If you find yourself in kill or be killed situation…well,there is only 2 possible outcomes ;))
Just do what you need to do.
[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
Ahhh lol.
Bodhi’s posts were interesting, but I think he may be a little misguided. There’s nothing stopping the “sport fighter” from thinking of the same stuff the soldier would’ve to kill/maim his enemy, infact I’d wager the fighter would think of it faster, not being foreign to hand to hand combat.
I can see some people’s concern with the current direction of Army taught combatives being directed towards submission rather than killing, but like I said, when the shit hits the fan, I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a deal. A soldier is still going to whack the enemy with his entrenching tool or butt-stroke him before he tries getting him in a triangle.
Be glad you guys have a combatives program that actually teaches something that may work in a certain scenario. In Australia, our army is teaching a shitty program that expects you’ll be able to disarm your attacker and put them out with a series of choreographed aikido like moves that you only have to learn once! Fun![/quote]
Well, apparently the army shared my concerns hahaha.
FORT BENNING, Ga. – The U.S. Army Combatives School has adopted a new teaching plan.
The Army is revamping the curriculum to take lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan and build more effective close-quarters fighters, said Matt Larsen, the school’s director. The goal is to push advanced techniques down to the small-unit level, including basic training.
“We want Soldiers to be agile, adaptive and competent (so) they can adjust to the realities of the battlefield,” Larsen said.
The modifications are based on feedback from across the Army and other factors, he said. More than 900 interviews were conducted with Soldiers who saw hand-to-hand combat in the villages, houses and streets of Iraq or Afghanistan.
Soldiers most often enter small houses and rooms during combat operations, so the Army wants to take the ground-grappling principles taught in combatives and emphasize them from a standing position, Larsen said.
“In the field, the fight is always over weapons and how to maintain control of them,” he said. “That will be taught all the way down to basic training.”
Knee strikes, clinch drills, fighting with weapons and combat equipment, and pushing terror suspects against the wall are among the upper-echelon combatives techniques Soldiers will now be exposed to at lower unit levels, Larsen said.
Larsen said the school will stick with the four pillars - instruction based on universal, foundational, motivational and tactical attributes - that allowed the program to thrive. But Soldiers often struggled to retain knowledge gained in unit combatives training, so adjustments were needed.
Levels 1 and 2 are being changed to the basic and tactical combatives courses, while the basic and tactical combatives instructor courses replace Levels 3 and 4. Under the new construct, the number of training hours at each tier remains the same - 40 in basic, 80 for tactical and 160 each within both instructor phases.
The school will begin implementing the new methods in the next month.
“Combatives is an integral part of what we do as Soldiers,” Larsen said. “You can’t effectively train in close-quarters combat without combatives. You’re going to need it any place you can be hands-on with potential enemies.”
He said more than 57,000 troops have graduated from the Army Combatives School since its inception in 2002 - including 50,374 (Level 1), 5,255 (Level 2), 1,408 (Level 3) and 564 (Level 4).
^^^^ that’s common sense shit, and it developed out of the sport combatives you are railing against, before that program and the structure it provided, there wouldnt be anything to develop. everything that gets implemented based on theory will evolve based on experience.
[quote]slimjim wrote:
^^^^ that’s common sense shit, and it developed out of the sport combatives you are railing against, before that program and the structure it provided, there wouldnt be anything to develop. everything that gets implemented based on theory will evolve based on experience.[/quote]
No it didn’t. There have been plenty of soldiers that have seen combat… what I’m seeing here is the Army going back to combatives as it used to be taught- simple, fundamental, standup moves… instead of having all the guys rolling all the time, which to me, is not common sense.
It seems like the fell into the MMA craze before realizing, “Wait a second, this isn’t meant for us!”
