How to Run
Remember all those Ethiopian track stars that honed their skills without fancy modern training kit? Like walking this is one of those skills that we all naturally have. We all used to run around like maniacs as kids, in the park, or on the football pitch. But as adults all we seem to remember are those ‘cross-country’ days where we forced to run around a track endlessly in the rain. The thought of running filled me with dread as a younger man, I lived on a beautiful park and one day I thought I’d give it a go. I did what we were taught to do in school, just go at it. About a hundred yards later I had to pull over hold onto a tree and wheeze like a coal miner. I was an extremely heavy smoker at the time which didn’t help. I gave up. Then I found Hal Higdon’s excellent book How to Train. In it he detailed a running plan originally designed by the ex-military coach Chuck Cornett for the over 50s. It’s called the 30/30 plan and it teaches you how to run properly, unlike school.

The Plan – Everyday for 30 days do the following:
Go away from the house for 15 minutes, then turn around and come back to it for a further 15, total time: 30 minutes.
Walk for the first five minutes – this is your warm up.
Walk for the last five minutes – this is your cool down.
For the middle 20 minutes jog or walk as long as you do so easily and do not push yourself. To begin with in your 20 minutes, try jogging 30 seconds, walk thirty seconds and slowly build up your time.

Always listen to what your body tells you. If you want to go faster do it, if you want to go slower, or walk, do that too. I guarantee you that after a week or so you’ll be wanting to go out every day, because if you don’t you’ll miss it.

After your 30 days you’ll be running a mile or three every time you go out and it won’t have been painful in the slightest. After that if you begin to run a little further you’ll find out that lovely little secret of runners everywhere, after 20 minutes the endorphins kick in. You won’t even want to stop.

Hal has updated this plan on his website where you can also find all his other running plans, from 5k to Marathons. In the next few days I’ll add another post on how to increase your aerobic capacity so that you can run faster and longer and with less recovery time between runs.

Well Sam, it’s a good question and one I’m asked regularly, so, by section, here are the people, companies and books I used to do the things you read about in Tank. Book links are at the bottom.

Section 1: Life skills Every Man Should Have

Frank in a Tank

Chapter: How to Drive a Tank
Tank School
Contact: Alastair Scott
Tel: 07971 635189 / 01873 880301
Email: alastairgscott AT tiscali.co.uk (replace AT with @)
Web: http://www.tankschool.co.uk/

Chapter: Handbrake Turns and Other Naughty Driving Skills
Company: Dynamic Drivers
Contact: Richard Knott
Tel: 01934 830303
Email: richardknott1 AT aol.com
Web: http://www.dynamic-drivers.co.uk/

Chapter: Pick Locks, Safes and Chastity Belts
For a peerless and easy to understand lock-picking primer see Locksport Internationals pdf here: http://cdn.makezine.com/make/lsiguide.pdf. And check out Lockpicking101 for everything else, especially their Newbie FAQ. If you’re desperate for bump keys simply google “bump key” with the specific lock you’re after.

Chapter: How to Hotwire Cars and Motorbikes
I used a Bedouin’s pre-stripped Nissan Patrol during a job on the Saudi/Jordan border to illustrate the basics of a car hotwire. You can view it on Nat Geo Adventure here or press play on the Youtube embed below:

Chapter: How to Defeat Security Systems
See this post elsewhere on the blog.

Chapter: How to Get a Gun in any City in the World in the Next Few Hours
A chapter with its tongue firmly wedged in cheek. If you’re after info on the Kambol range in Cambodia check out their armaments and prices here and read about Dan White’s experience here.

Chapter: How to Disappear Without a Trace
For legal and relatively straight forward ways to do this meet Grandpa and the Six Flags or here.

Chapter: How to Hide a Dead Body
Read the chapter, sense of humour required.

Chapter: Make Things Go Boom
I’ll be posting a series of videos on this chapter in time for the paperback launch on November 4th 2010.

Chapter: Drill It ‘Til You Can Kill It
Company: Edelweiss Tactical
Web and contact: http://www.edelweisstactical.com
They have firearms, rapid assault tactics and driving courses available. All are excellent. Watch this space for more details in the coming months.
Videos: Nat Geo or watch below on Youtube embed below:

Chapter: How to Fight – The Everyday Application of Extreme Force
Check out Mick Coup’s videos on this post or go to the Core Combatives website. I highly recommend Mick for zero-BS practical approach to real-world fighting.

Chapter: How to Survive the Wild…Because You Never Know When You Might Need To
Train in remote areas of the UK and abroad with the excellent trainers at Woodsmoke.

