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Jody Holeton
4th September 2002, 05:02
Dear all,

I have heard that Army special forces did BJJ training, is it open to anyone?

Does depend who and where you are assigned in the Army?

Can anyone expound on the training?

Thanks!

Chuck.Gordon
4th September 2002, 20:16
Hey Jody,

The Army's latest iteration of hand-to-hand takes a lot form BJJ and judo, but it's not solely BJJ, As a matter of fact, one of the folks involved in writing the manual frequents e-Budo. Hopefully he'll chime in and give you more info.

So far, here at a large-ish training base in eastern Bavaria, I have not seen any soldier practicing ANY h-2-h, buch less anything from the new manual.

Chuck

Jody Holeton
5th September 2002, 00:50
Dear Chuck,

First check this out about new medical research
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54762,00.html

I want you dewired! I'm afraid your little woman is just going to get carpal tunnel from all the massages she gives you!

Second, thanks for the info! Don't you find it wierd that out of ALL the martial arts available that the Army picks BJJ and some judo work? I hear the Marine Corps follows similar lines but their more percussive.

I have new pics of my girl on my website, check em out!

I'm back in da game Chuck!

Thanks again--Jody

P.S. You doing seminars next summer?

Joseph Svinth
5th September 2002, 14:19
Keep in mind that punching somebody who is wearing a flak jacket and helmet can be hard on your hand. Moreover, the assumption is how do we increase an untrained fighter's effectiveness in 12 hours or less, some of which is spent doing the usual military goat gaggle. (Extend to the right, Move! Arms downward, Move! Etc.)

Some reading, most of which is online.

Bristol, George H. (2001, July). Integrated fighting system–The Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. Marine Corps Gazette 85:7 (pp. 38-39).

Carlson, Scott. (2001). Marine recounts quest for instructor’s belt. Okinawa Marine Page, http://www.okinawa.usmc.mil/Public%20Affairs%20Info/Archive%20News%20Pages/2001/011012%20Okimar%20Article%207%20(Opinion).html

Heckler, Richard Strozzi. (1992). In search of the warrior spirit (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Press.

Heckler, Richard Strozzi. (2002). Marine Warrior Project, http://www.aiki-extensions.org/newsletters/doc/aen9.doc

Jaffe, Greg. (2000). A few good men try the Marine martial art, and take on 2 gurus. Wall Street Journal. http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/TbsNew/Pages/Martial_Arts/media_articles/wsjarticle.htm

Larsen, Matt. (2002). The history [of] modern Army combatives, http://www.ebjjc.com/Roniel%20Aledo.htm

Metcalf, Geoff. (2002, February 17). Spreading “the Warrior Creed”: Geoff Metcalf interviews martial arts Marine Jack Hoban. WorldNetDaily, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26437

Stone, Andrea. (2001: March 8). Martial arts to create new breed of Marines. USA Today (p. 1A), http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-03-08-marines.htm

Taylor, Stuart. (2002, January 4). Marines’ martial arts training aims to make the tough tougher. GovExec.com, http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0102/010402nj2.htm

U.S. Army. (2002). Field Manual 3-25-150. Combatives.

U.S. Marine Corps. (1999). Marine Corps Reference Publication (MCRP) 3-02B. Close Combat.

U.S. Marine Corps. (2000, October 4). Marine Corps Order 1510.122. Individual Training Standards (ITS) System for the Marine Corps Martial Arts Training Program (MCMATP), http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/stds/documents/ITS/matp-its.pdf

U.S. Marine Corps. (2002a). Frequently asked questions regarding the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/TbsNewPages/Martial_Arts/FAQs/faqs.htm

U.S. Marine Corps. (2002b). Marine Corps Order 1500.54A (Draft), Change 472, http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/gtb/Draft/MCO%201500.%2054A%20MCMAP%20DRAFT%20Mar%2002_Complete.pdf

U.S. Marine Corps. (2002c, May 16). MARADMIN 275/02. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) Safety Advisory 1-02, http://www.usmc.mil/maradmins/maradmin2000.nsf/37f49138fc3d9c00852569b9000af6b7/5c0c4ce0eb213b5a85256bbb006ae51d?OpenDocument

Cilian McHugh
6th September 2002, 19:38
Mr. Svinth,

I wasn't able to access some of those Marine Corps Links, are they temporarily down or gone for good?

tmanifold
7th September 2002, 01:15
I love the Military's peacetime stuff. It has to be less aggressive, nobody wants aggressive soldiers, they can be mean to people.