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]slimjim wrote:
^^^^ that’s common sense shit, and it developed out of the sport combatives you are railing against, before that program and the structure it provided, there wouldnt be anything to develop. everything that gets implemented based on theory will evolve based on experience.[/quote]
No it didn’t. There have been plenty of soldiers that have seen combat… what I’m seeing here is the Army going back to combatives as it used to be taught- simple, fundamental, standup moves… instead of having all the guys rolling all the time, which to me, is not common sense.
It seems like the fell into the MMA craze before realizing, “Wait a second, this isn’t meant for us!”[/quote]
Dude, you’re speaking with exactly ZERO knowledge of what army combatives used to entail as highlighted by the fact that you think there was an army combatives course that was somehow lost or superseded by this mma craze. they are not going back to what “used to be taught” there simply wasnt anything there before.
In order to fill the vacuum the higher ups went with training that they saw all around them that allowed for the soldiers to engage each other and practice. Honestly this is one time where I feel the army actually took the bull by the horns and developed a program that was both interesting and generally effective (for training a conditioning and aggressive mindset.)
There were obvious shortcomings to the program and they are adapting and developing it. You’re sounding exactly like the karate parrots who started piping up after the first couple UFCs that their death moves were too killer for the ring.
Try come up with a program designed to give basic knowledge of self defense to a force of hundreds of thousands of troops, each with different training backgrounds and job profiles. Obviously in a perfect world with a set of ten highly motivated and physically sound individuals you could create some world class killers.
Try do the same with out of shape (in certain cases) busy (in generally every case) mothers, fathers, and citizens. The time constraints given to troops and their daily training make the logistics of any training program (let alone one as intricate and requiring of so much repetition as hand to hand training) problematic.
[quote]slimjim wrote:
Dude, you’re speaking with exactly ZERO knowledge of what army combatives used to entail as highlighted by the fact that you think there was an army combatives course that was somehow lost or superseded by this mma craze. they are not going back to what “used to be taught” there simply wasnt anything there before.
[/quote]
That is untrue. The Army has been teaching differnt types of combatives since WWI to all recruits. Fairbairn and Applegate’s teachings were also taught to Special ops troops belonging to three different countries. So while the system may have been lacking, it wasn’t non-existant. The Army even had Joe Louis teach soldiers boxing during WWII, so you’re being unfair here.
ON top of that, before MCMAP there was the LINE system, so there is/was a precursor to this.
[quote]
In order to fill the vacuum the higher ups went with training that they saw all around them that allowed for the soldiers to engage each other and practice. Honestly this is one time where I feel the army actually took the bull by the horns and developed a program that was both interesting and generally effective (for training a conditioning and aggressive mindset.)
There were obvious shortcomings to the program and they are adapting and developing it. You’re sounding exactly like the karate parrots who started piping up after the first couple UFCs that their death moves were too killer for the ring.
Try come up with a program designed to give basic knowledge of self defense to a force of hundreds of thousands of troops, each with different training backgrounds and job profiles. Obviously in a perfect world with a set of ten highly motivated and physically sound individuals you could create some world class killers.
Try do the same with out of shape (in certain cases) busy (in generally every case) mothers, fathers, and citizens. The time constraints given to troops and their daily training make the logistics of any training program (let alone one as intricate and requiring of so much repetition as hand to hand training) problematic.[/quote]
Asolutely agree. And the Army did do good by actually FORMING a consistent program for all the soldiers, which most likely wasn’t included before like it should have been.
But really, BJJ is NOT lethal, and there are absolutely techniques meant for killing instead of submission. THis is why I’m surprised that the program was based on BJJ instead of things more out of Fairbairns’ books, which has techniques that are meant strictly to kill, right now.
Krav Maga does a better job teaching CQC in my eyes. And many of the moves taught there ARE “too killer” for the ring, because the very spots that those fighters are trained to strike at are banned in the ring. What is illegal in UFC is what real “Combat” arts are based off of.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
But really, BJJ is NOT lethal, and there are absolutely techniques meant for killing instead of submission.[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Every single choke (RNC, cross collar, etc.) is lethal if held long enough.
