Bauernwehr: Ubiquitous Chef's Knife

Most dark ages peasant knives were about the size and shape of a modern chef's knife. This is the "knife" part of the halberd, bow, and knife peasant fighting style I described in Pleasantry of the Peasantry:

Typically the size (and shape) of a modern chef's knife, they were sometimes the size of a machete. The Tres Espadas logo has a Gladius, a Cutlas and a Kukri, all of which have machete and large knife variations:

At Tres Espadas we have a very high emphasis on learning to fight with the large knife (Bowie knife or chef's knife,) and in fact it is the first skill set we suggest beginners learn:

Just as the bauernwehr above was ubiquitous in the dark ages, chef's knives are ubiquitous in domestic kitchens throughout the USA (and many other parts of the world.) The bauernwehr was considered the critical home defense tool of it's day, and the founders of Tres Espadas see the chef's knife to be a critical home defense weapon in today's world. It is one thing to praise the 2nd Amendment's supposed guarantee of home defense through firearms, it is another thing to encourage universal home defense through the study of chef's knife self-defense techniques.

Most indoors confrontations are close range. Knives can have significant advantages over guns at close range:

Most homes don't even have a gun. Of the homes with guns, few gun owners actually go out and practice using their weapon at the firing range, meaning they are almost completely incompetent with the weapon. Of those who actually bother to train with their guns, fewer still go hunting, do Airsoft, play paintball, or do any other training against live targets who don't want to be shot. (The founders of Tres Espadas do know gun owners who take their semi-auto rifles to the range frequently and have been on highly competitive paintball teams, but we think this level of training represents far less than 1% of the gun owners in the USA.)  People seriously interested in home defense should give chef's knife self defense techniques serious study:

If you are a skilled gunslinger, the one other thing to consider about the chef's knife besides its ubiquity is its silence. Almost anything you do with a gun makes noise, where as a chef's knife can be handled very quietly. A well trained and prepared knife fighter at close range can take a home invader without altering other possible armed accomplices he may have.

4 Star Scale: Cycle of Excellence

One person's opinion is only worth so much to another person. For me, when it comes to general quality, a simple "good" or "bad" is not enough detail. However a 1 to 10 scale gives a lot of subjective options and precision without giving us much more information than simply "good" or "bad." For this reason, I have a strong preference for a 4 star scale when asserting general quality something. Here's what the four stars mean:

1. One star* means something is bad. If we are talking about food, it is unpleasant to eat. If something is bad or unacceptable, we don't need to know just how awful it actually is, knowing it is not good enough, is good enough.
2. Two stars means that something is passable. If it's food it is edible, but not particularly good. The four star scale doesn't need an odd-middle scale for neutrality, because two stars IS the neutral rating - passable, but not especially tasty. If you say that something is "good, but not very good" that caveat means you are really talking about two star quality.
3. Three stars means something is very good or excellent. Notice that with food you either really like it or it is just edible, basically no space inbetween. Most of the stuff you "really enjoy" is three stars.
4. Four stars is for that which stands above other excellent things as favorites, classics, incredibly focused, uniquely enjoyable or particularly amazing in some way. This is the food that is so good you have to tell your friends about it (or maybe so good you are tempted to hide it from them.) It is not important how amazing you think something is, if it is amazing we know you think it is above and beyond most other excellent things. Four stars however does not mean perfect - nothing is perfect, because your perfection will have flaws for someone else, so don't be exclusive about the four star rating, if something is truly great, give it the four stars it deserves.

*Note there are no "half stars" in this system. When averaging multiple people's opinion, round. So if two people give a movie 4 stars, and their two dates give the movie 3 stars, (for an average rating of 3.5 stars,) that rounds to a 4 star movie (because it really entertained 4 people and amazed half of them. When converting Likert scale to 4 star scale, subtract one level and count both 0 and 1 as 1 star, and see the last sentance of #4 above.)

The farther something rises, the farther it has to fall. When something achieves 4 stars, often serious risks have been made, new things have been tried, or great effort has been focused on achieving a specific vision. This means truly amazing things are on the verge of being horrible, bad, one star. The "cycle of excellence" means that one star is just as close to 4 stars as 3 stars is, this goes in a loop, or cycle. For example with food, a truly amazing dish was probably at higher risk of becoming an inedible mess than simply very good food. The implication here is that if something is universally loved without critics, it is very likely 3 stars rather than 4, because one person's 4 stars could easily be another's 1 star.

Note that when it comes to efficiency, the sweet spot to aim for is 3 stars. For example with food, if you prepare a 3 star meal everyone is happy: some find it simply edible, others find it amazing, and most are pleased with their simply excellent meal. Beyond this attempting a 4 star meal would have required more effort and resources. The cycle of excellence suggests that very good is the ideal, responsible thing to achieve, and that amazing masterpieces are more risky (that some may not even find edible.)

On this blog I have already used this rating system to evaluate martial arts and individual levels of racism. I have used it with children to evaluate the severity of various usage of profanity, and I often demand feedback on meals I have prepared for guests based on the 4 star scale. Do the world a favor and make the 4 star scale as ubiquitous as possible.

Back Exercises

As a Tai Chi guy, people often ask me what exercises I know of that can help with back muscles. So here are my recommended exercises for strengthening the back, listed here in the order I would start trying these in if I were you:

0. First and foremost, do not do things known to strain your back. If getting arm-bar slammed bugs your back, don't get arm-bar slammed. Stop pushing 10 grocery carts at a time.

1. At least 15 minutes of standing meditation. Focus your mind on your breathing and intentionally relax the most tense parts of your back:

2. Stretches:  Tight legs leads to a tight back. You should stretch after standing meditation anyways. If you don't have any serious stretching you are already into, I strongly recommend you take up doing a deep squat stretch (in addition to other common stretches,) the easy kind of deep squat with your back straight, your feet out 45 degrees and your heels on the ground, like the first stretch in this video:

3. If you do pushups right, they basically work your whole body. Besides strengthening the back pushups help a lot of muscular support systems for your back such as your core, shoulders, neck and upper legs. A good minimum goal for everyone is one set of at least 20 pushups: 

4. Cardio: a leisurely stroll through the park is not cardio, but power walking, jogging and running is. Playing around in the swimming pool is not cardio, but doing laps in the pool is. Simply put you need to be doing 30 minutes of cardio, five times a week if you want your body, including your back, to feel like it is at optimal health.