A Quote from Col. Applegate's Kill or get Killed originally published in 1943


One school of thought, in unarmed combat circles, advocates
first closing with the enemy, throwing him to the ground, then dispatching him. The other, and most successful,
insists that blows used to down the opponent are preferable
to throws, and that they can be taught to and used by
the average man much more speedily. Naturally, throws will
have to be used in many instances; but actual combat has
shown that well-placed blows by the hands or feet, in many
instances, can accomplish the desired result more quicldy and
more easily. Two good general rules in unarmed combat are:
(i) Keep your opponent at arm’s length by the use of hand
and foot blows. Many times, when you are in a position to
start to close with an opponent so as to throw or trip him,
you will be able to use blows instead. (2) Avoid, if at all
possible, going to the ground with your adversary. Try to
avoid getting close to him. Being close, you will not have
room to see what he is up to or be able to work with the best effect. If you are smaller than your opponent and go
to the ground with him, his superior weight and strength will
always give him an advantage, whether he utilizes it or not.
The danger of being stunned upon impact with the ground
surface also presents a good reason for not closing with the
opponent if it can be avoided

This however is from the US army FM3 21-150 of 2002

Basic ground-fighting techniques build a fundamental understanding of dominant body position, which should be the focus of most combatives training before moving on to the more difficult standing techniques. Ground fighting is also where technique can most easily be used to overcome size and strength.

AND

Strikes are an inefficient method of ending a fight. However, they are a significant part of most fights, and a soldier must have an understanding of fighting at striking range. It is important to note that while at striking range, you are open to being struck. For this reason, it is often better to avoid striking range.


Anyway, it's pretty dumb. The Army FM has some techniques for passing the guard. One of them involves pushing on the abdomen while digging the elbow into the inside of the leg. If he has that much space how about rifling a punch to Mr. Happy. Dumb.

Joseph Svinth
7th September 2002, 17:15
Those are long URLs, and it's possible they've broken. Alternatively, they may be down. Google the keywords and you should still be able to use the caches.

Jody Holeton
9th September 2002, 00:10
Dear Mr.Svinth,

THose links aren't linking so I will try googling them.

Uh, Marines and aikido?
AIKIDO?

Can Marine Corps Officers do the martial art certification too?

Anybody know anything about the Army's training?

tmanifold
9th September 2002, 00:21
The second setof qoutes in my previous post are from the army's Latest FM on H2H it can be found here

http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-25.150/toc.htm

It is pretty bad, I would suggest The earlier stuff. Click on "Combative links" from my links page to find Stuff by applegate and fairburn in PDF format.

Cilian McHugh
9th September 2002, 20:38
Jody,

As far as I am aware all Marines (Enlisted and Officers) are obliged to reach Tan Belt Level in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.

Matt Larsen
11th September 2002, 13:43
I am always struck by the Applegate/Fairbairn comments. Here are a couple of oft-left out points.

1. Applegate never saw a single day of combat. If you have ever read "The close-combat files of Colonel Rex Applegate" you will notice that there are no actual combat files. It is the evolution of what they were teaching at a school in the United States during the war.

2. If their program had been as successful as has been claimed, both of my granddads would be experts, after all they were both in the Army during and after WWII, and the techniques of their system would be well known by the veterans of that era. Compare for a moment the success of the Russian system of the time. Knowledge of SOMBO is as wide spread in Russia as baseball is in the U.S. because of its success in their military.

3. W.E. Fairbairn was a second don in Judo from the Kodokan.

4. If you are within striking range of your opponent, not only can you strike him, but he can strike you.

The truth is that the WWII systems were both simple and effective, but strangely enough that is not enough. Neither is it enough to have the perfect system and collection of techniques. There have been many manual published over the years. Each of them has been almost equally unsuccessful.

How do we know for example that the 1992 version of the combatives FM was a failure? Soldiers do not know the techniques. It does not matter if you have the perfect system, if no one actually does it, it is a failure.