[quote]kingdpt wrote:
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
But really, BJJ is NOT lethal, and there are absolutely techniques meant for killing instead of submission.[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Every single choke (RNC, cross collar, etc.) is lethal if held long enough.[/quote]
Fair enough. You’re right on that.
There is a definate difference between sport fighting and street fighting. I cannot attest to military situations, but I can attest to life or death street situations.
From my near decade of training, and knowing ALOT of fighters/ martial artists etc. You have guys that are great sport fighters, that will get owned in the street because their instincts are sport oriented. And you have guys from sport backgrounds who just have that instinct when shit gets real to fuck people up. Whether its karate, muay thai, kung fu etc… those differencs are in people and their mindset. Its a hard thing to train.
I compete in olympic tkd, i wouldnt use 99% of it in a real fight. But the 1% left over im going to know how to do well, and fast.
When i was younger i ordered a L.I.N.E instructional video, and quite liked it. Still remember alot of the stuff to this day…
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]slimjim wrote:
Dude, you’re speaking with exactly ZERO knowledge of what army combatives used to entail as highlighted by the fact that you think there was an army combatives course that was somehow lost or superseded by this mma craze. they are not going back to what “used to be taught” there simply wasnt anything there before.
[/quote]
That is untrue. The Army has been teaching differnt types of combatives since WWI to all recruits. Fairbairn and Applegate’s teachings were also taught to Special ops troops belonging to three different countries. So while the system may have been lacking, it wasn’t non-existant. The Army even had Joe Louis teach soldiers boxing during WWII, so you’re being unfair here.
ON top of that, before MCMAP there was the LINE system, so there is/was a precursor to this.
[/quote]
But it isn’t untrue in terms of what has been in existence (or at least the experience of the vast vast majority of troops from the early 90s until the formation of this latest iteration of hand to hand training.) I’m unsure why the original programs got scrapped or fell by the wayside, but I seriously doubt mma influence as the key compoenent (mma wasn’t even popular yet ) - without doing any research on the subject I would guess it was because focus shifted to job-specific training, equipment maintenance, and the smorgasbord of other crap soldiers have to do daily.
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
[quote]Edward wrote:
[quote]I think the point is that just because you are a black belt in jujutsu doesn’t mean you will fare well in CQC. Combat on the battlefield is not something you can necessarily prepare for using “sport martial arts”.
[/quote]
While I agree they are different, do you think any kind of training that conditions you for violence makes the transition from learning sport fighting to learning how to kill easier?
I mean wouldn’t some training be better than none, or does it just give you a false sense of confidence and a lot of skills to unlearn moving from sport fighting to CQC?[/quote]
Do you honestly think any amount of training can prepare you for mortal combat?
There are some very competitive people out there but there is a huge chasm between wanting to win and wanting to kill.
Completely different environment. There is no safety to fall back to.
I would say that certain martial arts ingrain a faulty combat pattern. Like the wrestler who doesn’t allow himself to fall on his back but exposes himself to a rear choke every time he does it. A poor example but you get the idea.
It’s not necessarily the physical skills you require but the mentality and thought pattern that allows you to kill.
[/quote]
Training - weight lifting, MMA, wrestling, CQC simulations all help prepare you for mortal combat - physically and mentally. They give you the strength, physical and mental , along with useful skills and certain levels of confidence needed when presented with life threatening situations. One with such training certainly has an edge over somebody that has sat at in his mom’s house all day playing video games all his life. To think such training is useless is to disregard thousands of years of combat history.
[quote]mmllcc wrote:
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
[quote]Edward wrote:
[quote]I think the point is that just because you are a black belt in jujutsu doesn’t mean you will fare well in CQC. Combat on the battlefield is not something you can necessarily prepare for using “sport martial arts”.
[/quote]
While I agree they are different, do you think any kind of training that conditions you for violence makes the transition from learning sport fighting to learning how to kill easier?
