Healthy Buffalo/Crying and Writing

  One of my favorite songs is called, Murder in the City, by the Avett Brothers. Based on the title some are put off immediately and when I call the song sweet and impactful, they are perplexed. Others will just look at me and say, “Yeah Christun, for you that makes sense….” Either way the first time I listened to the lyrics was ironically also the first time I had actually heard of the band; some friends had a couple extra tickets and wanted to know if Ryan and I would like to go. Three Mango White Claws in, beautiful outdoor Arkansas Music Pavilion setting, perfect 74-degree weather, this song comes on and it has both Ryan and I dropping the waterworks worse than me getting bested by the double end bag.            The Avett Brothers became a thing in our family with a goal of mine to get all nine of our kids to go to a concert together. A couple weeks ago during an evening monsoon we met said goal. Our oldest two daughters are gro...

  I have to hand it to them, both places I have taken Rogue Methods Close Contact Gunfighter Courses have been nestled in majestic sandwiches. The one in Kentucky a couple of months ago, and this one last weekend close to Lebanon, MO had settings of sheer natural beauty and made for pleasant days. I had seen RM was in my neck of the woods for the weekend and with the prospect of no plane travel or hotel stay, I snatched up the opportunity for a quick two-and-a-half-hour jaunt over to Ozark School of Gunfighting.   David Acosta was teaching Fieldcraft Survivals Gunfighter Pistol 1 on Saturday and Carbine 1 on Sunday with a Saturday evening of close contact pistol fighting for Rogue Methods. David had been an instructor-in-training at my last course and this go-round he was running the show. He didn’t disappoint before, and he didn’t this time either. He made the class his and I loved the inclusion of personal stories that related to what we were learning from his time on a SWAT...

  My husband has this giant bony knot where his shoulder meets his collarbone courtesy of a high school basketball injury. If you have done any clinch work in training you know that this makes him literally the worst partner to run drills with, and then with him being my spouse the irritation factor jumps exponentially. I knew going into this weekend that my forehead was going to constantly be scraping roughly across that calcified satanic knot reaching a new level of suck and I was not wrong.    I love to write Ego Injury Reports. They are a reflective and honest way to evaluate myself, to really look at where I fail. Since matrimony is basically one big ego injury report I thought I would take the time to evaluate my husband Ryan….. just kidding, I prefer to stay married by the end of this.   This last winter we were holed up in southwest Missouri for two weeks very similar to Game of Thrones, “winter is coming.” It was pretty much -75 degree weather which basicall...

I am no stranger admitting to nor demonstrating tears. For me to make it through an entire training weekend without waterworks has about as slim of a chance as a person being able to willfully urinate on an assailant during an attack (see previous article). This time I almost made it. We had wrapped up the last drill and sat down for our debrief of Knife Control Concepts. I had new hot pink fighty journal in hand knowing I was going to get to hear everyone state their tales of what they gleaned from the weekend, but a very sweet, simple misunderstanding from my daughter got the tears leaking. So yeah, didn’t make it. I first met Aaron Jannetti and Eli Knight last November at Shivworks Edged Weapons Overview in Charlotte, NC. Both were there to attend the course; I drilled with, as well as had one of my main evolutions with Aaron. He is lighthearted and has the ability to drive fun into the sheer doggedness of reps. I love the role-playing aspect a little too much when it comes to scena...

  I had to preface this article with a note this time. I wrote this over a week ago knowing I was going to travel and planned to post when things had died down and we were settled for the month in Charlotte. I had already ran it by my husband and it was good to go, but needed some minor tweaking. We showed up in Charlotte late last night and started the first five hours this morning of the Instructors Training Course with Fit To Fight Republic. I am so glad I marinated. I find in life that things tend to fall together in the strangest ways and times. During the speaking portion of this class I found myself laughing and just even more inspired as I listened. Occasionally I would look over at my husband and would smile because some of the points in this article were basically on the same lines of what Ryan Hoover was saying, only he was more elegant on the fly with it. Ironically our coach Aaron Kimball wrote a very heartfelt post that I read two days ago and I purposely waited to sh...

  Action alley in Wal-Mart is made for people like me. I am the biggest sucker for anything, “As seen on TV.” My criteria for the product to be a winner are, does it actually do what it says it will do, or is it worth the entertainment value…. My dad and I once spent fifteen dollars on an automatic potato peeler. You stick six spuds in, smash the lid on and supposedly it will peel the potato’s. We grabbed a bottle of wine and spent an hour giggling in the kitchen over completely bruised and beat up potato’s and potato sludge. Product didn’t work at all, however the fifteen bucks was well spent for entertainment. Skin care products are another story, I am the harshest critic and also one of the biggest consumers. If it doesn’t go above and beyond, I will not buy again. There are too many options out there to stick with something that is mediocre.    Now I will not join your pyramid scheme and to be honest, you wouldn’t want me to. I am literally the worst salesman ever, ju...

  When I was in fifth grade I begged my parents to let me play in the middle school band. I wanted to be a percussionist, more accurately I wanted to play the xylophone. With two parents both in college and four kiddos we didn’t have a lot of extra cash lying around so buying a couple hundred dollar instrument was a big thing to ask. My mom told me they would do it but I had to play in the band all the way through high school. At 12 I would have agreed to anything because time was irrelevant but in 8 th  grade we moved to a much larger school. I was incredibly shy if you can believe that, and the prospect of going to band camp the summer of my freshman year was possibly the most frightening thing of my life up until that point.  I knew nobody and wanted to blend in. I was a wallflower by choice. I begged my parents all summer to let me quit. I straight up made pie charts and formulated amazing and articulate arguments on all the things I could focus on personally if ...