A successful system must not only be simple and effective at the beginning, but must also provide much more. The main thing is a plan to get units doing it. This is the primary reason why SOMBO has been succsess and the U.S. systems, Applegate/Fairbairn what have you, have not.

Understand that this is not an enditment of COL Applegate nor do I mean to belittle his contribution in any way. We have studied his methods and techniques quite closely and pulled allot of useful knowledge from them, but we have also gotten soldiers out in the units actually gaining proficiency in hand-to-hand fighting technique for really the first time ever.

Matt Larsen

tmanifold
11th September 2002, 19:57
Two points.

While Applegate himself may not have seen combat The Fairburn/Sykes method was developed for combat and used with success during WW2.

Sombo has become poplular because of it's sporting aspects. That is the same reason BJJ is in the new army manual.

I agree that The F/S method is not the end all and be all of combat. However it is infinatly better than this new style. As for the "if your close enough to hit him he's close enough to hit you" stuff. If your close enough to grapple he is close enough to hit, bite, pull a knife, etc. When I was in the infantry I always carried at least two knives on my person. One needs to learn control on the ground but not submissions and passing the guard.

Matt Larsen
11th September 2002, 21:06
What combatives style was developed for anything other than combat? Of course it was developed for combat. That does not in any way say that it was a good system. Or that it was effective in combat.

How do you quantify “used with success during WW2.” That is an easy claim to make but it does not mean that even one man used the techniques that he learned from them with success in combat. I am not saying that they didn’t, only that we could just as easily claim that the Rangers in have used the new system in Afghanistan with success. With no further evidence that statement can neither be proved or disproved.

It is true that SOMBO became popular because of its sporting aspect. But doesn’t it occur to you that a popular system is better than an unpopular system. Or that competition is a training tool to get soldiers training and to get commanders to allow training. Or that there are some other benefits to competing against fully resistant opponents that you can never get with suposedly “deadly” techniques that can only be done with a compliant opponent or in some other less than realistic way

Neil Ohlenkamp wrote a very good article about sport as a training tool.

http://judoinfo.com/sport.htm.

This is the same lesson that Kano figured out a hundred years ago, that we must capture both the benefits of sportive training and also train on techniques that are too dangerous to be done during free fighting. One of the methods that we are using to use sport as a tool, but to avoid a sportive focus is a varied set of competition rules. If you train for victory for instance in sport grappling, you will get creamed at the next level when competitors are allowed to strike.

“If your close enough to grapple he is close enough to hit, bite, pull a knife, etc.”

This is true, but it assumes that we are not training to do just these things to them. It also assumes that an untrained fighter will somehow be more capable when more weapons are available to both.

As an example, the way we train for knife fighting is to assume that every enemy is armed. You will probably not know he has a knife until he buries it in you. To drive this point home, we will put a stun gun in the pocket of one of the fighters in the class and warn everyone that it could be their opponent. If he is able to get to his ”knife” and deploy it someone pays the piper. It doesn’t take much before everyone gets very serious about controlling their opponent.

Matt Larsen

tmanifold
11th September 2002, 23:58
Sorry, I should have said developed during a time of combat.
As for being used successfully in World war two I have heard many testimonies of its effectiveness. Not being involved in world war to myself I can only go on testemonies. In a post on a different board Matthew Temkin attributed a quote to his father, a ww2 ranger, who said,"If it didn't work you and I would not be having this conversation".

Now as for combative sports. I love them. They are a great way to keep in shape and they allow you to learn to over come pain in a controled enviroment. I am active in judo, right now. However, soldiers (by that I mean infantrymen, apologies to everyone else) Already have these traits. Or at least they should. Infantry training, besides the technical stuff like how to shoot, involves a heavy dose of PT and many things to teach working through pain. A 13km forced ruck march will do that for you.

And whether or not you are trained to deal with knives, grappling makes it harder to handle. You can lose control, and awareness, of an arm. That arm can be the one to pull the knife. I would rather have a little distance between me and a knife.

