ninjutsu

 by Jon F. Merz

Pity Parties

By Jon F. Merz

Ever been to one of these? It’s where something doesn’t go right and someone decides that the universe is against them and gets all “woe-is-me, my life totally sucks.” Usually, this is accompanied by a post on Facebook or Twitter; sometimes, it’s a blog post or a magazine column. Sometimes those posts on Facebook get a bunch of “likes,” or comments expressing sympathy. This is the party aspect of it. Misery loves company, apparently, and pity parties certainly seem to spring up more often than not. (Personally, I think we need more positivity parties…)

I’ve been seeing them happen a lot lately – especially with midlist traditionally published authors. As the indie publishing revolution has made it easier than ever before to become published, a lot of traditionally-published authors who never achieved serious bestseller status are pissed off. They see new unknown writers selling thousands or tens of thousands of ebooks and pocketing the 70% royalty that Amazon offers and they get seriously annoyed. Some of them bitch publicly about it. I read a column recently where the author was upset that one of these newer writers had the gall to state that he had “fun” when he was writing, whereas the column’s author found writing to be a painful and grueling experience. The remainder of the column was very much more a commentary on what a sad life the column author had, rather than what she was doing to make her life better.

Maybe you’ve even thrown a pity party from time-to-time. Things in your own life have been seemingly bad or you haven’t achieved everything you set out to accomplish. You start feeling a sense of hopelessness or maybe experience a crisis of faith. I certainly know – I’ve been there. Around this time last year, I was about to face a whole lot of very potentially serious issues. And in my present life, I still have yet to accomplish some of my larger goals. I understand how easy it is to focus on all the bad stuff and ignore the good that always exists in a life.

But the thing about a pity party is that while they seem to help momentarily, the party should never go on for too long. Otherwise, like any real party, the neighbors get annoyed and call the cops to complain. And then cops show up and shut it down. Meanwhile, you’ve been partying too hard and you still have to get up the next morning and go to work. And when you wake up, your head is pounding and you feel like total garbage.

Likewise, if you allow your pity party to go on for too long, you run the risk of trapping yourself even deeper in the mire of your own doubt. It becomes harder and harder to pull yourself out of the swamp and get back on the path toward kicking all sorts of ass.

I’m not saying that it’s not okay to allow yourself a brief bit of self-pity from time-to-time. A change of perspective can sometimes illuminate a path or tactic that you may not have previously considered. The key, though, is to acknowledge that things aren’t where you want them to be and then actually DO something about it. Instead of wallowing in the swamp and moaning about your predicament, haul yourself out of it and take positive action toward changing your life for the better. The action doesn’t have to be huge; it just has to be action in the right direction.

Each and every step will bring you closer to eventual success. Don’t sabotage your progress by wasting energy on a pity party.

One step. One action. One vision.

By the way, if you haven’t seen the new digital series THE CONTAINED yet, be sure to check it out here – we need your help to make it a reality! Thank you!

in authorpreneur / common sense / general / health / life thoughts / martial arts / self protection / ninjutsu 0 comments
 by Jon F. Merz

GORUCK Challenge

By Jon F. Merz

Yesterday, I registered for something I’ve had my eye on for a while: the GORUCK Challenge. This is something different from races like Tough Mudder and others. According to the GORUCK website, “The GORUCK Challenge is a team event, never a race. Think of it as a slice of reality found in the most elite schools in Special Operations. Leadership is taught, teamwork is demanded.”

How do they accomplish this? Simple. You give yourself over to the Cadre – all of whom are drawn from the ranks of US Special Operations units – for “8-10 hours, 15-20 miles, Good Livin'” Spread out over this fun little jaunt, you are required to wear a ruck filled with six bricks (four if you’re under 150 pounds) that weigh about 24 pounds, along with a hydration bladder, a bit of food and other gear. Your ruck ends up weighing probably around 40-45 pounds when all is said and done. Additionally, you have a “team weight” of at least 25 pounds that gets handed around throughout the night.

Oh, and then there’s a log. A big log. And not a Robert Plant Big Log, either.

Push-ups, flutter kicks, buddy carries, bear crawls, crab crawls, and much more fun are to be found as you progress through the event. Rucksacks are never taken off unless the Cadre tells you. They also can’t touch the ground at any time unless permitted by Cadre. Both times and distances have been known to exceed the advertised length.

