Podcast

In the last episode, I discussed the Martial Marksman ideal and how it relates to the various topics I talk about here. One of the challenges that anyone going down this path quickly runs into is the fact that there is a lot of “stuff” to learn and practice. It’s one thing for a professional soldier to do these things, but it’s a very different beast for Everyday Marksmen like you and I.

Every year, I tend to focus in on a “theme” to pursue. Sometimes it’s personally, sometimes it’s got a bit more to do with the site. For most of 2022, the key phrase was “Minimum Capable Citizen.” The idea was around a set of standards and baseline targets that I think any prepared citizen should strive for. Eventually, the idea fizzled out a bit when I felt like there wasn’t much more to write. I’m not interested in “minimum.” I believe we should strive for excellence, and minimum doesn’t cut it. In 2023, my goals turned personal, with a heavy ...

For a while, I've been kicking around an idea for a new type of competition. I enjoy all the various disciplines I've played in, but also think that each of them in isolation is missing something. Today, I'd like to tell you about my vision for a "complete" type of match that I think covers all of the foundations of Everyday Marksmen, and it does so in a way that lets all of us have an objective to train for. Let's talk about the Rifleman Pentathlon.

This is a philosophical one. For the last month or so, I've been obsessed with an Ancient Greek concept of excellence and how to apply it. Today's post is about presenting the core concepts and how I think it works within the construct of The Everyday Marksman. At a broader scale, this will weave throughout my work and form the bedrock what I want you to achieve.

A while back, while talking about the latest revision to his sniper marksmanship book, John Simpson let me know that he had another book on the way- this one focused on patrol rifle marksmanship. Well it recently hit the shelves and we got together again to talk more about rifle marksmanship, training philosophies, and competition. Let's dig in.

This is both my review of a new book on strength training as well as an interview with the author. Over the last year, I've built up a library of strength and conditioning books, and I think I've settled on the one to suggest to just about everyone who wants to get started. Let's dig in.

Months of prep time, new gear configurations, and a lot of articles. I finally ran the West Virginia Gun Run this past Saturday. Here's some notes on how it went and what I'd do differently in the future.

Today I'm discussing a concept that's been brewing in the the back of my brain. While working on the book, I've needed a way to illustrate how different things we do relate to improving the whole and take use to new levels of performance. I think I've figured it out, and this is my first go at explaining it.

People often think old weapons are automatically obsolete, and don't have much place in your safe as anything other than a collectors item. In today's episode, which is admittedly a little bit of a rant, I'm going to make the case why "obsolete" weapons might still have a real world role to play.

Too many people are looking for the easy out, as if finding the one perfect piece of gear, or just the right training technique, will take them to the next level of capability. But that's not true. Success and failure are lagging indicators of our choice to make deposits or take withdrawals from our internal investment account.

I sat down with a few of our community members who recently competed in events put on by Waco Tactical Fitness. I'll be doing a similar tactical biathlon event later next month, and I was curious about equipment, training, and lessons learned from the events.

While reading through some of Coach Dan John's work, I came across a philosophy for breaking your annual training cycles. It's impossible to do everything well all of the time- something must give. Instead, we should think of our training, all of our training, from two perspectives: the bus bench, and the park bench.

Like many enthusiast topics, we've got a problem with flex culture. What is that? Today we're talking about it, how it manifests, why its a problem, and what you can do to combat it.

Everyone loves talking about optimization. Entire industries spend huge amounts of money convincing you that their new whiz bang gadget or service will take you to the next level with no additional skill required. Today I'm putting a stake in the ground to tell you that optimum is a myth, and our constant pursuit of it only detracts us from focusing on what's actually important for our success.

To start of 2023, I wanted to take a moment to look over where we've been over the last eight years, some of the impactful decisions I've made along the way, and how that's affecting where were going next in 2023 and beyond. Thanks for being a part of it!

In this episode, I once again talk to my very first guest: John Simpson. We dig deeper into the fundamentals of learning good marksmanship, past Army programs, the importance of learning the right lessons in training, and more.