I am NOT saying grappling should not be practiced. If you can't fight on the ground then you will be forced to. Mr. Murphy will make sure of that. I disagree with what they are teaching. Passing the guard is not essential. Escaping the guard, yes, but not passing it. And some of the methods they are teaching are not combat oriented. They are sport oriented. For example, one method consists of the soldier pressing on the gut of the enemy and sitting uprighton his knees. Then he passes the leg over a shoulder, etc. Those of you familair with BJJ will recognize it. The rest go look at the link I posted earlier. No where in the lesson does the soldier strike. The entire photo sequence screams for multiple shots to the groin. There are numerous other ways to escape the guard that are more combative.

Out of the two sources, the F/S method or the new BJJ based system, I think the F/S method is better. Not the best but better. It is easier for people to learn than BJJ. In any CQC, self preservation, etc. scenario one must use liberal amounts of atemi. Hit, hit, and hit again. Everything that is done should involve strikes of some kind. It is fact that hitting is more disorienting than an elbow to the inside of a thigh. It is just not aggressive enough.

Remember the role of the infantry, "To close with and destroy the enemy." Not to close with and make him tap out.

Jody Holeton
12th September 2002, 00:46
Dear all,

From my own martial arts and college experience I have learned something very important: you can have something that is really COOL but if you can't use it in real life it is worthless!


My GAWD! I used to be able to do a jump back double side-kick, very pretty BUT it got my ass-kicked and it gave me knee problems!

Look at the techniques that are the most used in Olympic Judo. They tell ALOT.

I think martial sports build a winning edge and "condition" a winning attitude (also proper techniques). If you can nail someone in a tournament you know you can usually nail them elsewhere.

Is BJJ a common program in the Army?
Is it installed like the MArine Corps MA program?
I heard that BJJ is JUST for Rangers!
Is that true?

Matt Larsen
12th September 2002, 14:09
I guess this is going to take a little bit longer post so here it goes.

First, when you say they you mean me. I wrote the FM, I was one of the guys who developed the program in the Ranger Regiment, I was NCOIC of combatives for the Ranger Regt. And then the Ranger Training Brigade and now I am the NCOIC of the Army combatives school and of all combatives training for the infantry school.

I have been in the infantry in both the Army and the Marine Corps for the last eighteen years and the truth is that until recently there was almost no combatives training happening. What little there was, was almost universally thought of as a joke and a waste of time. It is hard for the “combatives” crowd to admit but it is the truth. The big question is why. Why did both soldiers and commanders think that combatives training was a waste of time.

In my opinion it is because the Army has been trying for the last sixty years to implement the very things you are advocating. You said that you were in the infantry. I assume you were an advocate of combatives training while you were in. Why then did the system that you are advocating not spread throughout the Army from your platoon or company the way the current system spread from the third platoon charley company 2/75th?

I don’t want you to take that the wrong way, I am sure that we agree on what soldiers need to know. Knowing what they need to know is the easy part. Its how do you actualy get them to know it that is hard. How do you motivate that pencil neck commander/squad leader to get his men training? That is the real question.

That is also where the systems of the past have failed. Lets face it, there has never been a time when the average soldier was competent with the techniques that the Army doctrine called for them to know.

If you look at the way marksmanship is taught as an analogy, combat marksmanship is a very difficult and complicated task. You are fatigued and breathing hard, firing from unusual positions or while moving. Your targets are fleeting and hard to identify, not to mention NODS, optics etc.

Now all of that being true, no one question the need for BRM. Even though it bears little resemblance to the sort of shooting that we expect of our soldiers on the battlefield.

This is not so with combatives. The training methods that have been used with combatives is much like teaching shooting at the soldier of fortune convention. You put a guy down behind a machine gun. He squeezes of a few rounds. Its cool. He walks away motivated. He may even have a good feeling about the training, but at the end of the day, no one showed him about site alignment. Is he a better shooter, marginally if at all.

Now you take that same man and show him how to strike with the ridge of his hand, tell him to grab their nuts, stomp them with his heel. He is motivated. He may have a good feeling about the training, but is he actually a better fighter? Or when the actual fight happens is he going to resort back to his natural farm boy technique? We have done quite a bit of experimentation to prove the latter.

That is where BJJ comes in. Soldiers begin their learning with the basic ground grappling from BJJ, not because that is how we envision them fighting, or because many fights go to the ground (that is another discussion), but because it is easy both to teach and to learn. It is also true that ground fighting is not too dissimilar from standup fighting, and the lessons learned there make it easier to teach further techniques.