I signed up for the event happening on October 27th in Salem, MA. Start time: 0100 hours.

And I can’t freakin’ wait. Here’s a slight preview of what I can expect:

When I posted that I’d registered yesterday, I got several emails from folks asking: “Why?”

My simple answer is: “Why not?”

I’ll be doing the Challenge a few days past my 43rd birthday. At the time of the Challenge, it will have been about a year since I started dealing with a bunch of medical issues that fortunately turned out to be nothing serious. But at the time, I thought they were. Being 42 and forced to go through a battery of tests is not fun when every thought happens to be of the fact that your father passed when he was 48. Fortunately, I don’t smoke and don’t seem to have the cardiac issues my late father did. But it still made me think. A lot.

If you read my previous post on Complacency, then you’ll also understand why I want to do this. And if you know about the various aspects of my life – including martial arts – then you know that I take very seriously this concept of warriorship. Herein lies the longer answer to why I’m doing GORUCK. For me, walking the warrior path means that I set challenges for myself – big challenges that force me well out of my comfort zone. GORUCK type training is not something I’ve done in nearly twenty years. I want to see if I can still hack it, quite frankly. It’s not ego, but a genuine curiosity to see whether I can endure a situation like what GORUCK offers and emerge in decent shape on the other side.

On the GORUCK website, they urge participants not to attempt to “overgame” the event through intense training or running themselves into the ground. I happen to dig that attitude since it falls in line with my own thinking and brings up another point about warriorship: you can’t pick the time and place of an emergency situation. They happen whenever, wherever, to whomever. Therefore, you need a general baseline of physical aptitude to work with. The rest, as they say, is all mental.

With that in mind, I’ll be ramping my own physical baseline up but I’m not going crazy-go-nuts trying to ingest all sorts of supplements (which I don’t usually handle well anyway) or somehow turn myself into a superhuman specimen. I’ll be doing my usual walk-runs, mixing in Crossfit WODs, and some endurance marches of my own with the fully-weighted ruck to get myself ready. For those who are interested and want to follow my training, each new blog post out here will feature a rundown of what I’ve been doing. Then on October 27th, we’ll see if the preparation was enough.

I hope it is, because GORUCK also offers some other very cool events. But you’ve got to get through the Challenge first in order to qualify.

So, we’ll see. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my GORUCK GR1 gear bag, and I’m starting to see a few of the other folks signed up for the event. I’m hoping it’s an absolute blast. If you’ve done the GORUCK Challenge before, I hope you’ll say hi!

GORUCK TRAINING TO-DATE:

Note: I’ve been doing walk-runs for about a month now – focusing mainly on time and not distance. Even still, I feel they’ve given me a decent base to build from.

24 July 2012: Registered for GORUCK Challenge. Crossfit Workout for time: 3 sets x 20 reps each push-ups, flutter kicks, overhead press, back-ups, medicine ball throw & catch (20#), flyes (10# & 25# kettlebells) Total time: 18:39

25 July 2012: 44 minute walk-run for 3.75 miles (average pace was 4.7mph)

Nothing too elaborate or particularly challenging yet, but we’ll see how things progress.

in goodlivin' / goruck / health / life thoughts / martial arts / self protection / ninjutsu / Uncategorized / warriorship 0 comments
 by Jon F. Merz

ZOMBIE RYU Debuts!

By Jon F. Merz

You might remember this project idea I had a while back. I created a Kickstarter campaign to try to fund it, but that didn’t work out too well, so I shelved it for a bit until I could figure out the right way to pursue it. About six weeks ago, I finally came up with how I wanted to present this series and now, the very first adventure is live!

Zombie Ryu takes you back in time to feudal Japan where a crazy monk has unleashed a zombie invasion upon the land. They stalk the countryside at night, killing innocents, destroying home and farms, and leaving a wave of paranoia building across the land. For eighteen year old Shigoko (“secret talk”) life has been largely frustrating. She wants nothing more than to become a mighty warrior, but she is stuck on her rundown farm with her father, their most prized possession being an old samurai sword. When Shigoko’s farm is attacked by zombies one night, she flees into the woods and stumbles into the camp of the gnarled ronin Fudo and his squire Nishi.

Shigoko’s life will never be the same.

