Obviously a Spanish product, the Eureka4 holster is demonstrated by this Spanish Police woman. Eureka4 is an innovation incubator and this is their first product. However, I’m not quite sure what to say about their marketing video.
Thanks Kevin!
The Eureka4 Holster
November 19th, 2012NEMO Equipment Donates Sleeping Bags to Hurricane Sandy Survivors
November 19th, 2012We recently found out about a good turn that NEMO Equipment paid to their fellow Hurricane Sandy survivors. They provided us with this press release.
Our neighbors in New York and New Jersey have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, a fire that destroyed over 100 homes and a Nor’easter that buried the still standing homes and wreckage under several inches of snow earlier this month. While we know New Yorkers are a resilient bunch, we also know they need our help. With guidance from Robin Hood, NEMO has sent 50 sleeping bags to St. John’s Bread and Life in Brooklyn.
“We had sleeping bag samples left over from our 2011 Adventure Product Testing Program that we had set aside with the intent of donating; we just hadn’t yet picked the organization. When Hurricane Sandy and the following Nor’easter hit, we knew there’d be a need. We’re glad to be able to do something for our neighbors in New York and we’ve put the word out to other outdoor industry companies, hoping they’ll jump on board,” said Cam Brensinger, president and founder of NEMO.
For more information on how you can help in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, you can contact Robin Hood or The Red Cross.
We are BIG fans of NEMO Equipment. It’s not just about the level of innovation that they bring to shelter systems but more importantly, they are great people. And it’s things like this that show it. If you want to invest in quality outdoor equipment then take a hard look at NEMO Equipment.
SERE Specialist – Fast Food
November 18th, 2012
Shrek Sighting
November 18th, 2012
Just be happy you aren’t seeing this from the opposite point of view.
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Engage his services at aliastraining.com
Canipe Correspondence – Being Hard Enough to Be Lazy
November 18th, 2012
Laziness is pretty much the scourge of America these days. People want all the benefits of hard work without, well, the hard work. There’s one circumstance I can think of that laziness pays dividends though, and in fact improves the gains of the hard work you just did. The rest day, which is often overlooked. I took a quote from the Gym Jones website a few years ago that stuck with me. I had been training with a partner for an upcoming multi-week event. I was in most likely the best shape I had ever been, knocking out a 1400+ UBRR score and a sub-2 hour 12 mile ruck time. Religious adherence to a great diet, never slacking on workouts. Unfortunately I fell into a trap of being overtraining and a week before the event I tore a tendon in the arch of my left foot on a Saturday morning, which pretty much sidelined me for nearly 6 months. That one stupid rest day I decided to cram a little extra work into caused career implications that haunt me to this day. One damned Saturday morning on Fort Bragg that I wasn’t smart enough to take a break. Like the song says, “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.” I promise you, you’re better off being smart and tough. Afterwards I found this:
Commenting on a disappointing performance at the 2010 World Championships Mark Cavendish said, “It takes balls to rest and do nothing and I didn’t have the balls.” The hard work is easy, but it takes courage to rest. In an era when everyone thinks that more and harder is better few are brave enough to step back, to tell friends, “I’m taking it easy today.” I can hear the jibes from here. But one of my maxims is, “when in doubt, rest” and I admonish with it frequently.
The T-Shirt Gym Jones sells sums it up with “don’t do the work if you don’t have the balls to rest.” Recovery is a wonderful thing, it allows you to actually take full benefit of your hard work, mentally and physically. A lot of the high-stress activities we engage in are fatiguing. The body needs time to rest, rebuild, and prepare for another round of punishment. If not, it cannot grow to accommodate your workload. We plateau. We get complacent and lazy. We lose motivation. Exercise is a common example to relate to. You need to rest to build! Your body needs to heal to get stronger! When you break yourself off every day, you’re damaging yourself to a degree. Your body builds it’s capabilities to compensate for your workload. It needs the time to do that or not only will your results slow to stop, you’ll fall prey to injuries. Nobody wants to work that hard to flush it down the toilet on a strained muscle or torn tendon. One day of rest to save 6 months of cumulative work, or one more day of work for 6 months of rest…the choice is yours.
Plan rest into your activities. If possible, I like a 3/1 ratio of work/rest days on my training schedule. I use that for shooting, workouts, and other activities requiring a lot of physical activity or concentration. I know some animals that do 2/1 and still get by better than the rest of us. Get some sleep too. If you’re the guy that hits the bar or eats bad food “cause I worked out extra hard” today, it was all for nothing. A good night’s sleep is a rest day all its own for every day you’re on the job. Not only will a lack of rest and recovery stop muscle growth, but it will decrease your energy levels, and possibly testosterone production, and convinces your body to decrease muscle and store fat to feed itself. Don’t do the work and throw away the benefits.
Rest is important, arguably as important as the work you do to need it. Be man (or woman) enough to take that rest day when you need it. Plan on it! Don’t worry about your friends calling you a pussy. You’ll get to mock their “weak genes” when they’re on crutches or at the gym twice a day every day and can’t get any stronger.
Take it easy folks.