I mentioned this before that when we began the research for this program, we did some experimentation.
One of the things we did was take a 100 man RIP class and divided it in half. Half received ten hours of boxing instruction, the other half did PT. After the instruction, we had boxing matches between those with the training and those without. Strangely enough those who received no training won more fights. We did this three times with different amounts of training and different boxing instructors with the same results. Our conclusion was that from the perspective of actual fighting ability small amounts of boxing training is actually counter productive.

It is also true that to win a fight you must have a strategy. The strategy of almost anyone that you are likely to fight is to pummel you with strikes until you are incapacitated. Perhaps adopting that same plan is not the best way. I’ll talk about our training plan in my next letter.

Matt Larsen

tmanifold
12th September 2002, 18:20
Well it is interesting to note that you wrote the Fm. And I can see why you got a little miffed at my calling it Dumb. We seem to agree on a lot of things so I will go over the things we do agree on first.
The peace time H2H trainig recieved be the army sucked. It wasn't that good. that is part of the reason I began studing combatives seriously.
I have always thought that what made soldiers good fighters was PT, aggressiveness and willpower. Not the techniques.

AS for why the system I advocate did not spread, (and it would have spread through the Canadian army) I was not in a position to teach anything. We tried to get a LEO H2H instructor in and the higher ups killed it because Our insurance didn't cover it.

Now here is the problem I have with what is in the FM. The move depicted are not very agressive, this negetes one of the infantry's greatest strengths. I totally disagree with the "strikes are are an inefficent fight stopper" comment. Third BJJ is a sport, was designed as a sport, was derieved from a sport. It was never intended for mass combat. I also don't think boxing should be taught as Mil h2h.

Tony

ps. Sorry for belittling your work. I don't agree with it but calling it dumb was rude.

INFINOO
12th September 2002, 19:30
Matt Larsen: Fasinating post. Im not trying to be a total a**hole but, Im the only one who is confused? You train the solidiers in a meathod and strategy of combat you dont expect them to use on the battle feild? You speak of Controlling the opponent????. I thought the idea of CQB instructor in the army is to teach the student(soldier) to "kill or maim the enemy" in the quickest most effecient manner possible. Is that Im out of step, or you guys are out to lunch?
Matt, Arew you saying you train the soldier to shoot, but "not" in the manner and conditions "you know" that it will be used in the feild?
Why To give them a warm fuzzy feeling? I would think that given the time energy and budged restraints on training, you would train the way you fight and fight the way you train?.

OO

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

Mitch Saret
12th September 2002, 20:07
The answer to this is actually fairly simple. But first, a word to Matt.

I have a copy of the combatives FM here in my dojo. Looking at the pics, I believe the aggressor is you. It's a little hard to read, but I think it says Larsen on the nametag. I am a little dissappointed that BJJ was chosen for the manual, only becuase I was always taught, as an infantryman (3/325, 82D ABN) that to remain on the ground in H2H was a death sentence. However, you did the research, so I bow to your choice. Besides, my first art was judo and I love grappling. But some of the names, Matt....I mean really, The Captain Kirk? :D But on a more serious note, I do think the knife defensive tactics are a bit off, I don't see any real control of the weapon hand. But it could just be the static pics. Over all, though, a good text for those in the combat arms.

Back to the question at hand. After the Viet Nam era and in the early eighties, H2H was minimally addresses during basic and infantry school. A little more at infantry school I would imagine. It was mostly left to unit commandersa to train their troops for the outfits primary mission, and to keep that training ongoing. My battalion commander was big on CQB training and brought in a variety of instructors and experts on a regular basis. Back then, the early eighties, the Blue Falcons, (3/325), consistently earned the top honors in the division. We were even switched to DRF1, out of rotation, and got sent to Grenada.

The reason you train differently than you would actually fight, the original purpose of the post, is this: You have to get a good foundation of the basics. The basics are what will carry the day. Why do football teams practise endless drills and scrimmage where they don't tackle? Why do baseball teams practice endless drills and take batting practice? You can do this with any sport. After the practice, they play pre-season games, not always with their first string, but a variety of combinations of players. After all that, they are ready for the real games, at least they hope so.

