Paracord- The Jimmy Buffet Blog

I felt like Jimmy Buffet. I had blown out my flip flop.

We were on Ambergris Caye, Belize. It was early in our two week vacation and I hadn’t packed a spare pair of footwear since my Tevas were brand new. But damn, my ankle strap broke. The stitching just plain gave out.

I checked around the resort. Nobody had any heavy thread or a needle.

Now, I’m fine barefoot on sandy beaches and all, but this was a mix of coral, sand and shells. Not my idea of a good barefoot area.

So I re-checked what I had with me. I had paracord. I had a Swiss Army Knife. I channeled MacGyver.

Yeah, I know MacGyver was a pretty anti-gun show, but I couldn't help it. It was the Swiss Army Knife that did it.

So, to the point… paracord is good for more stuff than you could imagine.

 Need a field expedient clothes line in your rental condo? No sweat, string a length of paracord. Need to provide first aid for a sprain or a break? Paracord can be a part of a sling or can help immobilize a broken arm or leg. Stuck without food in the wilds? Paracord can be used as a snare or the inner strands can be used for fishing line.  Need to tie up the hoodlum you just immobilized with the 10% OC spray we sell? Yep, a few loops of paracord will handle that, too.

At A3 we now have bulk paracord and as always we have a good stock of paracord products.

For a close range defense item, check out the thumper. It is a paracord key fob with a steel ball bearing woven into the opposite end. A solid whack with it to the noggin of a hoodlum would certainly make him reconsider.

Available also are non-thumper key fobs for those for whom the thumper might be too much.

We have paracord woven bracelets as well. They’re great for wearing as adornment, but equally well-suited as a means to always have a few yards of cord on you.

So, what are your favorite paracord uses?

Calling 911 vs. Self-Reliance - The Yoga & Black Lab Blog

I was gasping for breath.  Trying to reach the phone to call 911. Alone.

Well, not quite alone. That was the problem.

I was on the back deck about 20 minutes into a yoga set. I was somewhere after warrior II blissfully heading toward relaxation pose. Off the deck was a perfect yoga atmosphere; a bucolic vista with deer grazing, turkeys doing what they do in the spring, frogs sounding off in the pond and a purple martin checking out the martin house.

I was on my back just finishing a bridge pose when the lab puppy had had enough. She had been spayed a week earlier and was restless after a week of forced inactivity. Restless and full of attitude. Downright pissed off might be a better description, actually. I was too tempting of a target so without warning she hurled her 90 pounds onto my chest and throat. Kind of like a fuzzy, wiggling bag of concrete mix landing on me.

I gasped. Searched in vain for the phone to call for help.

OK, I didn't really need to call 911, but that makes a nice lead-in to the blog.

Ann Arbor Arms’ tagline is, “Defense... Now It’s Personal”. Still, some ask, “why worry about self defense when we all pay taxes for police”?

Simple. As I am fond of saying, “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” In many rural settings especially, a call to the police might not yield their presence for quite a while. Even in my township, which has a great response time record, there were times when responses were long.

 I remember a panicked homeowner calling because she thought someone was breaking in to her basement. The woman was home alone with the children and had neither a plan nor the means to defend herself and her children. They were in a far corner of the township and it was a miserably foggy night. Emergency response was a white-knuckled, adrenalin producing 10 miles an hour. Response time was over 10 minutes for me, and even longer for the second car. Fortunately nobody was breaking in. It was what we call a W.H.A. call. (Yes, I see your hand raised in the back with a question, but I’m not gonna tell you what that stands for. Work on it, you have all the clues you need.)

Face it, there can’t be a cop standing by on every corner in case we need help. In truth, would we really want to live in a police state where cops are so numerous that they are always just seconds away? I wouldn't, and I was one of them.

So, defense is personal. Wait. I’ll go farther. Defense is a personal responsibility.  Citizens need to make a decision to either be victims or not be victims. If you choose to not prepare yourself I wish you well. But please reconsider and don't plan on relying on the cops with the ever-shrinking budgets and cutbacks.

If you have made the decision to stand on your own, we at A3 can help. We offer tools and training for self-defense and we are not just talking about firearms. 

Cop training deals with what we call a “Force Continuum”. It is a response guide that escalates responses based on the bad guy’s actions.

Example; in most cases, an unarmed threat from a crook usually would result in an unarmed or at most a pepper spray or taser response, but not deadly force. A crook with a weapon on the other hand, could, and probably should, be met with much greater force.

A3 stocks items for civilian use that cover the continuum. We have defensive key chains, pepper spray,  more pepper spray, defensive pens, and, of course, guns. Also look for our expanding classes where we teach tactics to avoid becoming a victim as well as what to do when confronted with an attacker.

Stay Safe