Tom Harvey Training

I once ruined a walnut bowl’s finish because I got impatient. I rushed the finish, the pad grabbed, and it dragged through the layers of careful work. The material simply wasn't ready.

It reminded me of a pattern I see everywhere: The Cure Time Principle.

We do this to ourselves constantly. We learn a new framework or build a new routine, and we immediately throw it into high-stress situations before it has time to take root. When it collapses, we assume the idea was bad. In reality, it just hadn't cured yet.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your progress is step away, clean the tools, sweep the floor, and let time do its work.

I broke down this concept and how it applies to building lasting skills in my latest article. Take a look and let me know if this resonates with your own work:

The Cure Time Principle Real skill cannot be pressured into existence. Whether working with wood at the lathe or mechanics on the mat, sustainable progress requires the willingness to step back and allow the layers to fully set before they are tested.

The straight lead looks simple. One hand. One line. Direct.

Simplicity without understanding is ignorance.

What appears as a single motion is a chain of precise mechanical events. Remove any link, mistime any element, and the chain collapses. Not weakens. Collapses.

Power does not live in the fist. It originates in the earth.

The mechanism:

The raised rear heel loads the stretch-shortening cycle — your body’s most efficient force production system. When the rear leg drives, the Achilles tendon releases stored elastic energy. The ground pushes back with equal force. Three energies converge: horizontal, vertical, transverse.

The core braces. The posterior oblique sling transfers rotational force. The hand lands just before the lead foot lands.

Effective mass. Zero resistance. Perfect timing.

Hours in the studio. Years of repetition. Every correction is not complexity being added. It is interference being removed.

The technique is correct. It has always been correct.

It works when the body stops interfering with the physics.

Part 1 walks through the entire mechanism: the physics, the biomechanics, the three energies, the kinetic chain. If you want to understand why your technique works or doesn’t work, read this.

The Straight Lead Punch: Force, Structure, and Timing The straight lead punch looks simple. One hand. One line. Direct. Simplicity without understanding is ignorance. What appears as a single motion is a chain of precise mechanical events, each one depending on the one before it.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the historical record over the years tracking one thing: a specific biomechanical signature. I’ve finally taken the time to consolidate my notes on this topic.

The raised rear heel. The ball-of-foot drive. The oblique foot placement.

Where does it appear? Where does it disappear? What does that pattern tell us about how a technique actually survives?

What I found: this mechanism appears in Greek boxing vase paintings from 490 BC. In Capoferro’s rapier manuals from 1610. In Japanese kendo standards. In Jack Dempsey’s boxing treatise. In the straight lead that Bruce Lee learned and Ted Wong preserved.

Not because these traditions borrowed from each other.

Because the physics required it.

Any practitioner who commits to linear offensive striking under genuine consequence, and submits the body to sufficient repetition against real resistance, finds the same configuration independently.

This is not a lineage of masters passing down a technique.

This is a law.

The full investigation is live in The Workbench. Part 1 covers the history. Part 2 covers the mechanism.

If you train, read them.

The Straight Lead Punch: Lineage The straight lead punch was not invented. It was recovered, independently, by every practitioner who committed to linear offensive mechanics under real pressure, across four centuries and three continents of Western fencing.

I asked how my NTCA pension lump sum was calculated.

I got back: GATT rate. Treasury bonds. That was everyone's working knowledge.

That's the pre-2006 method; Congress replaced it with a three-segment corporate bond structure in the Pension Protection Act. The rates are higher than treasuries, which means the lump sum is lower than a treasury-based model would give you. If you're planning around the wrong rate, you're planning around the wrong number.
So I built the model myself.

IRS §417(e) specification. Python. A grid search across two official NTCA outputs simultaneously, minimax objective so neither output could compensate for the other. The rates that converged matched both to within $36. That's 0.004% on a seven-figure lump sum.

The methodology is public law. The source data is government publications. The calculator is open source on GitHub.

If you're an NTCA participant with a retirement date in mind, this is the actual formula.

https://www.tomharveytraining.com/ntca-pension-lump-sum-how-it-actually-works/

Reverse Engineering My NTCA Pension The NTCA pension lump sum uses IRS §417(e) segment rates - not treasury bonds. Here's how the calculation works and how I verified it to 0.004% accuracy.

The Fair Fight

A flawed test lies to you about the tool.

In Part 1 of my local model assessment, I hit a token ceiling. The test penalized the most capable model because the budget was calibrated for leaner, shorter outputs.

In Part 2, I corrected the test design. I adjusted token budgets and extended timeouts. I gave every model its full room to operate.

The results shifted. Some models proved they had the knowledge but lacked the schema. Others proved their failures were a consistent reality, not a fluke.
If the tool fails, check the tool. If the tool fails consistently, check the operator's test.

Corrected Local LLM Network Test: The Right Tool (Part 2) Run 2 of the local LLM network test. Correcting token budgets and timeouts to see what six AI models can actually do when test design gets out of the way.

The discipline that built the network. The philosophy that shaped the mat. The craft that taught the hands to know before the mind arrives.

Now it’s music.

Three original singles live on Spotify. Stone Breath. Dawn Vigil. Grid and Grip.

Written from the intersection of every terrain I’ve crossed. Nothing performed. Nothing manufactured.

Different terrains. One traveler.
🎵 Search Tom Harvey on Spotify
🌐 tomharveytraining.com

spotify THT forgedwithin tomharvey discipline craftsman

In the works…

Years ago, I wrote a poem about a Celtic warrior standing in morning mist.

 Recently, I pulled those words back down off the shelf. I wanted to see if they could hold weight in a different form. Not as an ancient myth, but grounded in the physical reality of a modern morning. The mist on the ridge. The coffee at the edge of the shop. The old blood moving quietly in the background.

We translated it into rhythm. We brought the gaze down from the sky and put the feet firmly on the ground.

This is the result.

Hope you enjoy..

DAWN VIGIL: THE WEIGHT OF TEN THOUSAND MORNINGS Wisdom isn't taken anywhere. It's what remains when you've been beaten. Years ago, I wrote a poem about a Celtic warrior standing in morning mist. Ancient symbols on his cloak. Battles quieted, but not forgotten. A sentinel waiting for what the new day might find. I didn’t analyze it