“In The Code of the Righteous Warrior, Dr. Waller provides insights and moral guidance from his personal experience and biblical truths to help men face the complex challenges that life presents. A must-read by a man who has led by example.” – James Brown, The NFL Today

Autorentext

Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller is the senior pastor of Enon Tabernacle Church in Philadelphia, the largest congregation in the city. He is an alumnus of Palmer Theological Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Ohio University. In addition to being a martial arts expert, Rev. Dr. Waller is a former member of the Army National Guard. He is married to Ellyn Jo Waller, EdD, who is an educator, anti-human trafficking expert, and activist. They have two adult daughters, Morgan and Eryka.

Klappentext

T.D. Jakes’s He-Motions meets The Art of War in this accessible “must-read” (James Brown, host of The NFL Today) that will help modern men navigate and thrive in these unpredictable times.

As someone who goes on yearly adventure and survivalist excursions, Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller—senior pastor of Philadelphia’s Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church and longtime practitioner of martial arts—knows firsthand the importance of training. His work has allowed him to counsel countless men as they seek a new set of skills to thrive in today’s world and now, The Code of the Righteous Warrior illustrates Waller’s belief that ritualistic training can prepare men in all aspects of life.

Dramatic shifts in our nation’s cultural, economic, social, and political landscape have upended their lives, leaving them feeling betrayed and lost. But in this eye-opening and inspirational book, Waller draws from his Christian teachings and the lessons he’s learned from martial arts and extreme adventures to offer men innovative strategies to help them fight today’s challenges in ways that affirm their manhood. He offers ten crucial and accessible life tenets such as: prioritize the immediate threat then handle first things first; conserve your resources; and you can survive fear and pain. The Code of the Righteous Warrior empowers you to live your best life and rise above any difficulties you may face.

Leseprobe
The Code of the Righteous Warrior

Introduction

I SAW THE movement out of the corner of my eye. A guy getting out of a car that I hadn’t noticed. What is a car doing in the desert? And who is that? Suddenly, not just one, but two, three, four, five men were running toward me through the darkness, shouting. I stopped jogging, my vision tightly tunneling around them.

What the . . . ?

“You probably thought that you’d made it, didn’t you?” one of them yelled. “Well, it ain’t over yet!”

Shoot!

I may be a pastor but I wasn’t thinking about pacifism as I fought off my attackers—experts in Krav Maga, the martial art practiced by the Israeli Defense Forces—in the darkness of the Negev Desert. I was taking my test to become a Level 8 Instructor, the level that tests your ability to endure extreme exhaustion and pain. The test required me to stay awake for sixty hours straight, braving all sorts of endurance tests—endless push-ups under the one-hundred-degree sun, running up and down dunes carrying thirty-pound sandbags, doing countless sit-ups along the shore of the Mediterranean with the surf crashing over my face. I was participating along with five other Kravists, as we are called. (Krav maga means “contact combat.”) Now I was being jumped at three a.m. at the end of a seven-kilometer run.

The first attacker tried to punch me in the gut. My arms flew up and blocked him. I pummeled his torso, then I pushed him around to shield myself from the other attackers as he rained blows into my rib cage.

“OOOOF!”

I ducked an elbow but took a kick to my thigh as one tried to take my legs out from under me.

“We’re taking you down!”

Over two and a half days of excruciating pain, I’d been deprived of sleep and permitted to eat only one orange, three dates, two almonds, and a couple of figs. It would have been easy to allow the expletives and racial slurs they threw at me along the way to bait me into losing my composure. But I knew not to think about them or the misery; I could not quit. So I called on one of my favorite passages of scripture: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

More than an hour earlier, Moni Aziks—a former commando with the Israeli Special Forces who had later founded the self-defense system Commando Krav Maga—had started a group of us on our run, ten to fifteen minutes apart. Back home and under normal conditions, I ran a nine-minute mile. This wasn’t normal. I could barely lift my legs and my lungs were on fire. My chest, my arms, my quads, my calves, the soles of my feet—everything burned.

Every hundred meters or so I’d reach one of the glow sticks Moni had placed along the trail, and each time I dragged myself to the top of yet another sand dune, I could see another glow stick glimmering.

Do not quit.

That was about the only thought I’d allowed myself.

I’d known from enduring previous CKM tests that any thought of my wife, Ellyn; daughters, Morgan or Eryka; food; or any other creature comfort might make my mind wander. Give the Devil a foothold. Make me return to Philadelphia short of the goal it had taken almost ten years of training to achieve. Something important about my manhood depended upon my ability to complete this test. I was a successful pastor, but had also made some big mistakes during my life. Some that still haunt me. I needed this.

Don’t quit.

I slogged up yet another sand dune, then I saw Moni standing with his arms folded over his chest.

Hallelujah! You’re almost there!

I was on the verge of meeting a goal I’d set for myself when I was forty years old and overweight and had vowed to get my body back.

Don’t quit.

I was only about fifty yards from Moni when the car had come into view and the guys had jumped out.

Unexpectedly engaged in the fight of my life, I had no time to think “He’s swinging, let me put up my hand”; I relied on my body to do instinctively what I’d trained it to do. My hands went up in time to block the blows without my thinking or directing them to do so. I’d reached the point Bruce Lee once described as “I don’t hit; it hits itself.”

As another attacker came at me, I used the first guy as my shield and kicked my assailant’s legs out from under him.

Don’t quit.

Suddenly, my pants were down around my ankles and I couldn’t move my feet!

Uh-oh!

Then someone threw sand in my face. As I blinked and tried to spit it out of my mouth, a freight train slammed into my gut.

“OOOOF!”

My hand reached for my belt buckle and I pulled my belt free and began to swing it like Okinawan nunchucks. I heard the leather whistle through the air, and saw it slice one attacker’s face.

“You punk!”

I swung the lash again, this time backing two of them up.

A thought arose: This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m doing it—I can do this!

But there was no time to dwell on it. Fingers closed around my neck from behind.

Don’t let him choke you out!

I clenched my teeth into his arm as hard as I could.

“AAAARGH!” he yelled as my bite penetrated his protective arm pads.

His hands loosened around my neck.

Then Moni’s voice: “Okay, stop. That’s enough!”

I’d done it!