Fudo is gathering the greatest warriors in Japan – samurai, ninja, ronin – to head north to the most remote places in Hokkaido in their search for the evil monk. Together, they will become known as the Zombie Ryu. Only time will tell if they are successful, and only time will tell if Shigoko has what it takes to become the warrior she has always dreamed of being.

ZOMBIE RYU is written like an episodic television series. Every month, a new 25,000-word episode will debut as the warriors of Zombie Ryu edge ever closer to their goal of ridding Japan of the zombies and the evil monk who created them. Zombie Ryu also features wonderful cover art from my good friend and amazingly talented artist Courtney Rose.

ZOMBIE RYU: Episode One “Torn Asunder” is now on-sale. Grab the first episode in an action-packed new series today!

Get ZOMBIE RYU at Amazon for Kindle
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Amazon UK for Kindle
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Amazon DE for Kindle
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Amazon FR for Kindle
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Kobo for all sorts of e-readers
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Barnes & Noble for Nook
Get ZOMBIE RYU at Smashwords

Since today is launch day, I hope you’ll share this news around to your friends and family. Thank you for your support! Enjoy the series!

in ebooks / how I write / ninjutsu / novels / promotion & publicity / publishing / Uncategorized / writing / zombie ryu 0 comments
 by Jon F. Merz

Diversity of Thought

By Jon F. Merz

Three things have happened this week that have led me to write this blog post. On Monday, I was honored to once again be a guest on the Provocative Thoughts and Positive Vibes radio show hosted by my friends Tommy and Lois. Tuesday, we got some new neighbors. And last night, I started reading the book “Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. These three things might seem to have nothing in common, but, in fact, they do.

And the thread that binds them all together is this notion of diversity.

On the radio show Monday, Tommy, Lois, and I were discussing how with the advent of ebooks and technology, the world is inherently much more connected – things that were once only local are now global. Each day, the opportunity exists to reach out and connect with someone clear across the world via Facebook, Twitter, a blog post, etc. In my industry – entertainment – this means I can reach new audiences with my work. But this global environment isn’t just a one-way street; it’s an every-way street. And as much as I am able to spread my “ideas,” so too am I able to receive new ideas from other people, places, and cultures.

Tuesday, we found out that we have new neighbors. The suburban town I live in currently is largely white. We’re about twenty miles outside of Boston and while there are minority groups represented here, the town is overwhelming Caucasian. When we moved here in 2004, my wife was one of the few Asians in town. We now enjoy a greater mix of races and ethnicity, but the town is still easily 80% white. So whenever we find out that there’s a bit more range to the spectrum, we get excited. Such was the case with our new neighbors, who happen to be two lesbians and their three children. More range to the spectrum!

Finally, in reading Abundance (and I’ve only just started it) last night, the overriding theme of the book – at least at this point – seems to be that the future can be incredible, but only if we embrace diversity. The way kids are taught these days is somewhat backward in that math and science are given utmost importance while creativity and critical thought are not. This needs to change because the planet faces some very serious problems that will only be solved by people who have the ability to critically examine problems and creatively come up with solutions that benefit us all.

Diversity scares a lot of people, though. And given that we’re in the midst of another presidential election process here in the United States, the two parties at play are hard at work drumming up the most base instincts of potential voters with fear of one kind or another. I always find it interesting to see how people react to such tactics and what their reactions tell me about who they are as people – and in the case of those who study martial ways, who they are as warriors.

There’s an admonition in the martial art lineage I study called “Banpen Fugyo,” and it means “Ten thousand changes, no surprises.” There are many who think that the meaning behind the admonition is enough to understand: that you should always expect things to change and therefore not be surprised when change occurs. But like so many other aspects of Japanese culture, there is both an omote (outer) meaning and an ura (inner) meaning and only thinking about the obvious meaning of Banpen Fugyo cuts the lesson short and deprives the practitioner of a chance to expand their comprehension of it.

To me, the ura meaning behind Banpen Fugyo isn’t that the practitioner be alert to changes in the midst of combat; it’s that the practitioner understand that diversity in combat is nothing to be scared of, provided they are secure enough in who they are as warriors. Does it really matter if your opponent punches or kicks you? Or swings a baseball at your head or stabs at you with a knife? If you’ve trained long enough and hard enough, it won’t matter. You’ll respond with the appropriate technique and end the conflict. As a result of first opening yourself up to the range of technical tools available in the martial lineage you might study, you have an endless variety to choose from. Experience and personal evolution will help teach you how to properly respond at the right moment.

