well, here at Heritage Self-Defense, our twice-weekly training sessions break down as follows:
5 - 10 minutes of mettle drills
15 minutes of skills practice
15 minutes of sparring
15 - 20 minutes constitutional
5 - 10 minutes of internal work
1 minute closing oath
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60 minutes total
Mettle drills are groups of techniques, sequences of movement, simulated fights, or flow drills that are memorized and repeated in a relaxed and fluid manner as part of the learning process.
Skills practice refers to techniques practiced in isolation, breakdowns of drills, and so forth.
Sparring is fighting in a controlled manner so as to maximize preparedness for actual self-defense while minimizing injury and trauma.
A constitutional is martial fitness routine made up of 7 different constitutional exercises (about 25 reps each).
Internal work will take the form of either contemplation, meditation, prayer or reading of sacred literature.
The closing oath is as follows: "To North, South, East and West, to our higher powers and better selves, we ask and send our blessings; that we may train with sincerity, outside the influence of evil forces, and successfully embody the Five Virtues of Heritage Self-Defense: Wonder, Sagacity, Frugality, Indomitability and Fraternity. Ex Gladio Scientia.¹ Rah!"
Interested in American Rough and Tumble martial arts with a spiritual center? Join the martial arts club in Richmond, VA or click here to sign up for the Heritage self-defense distance learning program.
Heritage Fitness: Fitness is a walk, not a sprint. Literally! There’s no exercise better than a brisk walk. According to this article, walking counteracts the effects of weight-promoting genes, helps tame your sweet tooth (according to a pair of studies from the University of Exeter), reduces the risk of developing breast cancer, eases joint pain, and boosts immune function.
And because it doesn’t result in sharp drops in blood sugar, walking doesn’t trigger extreme hunger or binge eating the way other more intense forms of exercise can.
That’s one reason why bodybuilders both old and new are devout walkers. A 150 lb. walker can burn 266 calories per hour without generating a voracious appetite. Avoiding irresistible hunger is key for folks looking to burn off fat and keep it off, because every extra calorie is stored as fat. If you want to be lean, go for a walk. You can literally walk your buns off and still have plenty of juice for lifting weights, yard work, your day job, a night on the down, or a weekend canoe trip, martial arts training, or whatever your heart desires.
Start walking today and begin working your way up to a considerable weekly mileage total. You decide what’s right for you – the world’s your oyster. Just know that (barring any health barriers or handicaps) even the average, able-bodied human being can walk enormous distances without ill effects.
Just look at the legendary walking feats of Edward Payson Weston, probably the greatest walker of all time. His first walk of renown was occasioned by the loss of a bet on the results of the 1860 U.S. Presidential election. Weston bet against Lincoln, lost, and had to walk from Boston to Washington D.C. -- a staggering 478 miles! -- through late February rain and snow. He completed the walk in just 10 days and 10 hours. Arriving in the capital only a few hours before President-elect Lincoln’s inaugural ball, Weston was totally un-depleted and able to attend the event without issue.
I’m no Edward Payson Weston, but this old man – aged 62 – just walked 16 miles in 4 hours and 40 minutes at the 2023 Richmond Marathon. Everything was good for the first 10 miles or so, as I maintained a 16-minutes-per-mile pace. But as my strength flagged I had to slow down, and the pace trucks caught me at mile 16 and I was forced to stop. Oh well – there’s always next year!
Need a free fitness coach to help you build a program that suits your specific needs and goals? We’re a 501c3 charity! Click here to sign up for our distance learning fitness program!
Heritage Wildwood: Merry Christmas! Get a free download of the Heritage Wildwood distance learning program textbook! The textbook for the Heritage Wildwood distance learning program is The Wildwood Workbook, cover picture on the left. It contains dozens of effective, real-world drills and activities that will deepen your appreciation for the natural world and prepare you for a variety of survival situations.
To download a free copy, click this link and use coupon code NM95U. Coupon good until 1/1/24.
Looking for a comprehensive adult outdoor skills program? Click here to sign up for the Heritage Wildwood distance learning program!
¹ Ex gladio scientia is Latin for “From the sword, knowledge.” This is a statement with a double-meaning, referring to both the importance of discernment (Matthew 10:34-36) and to how we learn about ourselves through martial arts study.
Holy Communion is LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 10 am EASTERn. Click HERE to watch live. To view and print a copy of the program for holy communion, CLICK HERE.
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 12/24/23 – Father Mitch
Readings: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16,Ps 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29. Rom 16:25-27, Lk 1:26-38
Luke 1:26-38 World English Bible Catholic Edition
26 Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph, of David’s house. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 Having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!”
29 But when she saw him, she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered what kind of salutation this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 Behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and shall name him ‘Jesus.’ 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”
34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God. 36 Behold, Elizabeth your relative also has conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing spoken by God is impossible.”‡
38 Mary said, “Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”
At the time when archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary, the emperor was Caesar Augustus. Caesar Augustus was and is a notable figure even among famous emperors, not the least reason being that he is considered the origin of imperial cult. He was the first Roman emperor to be worshipped.
His birth name was Gaius Octavius Thurinus. His father was Gaius Octavius, a successful statesman and diplomat. He gave the boy the third name “Thurinus” because his proudest early accomplishment was putting down a large slave uprising in Thurii. His mother was Atia. According to the Roman historian Suetonius,
The day he [Caesar Augustus] was born the conspiracy of Catiline was before the House, and Octavius came late because of his wife's confinement; then Publius Nigidius, as everyone knows, learning the reason for his tardiness and being informed also of the hour of the birth, declared that the ruler of the world had been born. (Suetonius:94:5)*
This was the prophecy of Caesar Augustus’ birth, ascendancy to emperor, and eventual worship. But even before he was conceived, his mother had a revelatory experience as she worshiped the god Apollo.
When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colours like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the whole extent of land and sea, while Octavius dreamed that the sun rose from Atia's womb. (Suetonius:94:4)*
What sort of prophecy precedes Gabriel’s annunciation to her? Not an isolated prediction by an occultist, astrologer, and mage like Publius Nigidius. But rather a thousand years of prophecies, numbering over 300 by some counts, dating all the way back to the prophets Ezekiel, who wrote six centuries before, and Isaiah, who wrote two centuries even before him.
24 “ ‘ “My servant David will be king over them. They all will have one shepherd. They will also walk in my ordinances and observe my statutes, and do them. 25 They will dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, in which your fathers lived. They will dwell therein, they, and their children, and their children’s children, forever. David my servant will be their prince forever. (Ezekiel 37:24-25)
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
Rest assured, brothers and sisters that our Heavenly Father is the God of all things, including history itself. The juxtapositions and contrasts between the Lord of Hosts and the lord of an empire, and between a humble mother from Nazareth and wealthy aristocrat from Rome, are not coincidental, but rather predetermined. They are put there by God for us to see.
The archangel Gabriel appeared, not to a wealthy aristocratic woman carried by slaves on a litter into a temple of Apollo, but to a humble virgin named Mary, living in the backwater town of Nazareth. Our savior’s mother wasn’t impregnated in her sleep, raped by a serpent. Mary’s destiny is revealed to her, and she humbly accepts it. And our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate tomorrow, is not nicknamed in honor of an act of oppression, but is instead called Immanuel, which means “God is with us.”
‡ 1:37 or, “For everything spoken by God is possible.”
* The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus (Loeb Classical Library, 1913)