Military-Decals.com
November 18th, 2012
Sold Out in 30 Min…and Crashed the System
November 17th, 2012“Sold Out in 30 Min…and Crashed the System” came the headlines after the second batch of Costa’s Leg Rigs cleared the shelves in record time. Now, a third batch is on its way. This time around, I certainly hope that they’ve worked out the supply and website bug issues.
The first time Costa sold his leg rigs, they proved very popular and they sold right out. To me, it was marketing genius. They weren’t sure how well the Leg Rigs would sell so they took a page from their carbine sales with Larue Tactical and only made a short run to make sure that they weren’t left holding on to any. A second batch was offered and same story. Fair enough. It if works once, why not twice? Now, here we are with batch number three coming this week. They’ve well established a market demand so I’ll reiterate my comments earlier, “This time around, I certainly hope that they’ve worked out the supply and website bug issues.”
At this point, I’d say to offer the third batch as a short run is just flat out tired. HSGI is a great company with a long history but if they can’t keep up with the demand I can happily put them in touch with plenty of companies who can keep up. I realize that the product uses HSGI’s proprietary TACO mag holders as components, but that doesn’t mean that they have to manufacture them.
Then, there’s the software issues. I remember warning them when they launched the site to make sure that they could handle the traffic. It’s great to see Costa Ludus hit that level that demand crashes the system but I can assure you from personal experience, there’s nothing worse than infrastructure that can’t keep up with demand. Time to upgrade the system guys.
If you’re looking to purchase a Costa Leg Rig, I’m told they will be on sale again on Monday at 1300 EST. Let’s hope that from here on out, it will be a stocking item. It looks to be a great design for training. Available in MultiCam, Coyote Brown, Smoke Green and Black.
Gunfighter Moment – Mike Pannone 
November 17th, 2012
I have met a number of instructors in the, for lack of a better term, “tactical” world. I have the benefits of being a constant shooter and several years’ experience teaching in classroom settings to form opinions of instruction and training for real-world firearms use. And I have had the opportunity to discuss the effectiveness of various instructional techniques with professional military and law enforcement individuals who were willing to speak frankly and did not hold anything back in their assessments.
All of this has led me to the conclusion that Mike Pannone is one of the most effective and well-rounded firearm instructors in the world. Why?
– He has an extremely impressive military background, one which has given him a level of experience found in only a few modern instructors;
– He has studied kinesiology (the scientific study of human movement) at the collegiate level;
– He has experience as an instructor for federal law enforcement, namely being the head range instructor at the Federal Air Marshals Service school;
– He is very low key – mostly because he does not feel the need to impress anyone;
– He is not a “stick-in-the-mud” – he is always looking to develop new and more effective shooting techniques.
So he knows what is and is not relevant to real-world applications, he can explain in a scientific manner why a certain technique is effective or ineffective, he has the ability to impart this experience and knowledge to students, he does not showboat during classes, and he keeps an open mind about how he does all of this.
Mike Pannone with a fancy handgun
When I have occasion to discuss the merits of Mike’s instruction with individuals who shoot guns for a living, they express universal praise and admiration. They have no time for BS and while they often receive training from Mike as well as other instructors through work, they also pay for Mike’s classes out of their own pockets.
His training is in constant demand from actual military and law enforcement units. We hear this so often from various instructors that it becomes background noise – Mike actually tries to make this part of his life background noise. He teaches high-speed military and law enforcement units but never, ever talks about it publicly.
It’s almost weird – it would be easy for him to cultivate a following based on personality, but he doesn’t bother with such things. He’s so self-effacing that I feel a constant need to write about him. Part of it is that I consider him to be a friend, sure. The other part is that he is an intellectual and a true badass. That is a rare combination indeed.
This article was first published at Vuurwapen Blog. Reposted at the request of Mike Pannone and with the permission of Vuurwapen Blog.
Mike Pannone retired from the Army’s premier assault force (1st SFOD-D) after an explosive breaching injury. A year after his retirement America was attacked on 9/11 and he returned to help serve his country as the head marksmanship instructor at the Federal Air Marshals training course and then moved to help stand up the FAMS Seattle field office. In 2003 he left the FAMS to serve as a PSD detail member and then a detail leader for the State Department during 2003 and 2004 in Baghdad and Tikrit.
In 2005 he served as a ground combat advisor of the Joint Counter IED Task Force and participated on combat operations with various units in Al Anbar province. Upon returning he gave IED awareness briefings to departing units and helped stand up a pre-Iraq surge rifle course with the Asymmetric Warfare Group as a lead instructor. With that experience as well as a career of special operations service in Marine Reconnaissance, Army Special Forces and JSOC to draw from he moved to the private sector teaching planning, leadership, marksmanship and tactics as well as authoring and co-authoring several books such as The M4 Handbook, AK Handbook and Tactical Pistol shooting. Mike also consults for several major rifle and accessory manufacturers to help them field the best possible equipment to the warfighter, law enforcement officer and upstanding civilian end user. He is considered a subject matter expert on the AR based Stoner platform in all its derivatives.
Gunfighter Moment is a weekly feature brought to you by Alias Training & Security Services. Each week Alias brings us a different Trainer and in turn they offer some words of wisdom.