I mean wouldn’t some training be better than none, or does it just give you a false sense of confidence and a lot of skills to unlearn moving from sport fighting to CQC?[/quote]
Do you honestly think any amount of training can prepare you for mortal combat?
There are some very competitive people out there but there is a huge chasm between wanting to win and wanting to kill.
Completely different environment. There is no safety to fall back to.
I would say that certain martial arts ingrain a faulty combat pattern. Like the wrestler who doesn’t allow himself to fall on his back but exposes himself to a rear choke every time he does it. A poor example but you get the idea.
It’s not necessarily the physical skills you require but the mentality and thought pattern that allows you to kill.
[/quote]
Training - weight lifting, MMA, wrestling, CQC simulations all help prepare you for mortal combat - physically and mentally. They give you the strength, physical and mental , along with useful skills and certain levels of confidence needed when presented with life threatening situations. One with such training certainly has an edge over somebody that has sat at in his mom’s house all day playing video games all his life. To think such training is useless is to disregard thousands of years of combat history.
[/quote]
Maybe i should have been more clear.
I think the biggest deal with mortal combat is psychological/mental aspect, much more so than the physical aspect.
I do not disagree with the idea that someone who has trained in many martial arts for years has a distinct advantage over someone who hasn’t.
However, i would think that if they did not have the will to kill, as opposed to someone with little skill and much fury, they’d be less of a threat.
IMO, the thought process is more of a factor in ensuring survival.
To think that sport combat is even close to mortal combat is folly.
Mentally, two completely different beasts.
I friends of mines father was an infantry soldier in the Canadian Armed Forces in the Korean war.
His father was dying of cancer so he started to open up about his life in the army. Whatever they taught about hand to hand combat worked for him. Apparently his Dad went toe to toe with the enemy with shovels, bayonets and bare hands. Fucking vicious stuff.
The shit got really weird when his Dad near the end started to talk in his sleep. Shit like “fuck me, look at all little shits, time to get bloody boys” or “grab yer shovel boys they’re too close” The real sad stuff was him muttering about his buddies dying beside him in the trenches.
Folks always talk about the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan. For me personally the most powerfull part of the movie was the two guys near the end fighting in the upstairs room while the dude with the typwriter stands there frozen. The American soldier saying "wait, no, no or somesuch like he couldn’t believe it was happening. That slow dagger push was powerfull shit, to me anyways.
You never know untill the time comes I guess.
FightinIrish,
As a current Soldier who has been in for quite some time, been to war, been in many “real-life” street scenarios, I would say that I have absolutely faired a lot better than the average joe due to my training in various martial-arts. I don’t go bat-shit crazy in a fight, as a cool head would serve me better. I know what I’m striving to do to my opposition, and how to react if the situation changes.
The current state of things dictates that we try to capture and detain the enemy if we get close enough for H2H. Nine times out of ten, though, we won’t get that close. We’ll be shooting at them, as they will be shooting at us. Once they are out of ammo, if they’ve survived that long, they are running and hiding. That is the current nature of the beast. The current combatives program is not bad at all, compared to what it was when I came in.
Back in the day, it was predominantly up close and personal fighting. It’s not that way these days. It’s a totally different war than it was back then. Watch the news, talk to people, read up on it. Do your homework. While I can appreciate that character “Bodhi” on the link, he is from a totally different era. Going to the sport versus combat debate, there really isn’t one. In peacetime, we do combat-like training for sport.
When it’s time for war, we use those tools and concepts as a base to subdue and, if necessary, to kill. I’ll stop there, because it feels like I’m rambling.
[quote]Beast27195 wrote:
FightinIrish,
As a current Soldier who has been in for quite some time, been to war, been in many “real-life” street scenarios, I would say that I have absolutely faired a lot better than the average joe due to my training in various martial-arts. I don’t go bat-shit crazy in a fight, as a cool head would serve me better. I know what I’m striving to do to my opposition, and how to react if the situation changes.
