Part 2: The Body

Part 2: The Body

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No matter what your 2-4-8 Plan maps out to look like, you'll need to train to take shit while you're treading your Trident path. The first step to taking shit is to know that you can beat the shit out of anyone in most rooms.

You are not going to actually do so.

But you will be able to tolerate more of the shit you can't do a damn thing about, simply as a result of having that training and knowing you can do it. You don't want to play at chopping and hiyah'ing — you want to get beat to shit, over and over again, starting slow and smart, with progressively greater intensity.

There are three practices to this requirement, though you must do the first no matter how else you fail to fulfill all three.

First, you must take seventy-five Boxing or Kickboxing lessons and spar for a minimum of two thousand minutes. You'll understand why that metric is in minutes after your first time in the ring.

Second, you must take some form of rapid-effect street defense. This is going to come from Krav Maga, Laban, or Sambo.

Third, you'll need long-term health-maintenance and discipline-enforcing martial arts. It doesn't have to be boring. Judo, Aikido, Jujitsu (love Gracie BJJ, but not for this component), contact Tai Chi — these are all self-defense-grounded art forms with integrated health benefits.

As a long-time practitioner of all three of these implementations, I can convey with utmost confidence that I have never been concerned for the wellbeing of any of my children or family. To drive this home: my spouse is equally trained and far superior to me in execution. We went where we wanted, we did what we wanted, and if physical confidence and self-security could not keep a problem from erupting, we had the next component to employ before any bones needed to be thrown.