Chapter: How to Gamble – It’s All in the Game
There are literally hundreds of websites out there explaining how to play the different forms of casino gambling, two of my fave poker sites are: http://www.cardschat.com and http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/. Books: Breaking Vegas; Play Blackjack Like the Pros, Professional Blackjack; Holden on Hold ‘em, Big Deal; the always brilliant How to Cheat at Everything and of course these two classic Bond scenes that have defined what gambling and casinos are about for generations: First one shows Baccarat, the second Craps. Enjoy.

Chapter: Learn Any Language – In a Week, In a Month, In a Year
A superb resource for beginners is: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com. Books: Learn Any Language; The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning a Language Fast and any thing by Michel Thomas.

Chapter: Learn to Jam in a Day
Get started now, tune your guitar with www.howtotuneaguitar.org, learn your first blues shuffle with Mojo’s excellent www.threechordguitar.com take a course with www.accessrock.com or study offline with The Complete guitarist.

Section 2 will be posted soon…

Let me know what you think. If you have any English to German translation needs don’t hesitate to contact on Dominik Zander on sanjose1(AT)gmx.net or Donal Elsted the innovative creator of the experiential language learning centre Lerner Leben.  You can also check out their website in both German and English.

There may even be a French translation on its way.

Frank beats himself up for the illustrator

For those of you who enjoyed the chapter How to Fight – The Everyday Application of Extreme Force you’ll know I trained with Mick Coup the originator of Core Combatives (C2 for short). Mick’s uploaded some videos to YouTube that cover the fundamental strikes outlined in the book and I’ve added links to them below.

For those of you who haven’t read the book C2 is a no-nonsense, zero-BS combat system that gives you the fundamental skills and tactics to succeed in a real-world fight.

Mick’s a great guy to train with, both knowledgeable and demanding, and his C2 package is designed to be relied on when the shit really hits the fan. You can also find out more here: www.corecombatives.com.

HIGHLINE STRIKE VIDEOS:

The Basic Highline Strike – Why?

Basic Highline Strike – Lateral Transition Introduction

Now click the following links if you want to watch the rest, enjoy!

Highline Strike Breakdown 1 | Highline Strike Breakdown 2

Elbow Strike Breakdown 1 | Elbow Strike Breakdown 2

LOWLINE STRIKE VIDEOS:

Knee Strike Fundamentals

Max from Jersey asks…

“I am a French man based in Jersey and I read your book. I really enjoyed it. I was wondering if you were considering to translate to French at some point? I think it would be a great success in France. Thanks in advance for your answer. Best wishes, Max.”

Thanks for your question Max. I know there are several translation talks going on at the moment and if a French version is commissioned I’ll let you know here. For German readers we should start one or two translations of the sample chapters on the book page in the coming weeks.

Thanks again, and to all my readers, feel free to ask questions at any time. I will always try and respond to you, although please bear in my mind that sometimes my workload or location often means I can’t.

Keep smiling, F.

To start let’s have a quick update from this year’s Explore at the Royal Geographical Society. Did you know there are more than 90 organisations on the RGS’s books looking for volunteers or staff to join their expeditions?

To give you a prime example, the gates have just closed for gap-year students with a lust for adventure and a passion for environmental science on The British Schools Exploring Society’s Extreme Arctic expedition to Svalbard this spring.

To find out more and search the database of organisations looking for people just like you, go here.

In the next two articles I’ll be profiling some of the opportunities available and giving you ideas for two years of space exploration, driving skills and tactical firearms on British soil.

The first is to show you how easy some fingerprint scanners are to crack. As you’ll usually find it explained somewhere in the documentation on your home computer, they’re not security measures. First check out the guys at Mythbusters as they show you how easy it is to crack open a ’secure’ locked doorway using nothing but a photocopier print out:

Then, for readers of the book, you’ll remember me talking about Catherine Zeta Jones oozing through the laser beams revealed by talcum powder? I bet you do. But here’s a real world technique that actually works from author Marc Weber Tobias.

You can read more of Marc’s techniques on his blog or his website.

But it would very naughty of me not show you the movie myth being busted too, so here are the inimitable mythbusters once again:

And as promised to all readers of How to Drive a Tank…, you can also download a copy of the infamous book Hitman | A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors by clicking here or on the image below.

Hitman | A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors

This book was removed from circulation when it was found at the home of someone alleged to have used the information in the book in a triple murder. Fact or fiction? Well, that’s up to you to decide.