The current state of things dictates that we try to capture and detain the enemy if we get close enough for H2H. Nine times out of ten, though, we won’t get that close. We’ll be shooting at them, as they will be shooting at us. Once they are out of ammo, if they’ve survived that long, they are running and hiding. That is the current nature of the beast. The current combatives program is not bad at all, compared to what it was when I came in.
Back in the day, it was predominantly up close and personal fighting. It’s not that way these days. It’s a totally different war than it was back then. Watch the news, talk to people, read up on it. Do your homework. While I can appreciate that character “Bodhi” on the link, he is from a totally different era. Going to the sport versus combat debate, there really isn’t one. In peacetime, we do combat-like training for sport.
When it’s time for war, we use those tools and concepts as a base to subdue and, if necessary, to kill. I’ll stop there, because it feels like I’m rambling. [/quote]
Cool man.
What was it like when you came in? How is it different now, from your perspective?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
[quote]Beast27195 wrote:
FightinIrish,
As a current Soldier who has been in for quite some time, been to war, been in many “real-life” street scenarios, I would say that I have absolutely faired a lot better than the average joe due to my training in various martial-arts. I don’t go bat-shit crazy in a fight, as a cool head would serve me better. I know what I’m striving to do to my opposition, and how to react if the situation changes.
The current state of things dictates that we try to capture and detain the enemy if we get close enough for H2H. Nine times out of ten, though, we won’t get that close. We’ll be shooting at them, as they will be shooting at us. Once they are out of ammo, if they’ve survived that long, they are running and hiding. That is the current nature of the beast. The current combatives program is not bad at all, compared to what it was when I came in.
Back in the day, it was predominantly up close and personal fighting. It’s not that way these days. It’s a totally different war than it was back then. Watch the news, talk to people, read up on it. Do your homework. While I can appreciate that character “Bodhi” on the link, he is from a totally different era. Going to the sport versus combat debate, there really isn’t one. In peacetime, we do combat-like training for sport.
When it’s time for war, we use those tools and concepts as a base to subdue and, if necessary, to kill. I’ll stop there, because it feels like I’m rambling. [/quote]
Cool man.
What was it like when you came in? How is it different now, from your perspective?
[/quote]
When I came in, we were still being taught the “kee-yah!” method. Shout really loud, go into a fighting stance, and throw somebody. Pugil Sticks followed that. Then, once we beat each other up with the oversized q-tips, we would go through the bayonet assault course. It was interesting, but ultimately a waste of time. Now, as I have been told repeatedly, the focus is on the more recent combatives methods (H2H/BJJ), as well as basic rifle marksmenship. But…overall, again from what I’ve noticed, the Soldiers being pushed out now are of far less quality than back in the day. They lack discipline and respect. Most come out of basic with a feeling that they are entitled to do what they want, when they want. Even at the expense of each other. It’s a bit maddening, these days. But…they will learn, one way or another.
Kinda supprised that noone has mentioned “On Killing” by the same author…
One of the main points he tries to make is that you have to make people accustomed to a violent enviroment, it’s called combat inoculation, this is a part of bootcamp. To make things short, if you haven’t trained in a toxic enviroment there is a large chance you will freeze, get tunnel vision etc. and if you know about all the different things that can happend to you(tunnel vision, defecating yourself, survivors remorse), you can counter it by for example using a breathing technique to bring your stresslevel down(nothing magic here, breath in 4 sec, hold, breath out 4 sec), you can handle your weapon much better. He goes over such things as “The bigger bang theory”, the louder your weapon sounds the more effective it is.
In “On Killing” he goes into how modern training enables the soldier to kill, what factors enables violence etc. Statistics show that during the first world war, about 10-15% fired their weapons.
Either way, after alot of years training martial arts. I know that some schools just focus on sports while others actually focus on combat. If you already have the mindset to do streetfighting, congratulations, if not you have to actually develop it by training, this is assuming you actually want it. Most people care about getting into streetfights and are happy with just training for fun and cardio etc.