Can you imagine entering a dojo and telling the instructor you only want to learn how to defend yourself against a roundhouse kick? And then you only want to learn a single technique for doing so? Why wold you limit yourself in that way? Why would you set your life up so that it’s only possible to be successful if a strict set of parameters are met?

But there are plenty of examples of martial artists who do just that. They espouse their style as the only “true” way to deal with attackers. They insult other styles, other techniques. They claim they train harder than everyone else. Or that this technique is the only way to properly defend against this particular attack. Most, if not all, of these claims stem from insecurity.

Conversely, the practitioners who are secure in their abilities – they know what they can do and (equally important) what they cannot do – are often the most open to diversity of technique. They are open to discussing new ideas on how to handle new threats to security. They don’t insult other styles. They freely exchange ideas with others. As a result, they are better martial artists.

Extrapolate that further and the true meaning of Banpen Fugyo might just be that practitioners walking the path need to be open to diversity not only in martial arts, but also in life.

But that’s difficult.

In the political arena especially, candidates and their surrogates take great pains to divide and conquer. They paint their opponent as the guy who wants to come in and do all sorts of horrible nasty things to the country, the belief system the party espouses, and the voters themselves. They do so by crafting their messages and advertisements with trigger points that are carefully calculated to cause fear. Fear is obviously one of our most primal base emotions. Everyone has been scared before. Fear takes no thought. It’s easy. And in the crowded media world where messages and sound bites have scant time to register before the next message comes hurtling in, fear is the one thing that works better than others.

Political parties don’t want you to embrace diversity because it makes you harder to effectively cajole into voting for their candidate. Political parties want you to avoid diversity and confine yourself and your thoughts to a very strict set of parameters. Once they pigeonhole you, they can effectively market to you because they know exactly how you’ll react if they hit this or that trigger point. Then they just repeat the message over and over and over and over and over again until you adopt that talking point as one of your own.

There are no parameters in combat. Anything can happen. Anything will happen. There is so much diversity in combat that it’s impossible to account for it all. A true warrior understands this and takes pains to learn as many techniques as possible from as many sources as possible and temper those lessons with as many experiences as possible. The more expansive a spectrum of martial skill a warrior has, the better chance they have of coming out of a hostile encounter alive. That guy who only wanted to learn one technique for defending against a roundhouse kick back up there in paragraph 9? He’s already dead by now.

In the same way, life does not confine itself to a narrow set of parameters, either. Life exists everywhere on this planet and presumably beyond. Life exists in environments never thought capable of sustaining it previously. Given the opportunity – any opportunity – life flourishes and the ecosystem is richer for it. Why would you choose to live your life constrained by a narrow set of guidelines or parameters or a belief system?

The time we exist in now – the day before you now – is filled with incredible potential from an infinite number of sources, people, cultures, and experiences. The number of opportunities – the chances to flourish – before each of us is infinite.

But you’ll only see them if you embrace diversity.

in common sense / life thoughts / martial arts / self protection / ninjutsu / Uncategorized 0 comments
 by Jon F. Merz

Intelligence Gathering 101: Making Contact

I’ve been out running each morning this week, and as so often happens when I’m a sweaty bag of mess, my thoughts have tended to drift on to a wide variety of topics that I write about. I haven’t written about intelligence gathering in a while, so I’ve wanted to do another blog post. And as so often happens, the perfect opportunity presented itself earlier this week and each day since.

During the morning, very few people are out and about. But each morning for this entire week, I’ve seen one guy on his bike pedaling furiously as he gets a good workout in. It prompted me to talk about how intelligence operatives sometimes cultivate an asset. But cultivation of an asset – that is, turning someone into a useful source of information or material – doesn’t happen without first making contact.

Depending on the target, there are multiple methods used. The one I’ll talk about this morning is the casual approach, sometimes called the “brush by.” The brush by is different from a “brush pass,” which is used to make an actual exchange in public. If you’ve ever seen a movie or TV show where two operatives walk toward each other – each usually has something identical like a briefcase or a newspaper – pass close by or make actual contact via a staged bump and then continue on their separate ways, then you’ve seen a brush pass in action.

The brush by, on the other hand, is used to make a target comfortable with the idea of your presence. There’s nothing aggressive about this approach; it’s organic in its execution so as not to trigger any alarm bells in the target. The easiest way to explain it is to use my runs as a good example.

