NOTICE

62 R.J. GODLEWSKI/INERT
provisions from several hundred meters away. 39 If
you don’t use toiletries – why would you wear
cologne or perfume in the jungle? – you would be
able to detect aftershave, soaps, and other
‘luxuries’ from considerable distances. 40 Now,
here’s the real kicker. You wouldn’t notice these
things unless you spent a great deal of time in the
wild reacquainting yourself with your nose, your
eyes, your ears, etc. but someone who had already
learned these abilities can apply them within the
urban environment.
That’s right; you’re walking down the street
through some Third World cesspool and a
potential assailant can smell you, Joe Modern
Westerner, coming from a mile away. You don’t
even have to be in Benghazi to be targeted; half of
the culprits who prey on people in crowded
shopping malls stalk their prey using these same
abilities. They gauge you by your own
mannerisms, predictabilities, and
absentmindedness. My own mother had her purse
stolen once literally out of her shopping cart
because she was briefly distracted by a grandchild.
What took the thief perhaps less than three
seconds to accomplish cost my mother three weeks
of aggravation in closing credit card accounts,
stopping checks, etc.
You might not ever face the need to take
down a foe – I wouldn’t rule it out, but the odds
may be in your favor – but you can sure as hell bet
that you’ll need to become more concealed within
your environment. So, as part of your martial arts
training program, study the abilities and histories