Ahh, I’m rambling, I really shouldnt post in public forums, nothing good will come out of this, just love how people will break this appart and complain about details that doesn’t really matter.
But if it helps anyone, or convinces anyone to read these books it’s worth it. ;D
Personally I loved em. Well spent time.
[quote]Hellstar wrote:
Statistics show that during the first world war, about 10-15% fired their weapons.
[/quote]
While I appreciate your post, especially because I’ve never read “On Killing”, I take issue with this- I simply don’t believe this to be true in any war at any time. You don’t have millions of casualties at places like Verdun with 10 percent of the troops firing. It just doesn’t happen. Not true.
Hi guys,
Been a bit since I posted substantially. This thread is interesting and I haven’t read the Abernathy link yet, but I will be soon. First creds: Studied a variety of traditional martial arts for years, joined the Army shortly before Army combatives became a standard, went through the training program, got taught all the cool MMA and non-MMA stuff, read all of Matt Larsen’s explanations of the methods, got assigned to extra training through others in a variety of tactics and principles. Went to Iraq and survived. Was tasked with creating a training program that covered the totality of situations our boys and girls would encounter. So far, it’s worked.
As Beast pointed out, the H2H thing isn’t the focus of modern warfare, and won’t be for a while. Bombs, bullets, and mounted attack is the way to go. But H2H still comes up. A number of my close friends have used their H2H skills in combat to get out of otherwise non-survivable situations. Only one even remotely resembled the Army combatives program and even then, the winning technique was not a part of the program.
The modern Army program revolves around the pretext that the soldier has no weapons, and neither does the enemy. The goal is to provide soldiers with the warrior mindset that allows one to close with and engage the enemy, using a training method that allows competition without injury (need to maintain force readiness - injured soldiers can’t deploy). Interestingly, an original point was that soldiers were to be inspired to seek training outside of the program at regular dojos to cover what the program does not. At the higher levels (4&5) standard soldier weapons are incorporated as non-projectile implements.
The physicality and stress of the training DOES serve to assist soldiers in combat, regardless of the tactics. MCMAP does a better job standardizing this, though. The non-lethality of most tactics is also conducive to the LEO objectives assigned for most soldier missions these days. However, at all levels the lethal option MUST be provided in training for those circumstances where it becomes necessary. So does the incorporation of weaponry. But to teach soldiers to kill with their bare hands is a socially difficult proposition that requires a lot of mental training as well. On Killing points this out. The additional difficulty is the same as that encountered with LINES: by drilling folks in non-lethal options, dealing death CAN become a standard response. When this went awry in the 90s, the Corps re-evaluated its teachings and created MCMAP which now incorporates ethics with its punches and locks.
When the Army, specifically Larsen, wanted to develop the H2H skills of its Joes and Janes it turned to its Field Manuals and the mish-mash abilities of those in the trenches - most of whom had standard MA skills. These approaches had limited and varied success, so the Modern Army Combatives Program was developed and followed in line with the above.
Finding these methods to be limited in utility, individual units and soldiers have been looking to expand the training, but again there is a lot -physical and other- not covered in the dojo or the arena.
There’s a lot more to this, but I’ll leave it there for now. For those interested in the reality of interpersonal combat, I suggest reading Rory Miller’s Meditations on Violence.
-B
Hellstar,
I am currently reading “On Killing” and so far, it’s an interesting read, however, I can’t help but point out that it was written in 92/93. Times have changed since then. Around the 90’s is when we really got into killing from a distance. While a lot of what the book talks about makes sense, I still struggle a bit with some of the stats, and the change in era.
FightinIrish,
I have to agree with you on that 10-15% nonsense. It is just that…nonsense.
Blondeguy,
I find what you say to be pretty accurate. I too have done the combatives thing, and I have to say, most of the stuff they teach is pretty…inefficient. That’s part of the reason why I tend to do my own thing and find other resources to learn and train. While it’s still better than what they had in the past, I still think the program has a long way to go. For now, I have to find that book you mentioned. More to follow.