Let’s suppose that I’m looking to cultivate a particular target who happens to hold some sort of position I need information from, access to, etc. From studying the target via any available information I can find about them, I know that he’s an avid bike enthusiast. Further, from conducting surveillance on the target (this will normally be done by other officers and not the one who makes contact) I know he starts his day earlier than most other people. He’s a dedicated early riser who gets his workout in, drives into the city to his job, and accomplishes a great deal. He’s also savvy and knows that his job might possibly expose him to recruitment attempts by intelligence professionals.

The brush by is employed in this case because it’s non-aggressive and non-threatening. Here’s how it works:

The officer making contact begins to show up in the target’s world. Just on the periphery of it, barely even registering on the radar. Given that the target is a big bicycle fan and gets his workout in early, the officer starts running at a time when he is certain to pass by the target. As the target bikes past, he notices the officer doing his morning jog. The first few times this happens, the target doesn’t necessarily even acknowledge the officer. But gradually, as the officer becomes part of the target’s world, a certain degree of familiarity breeds a rising comfort level. In other words, the first time the target notices the officer running, it’s a bit of an anomaly. The target might be used to doing his workout without seeing anyone. So it’s unusual and therefore uncomfortable. But the more the officer becomes part of the routine of the target’s workout, the more comfortable the target becomes with seeing him each and every morning. In fact, the target might become so comfortable that he almost begins to expect the officer to be there each day.

As the comfort level of the target grows, the officer or the target himself might initiate a quick greeting in passing. “‘Morning.” “How ya doing?” Something that simple and quick because neither of these guys has any time to stop and engage in discussion; after all, they’re both focused and dedicated men who are working out. (Don’t discount the psychological leverage at work here; that concept of a shared struggle tends to bond people whether we consciously realize it or not. It’s powerful stuff.) It’s that simple. Nothing too elaborate, nothing forced. Just an easy greeting any friendly person might make. This is the essence of the brush by; casual contact that is completely non-threatening.

As the days and weeks progress, the target and the officer are now familiar with each other. They expect to see each other every day. They exchange a greeting. For the target, this is the extent of the interaction, but the officer now takes the lead and initiates a way to change the relationship into something more substantial. After all, the goal of this is to actually cultivate the target and turn them into an asset.

So the officer might do something like this: the next time the target approaches on his bike, the officer might be stooped over breathing hard, showing how exhausted he is. At this point, the target might stop and offer him water from his bottle (unlikely, but it could happen). Or the officer might progressively act more and more tired each day, perhaps rubbing his shin splints out or otherwise seem to be in pain and finally wave the target over and ask him about the quality of workout that bike riding gives him. The target might be more willing to stop and give him useful information about bikes.

Now the relationship is moving into the next level. The officer might run a few more times and try to fit a few more words in when he sees the target. “I really need to start cycling.” Or something like that. “I don’t think my knees can take this anymore.” Any of these are effective at planting the idea in the target’s mind that the officer might be looking for more advice.

Finally, the officer might wave over the target and say something like, “I know you’re busy, but is there any way I could give you a call and ask you some questions about cycling?” Or maybe it’s meet for a beer. Maybe it’s an email. Any option is fine from this point, because it now grants the officer a higher level of access to the target and from there, the officer can start turning him into an asset.

All of that from a simple “brush by.”

This technique works and it works incredibly well. As I mentioned earlier on, I used the example of my own runs to illustrate this point. On Monday, I saw the cyclist and we passed each other by without saying a word. Tuesday, he nodded at me as he flew past. I said “‘Morning.” Yesterday, he called out the greeting first. And today, we both said it at the same time leading to a quick laugh as we went our separate ways.

Now I’m certainly not interested in cultivating this guy as an asset, but the technique is so subtle that if I was, I’d already be well on my way to doing so. This is just one of the ways officers make contact, but it’s definitely one of the more subtle and undetectable techniques. When done well, the target doesn’t even notice. Think back in your own life to times when you’ve met someone new. Did you see the precursors of eventual friendship or relationship? A lot of times we don’t, and this is just one area that makes us vulnerable to recruitment.

in common sense / intelligence gathering 101 / life thoughts / martial arts / self protection / ninjutsu / Uncategorized 0 comments