Brace Thyself/Break Thyself Part Two: GTFO

In the first part of Brace Thyself/Break Thyself Josh spoke a little about the practical side of staying in shape... let's put that to use shall we? Oh and I'm going to add a disclaimer; STAY LEGAL, STAY SENSIBLE, STAY SAFE! I am not taking responsibility if you decide to use some of these tips and tricks and get busted or end up full of, you're on your own there people. It's quite easy, if it looks wrong, if it looks dodgy, think again. If it still looks wrong and dodgy DON'T DO IT. So yeah, if a cop sidles up as you run down the street and shouts 'STOP' that's just what you do kid. Nor do you think it'll be fun to take a jog over the local military firing range and see if you are faster than bullets and bombs. Find some nice place out of town and do it there, it's not hard. Over to Josh...

So.

You've got your preps all sorted.

You're in good shape.

All dressed up and nowhere to go, right?

Continuing the car metaphor from part one, why not take it for a test drive?

Yes, escape and evasion.

If you have a good place and some friends, go somewhere and take off running and see if they can track you down and get you.

Or get the cops to chase you and see if you can get away. If they catch you, practice more once you get out of jail.

A few general tips for not getting caught by your buddies/thrown in jail:

            Wear dark, neutral colors. Brown, green, and gray all appear in nature, but won't make you stick out as much at night as black will (black is TOO dark, and you tend to look like a shadow). The key here is to remember you aren't going for full on camoflauge, you just want to make yourself stand out less. Go for darker colors because you ideally want to have to get it on under the cover of darkess, and if it's daylight, it'll be easier to see you no matter what. You don't really want legit camo because you don't want to look weird in the light and make yourself a target, but if camo is acceptable in your area, by all means, go for it.

            Don't wear your clothing too tight or too loose. If it's too tight, it'll restrict your movement at worst, and just be uncomfortable at best. If it's too loose, plan on getting caught on LOTS of things. You don't wanna be the person that gets caught because your baggy pants got caught on a fence and you fell off and busted your head.

           

            Stick to the shadows and areas with plenty of cover/concealment. You're going to want to try to avoid large, open, and/or well lit areas. If you're in a residential area, try to stay behind houses, away from the streets. Most searches begin with the searchers in vehicles, and you don't want them to see you. Utilize cover/concealment (houses, sheds, trees, bushes, etc.) as much as possible. If you see headlights on the road you're moving parallel to, hang back out of sight until you see taillights. Even if they have a spotlight or a flashlight, under darkness, you can really only see maybe a meter past the edges of the light, so try to stay in the shadows AND behind things. If you can move in a ravine or down a hill parallel to the road, even better, but make sure there are plenty of things to hide behind if they look down into it.

            Keep moving! Start off running to get the maximum distance between yourself and your persuers, but don't wear yourself out. The key is to KEEP moving. If you can lose them initially, their chances of finding you are lowered drastically. It takes a while for a search to be organized, and for backup to arrive. Even longer for K9 units to show up. Once you get your distance, as far as they know, you could go any way from the last direction they saw you going in. That makes it much harder for them to pinpoint your route and set up any kind of block. After you get that intial distance, slow down. Don't wear yourself out. Keep in mind that a person moving fast makes more noise and draws the eye more than one moving slowly and steadily. Someone running at a dead sprint looks more suspicious than someone just walking along.

            Pay attention! This kind of contradicts the last part, but all will be made clear. If you keep moving TOO much, you'll miss things. If your heartbeat and heavy breathing is all you can hear, 1) you won't be able to hear the people persuing you, and 2) bet your ass they'll be able to hear you. Pause to listen and watch. If you have police cars cruising the streets looking for you, it's not going to help much if you're moseying through a yard or something when they drive by shining a light on you. It's also not going to help very much if you're so intent on getting to your location that you run right into a block they set up. Try to plan your route based on what you know about the area, and what you can see. You don't want to have to swim across a river or go through an open field unless you absolutely have to. Paying attention can help avoid this with minimum time wasted.

            Don't get too caught up on kit. Honestly, the only shit you really need to get away is already attached to you, and in your skull. Your EDC (every day carry) should take care of the rest. If your escape route is going to take more than a few hours, the best things you could have would be money and a cell phone. You could even do without the cell phone. All the extra stuff is probably going to slow you down and get you hung up on obstacles. If your route is going to take more than 12 hours on foot, then you'd want to bring some bare essentials to make it, based on the amount of time it'll take, but if it's 12 hours or less, you'll survive. Just make sure where ever you're trying to get to has the essentials and you can tough it out.

Bonus!

This was one of the first results I got on a Google image search for "edc madness":

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 Josh H is our over caffeinated chain smoking American Corespondent and the contents of his portable hard-drives were recently declared illegal in 12 countries; an achievement he is proud of.