Just kind of a random question I’ve had floating around in my head: should we be working out?
Like, naturally comrades who are disabled/food insecure/otherwise not able to consistently exercise shouldn’t feel required to do so, and should instead only do so if it is healthy for them and plausible for their current situation. However, those of us who are largely capable of undertaking consistent diet and exercise, I kind of have the question of whether we should be obligated to? The day the revolution comes, there will be many fascists who are in prime physical condition to actually fight a war due to the pervasive nature of gym culture and machismo patriarchy. Should we not do what we can to prepare in kind?
I understand that this isn’t Vietnam anymore, and most warfare (at least on the side of the bourgeoisie) will likely be done with drones against human targets. See NATO v. Russia in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine to understand more of what modern warfare will look like, but I digress. When it comes time for us to pick up arms and storm capital buildings, how will our fighting force survive if the many of us aren’t physically capable of sprinting more than a short distance, dropping and rolling quickly, digging ditches, or scaling fences or walls?
This question may be more pointed to certain ‘comfortable’ demographics of the West, because many proletarians do not have the luxury of working soft jobs that do not harden their bodies; or they otherwise require some of these skills to survive. Then I suppose you can even extend the question to: should we start learning survivalist methods like foraging and fireplace building and such? Most of this warfare that will take place will be guerrilla warfare, and historically those have taken place in dense forests and mountains. I suppose there will also be urban warfare to an extent, but regardless clandestine operations of the vanguard party leadership will take place in secret places stored away from society. Even then, urban warfare will require its own host of resources and methods to survive. Is this supposed to be an issue that the vanguard party will solve during organization of the working class?
I would love to train a martial art actually. I used to do combat sports way back when, but nowadays martial arts are so cost prohibitive. It’s nearly $200 a month for local martial arts classes in my area, and as a college student with no job I can’t afford that. I wouldn’t feel good putting it on my parent’s dime either, so the only option is my already extant home gym my dad bought many years ago.
Check and see if your college has martial classes through a club. If they do it will be much more affordable.
When I started Shotokan Karate in the early 90s (in Ohio) it was $25 a month through the university. Obviously that was 35 years ago, likely there’s clubs at most colleges still.
Locally (Southern Oregon) there’s schools that are in that $150 - $200 range and I was still able to find an old school kungfu school that is crazily only $45 a month, very family oriented but they have adult classes twice a week.
When I lived in LA (early 2000s) I was paying $150 a month (unlimited classes) at the Inosanto Academy, which even at the time was very worth it. They had classes from 8am to 10pm with two classes going on at a time (downstairs and upstairs) throughout the day covering 8 or 9 different systems, it was amazing. I was studying Jeet Kun Do, Silaat and Escrima in addition to kickboxing.
Don’t let the story you tell yourself get in the way of doing what you want/need to do. Rewrite the script, prioritize your finances, seek and ye shall find.
Good luck, good hunting.