Combat is no different. We train in endless drills and countless scenarios. You learn the basics of marksmanship with a variety of weapons. If you don't have the basics, you cannot, in most cases, carry the day by shooting from the hip or by the seat of your pants. You also cannot learn the basics in combat like conditions. After you have them down, now you start to practice them in progressively more realistic situations.

Kind of like dojo training, don't you think?

INFINOO
12th September 2002, 21:45
Okay Mitch now Im attacking on two fronts:D
Kind of like the Do-jo you asked? . Hmmm ,I personally never understood the whole concept of training in big, open, warm, well lighted gyms, on soft matts all while wearing a Gi and naked feet, being empty handed a percentage of fights take place(from my experience) place outside in bad weather lousy footing diffucult lighting, while wearing street clothes or in tight confined indoor areas like kitchens and hallways, bathrooms or between cars ect OO?
Ends less drills you say?(modern arnis for example I have experienced first hand) What happens if the enemy dosnt attack or respond the way you learned in the drill? Now what?. What happens if the foot work you learned on the gym floor under ideal conditions, now gets put to the test in a parking lot covered in ice. Think quick.

You made a statement that you cant learn the basics in combat like conditions. Really, Im wondering what you mean by that because in my experience the closer to the real thing my students and (my self) for that matter train in the better we act/respond when its the real thing.
The better I like it to. Or to put it in another way my wife was watching me teach a private class with a long time student. I have been training this guy for years and he like to go hard or go haome as he puts it. So after he left
She said I was watching you guys "that looks like fighting" :D I smiled with blood on my lip and gave her a big hug.

I think what your talking about is making it comfortable for the students and the teacher doing drills so they keeps coming back and shelling out the cash year after year.

Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

Jody Holeton
13th September 2002, 00:15
One of the great things about judo/sambo/BJJ is the randori. A live opponent trying to hurt/throw/pin you as you try to hurt/pin/throw them.
Is that not great for helping people deal with unpredictability, if its done with the right mindset?

Second, doesn't knowing about ground work and throws help stop people from taking you to the ground?


Is the Army BJJ just for Rangers?

Thanks!

tmanifold
13th September 2002, 22:03
With soldiers combatives training should, and can be fairly rough. If you look at old footage and you see some randori-style stuff. I am a pretty firm believer that to make tough soldiers, soldiers have to do tough things. With that in mind I don't think it would be a bad thing to get soldiers to fight each other under semi-controlled circumstances.

My main problem is that BJJ is based on out waiting, out witting and out lasting your opponent. This is less than an ideal method for combat. Second, ground fighting takes years to learn properly. How will a North american with a couple of month training fair against a man from Iran who has wrestled his whole life (wrestling being a large part of the culture over there). I believe hitting should be paramount. Ground control and other grappling should be learned but hitting should come first.

Regardless of what techniques the sytem is based on (ground fighting, standing grappling, or striking)I believe the techniques should be aggressive, involve a pursuing mentality and involve destructive techniques whenever possible. I believe BJJ is the antithesis of that mentality.

Matt Larsen
13th September 2002, 23:39
In order to win a fight you must have a fight strategy. For most people that strategy is to pummel their opponent until he has received too much damage to fight effectively. To shut down this strategy the idea from BJJ is to pass through striking range and achieve the clinch. You cannot do that without being aggressive and tenacious. As for out waiting, out witting, and out lasting him, that is simply another fight strategy. It is the one that Royce Gracie used against bigger, stronger, more athletic opponents during arena fighting. It is not the universal strategy of BJJ or what we teach. It is however a good question to ask what other option do you think he had.

The basic strategy of BJJ is to close with your opponent, take the fight to the ground, dominate the position and then finish the fight with chokes, joint attacks or strikes. It is a very basic and easy to teach strategy. A good place to start. As a fighter gains in technical ability, he gains the ability to use more sophisticated strategies.

We begin training with the concept of dominant position from BJJ. The most important thing this does for us is give soldiers, even after only one class, a sense of objective in the fight. You always know what you are trying to do. Even if they forget every technique that they know, they will remember what they are fighting for and that alone makes them a better fighter than they were.

After they understand positional grappling it is much easier to teach them throws and takedowns because they are less worried about failure.

I took my son to a submission-grappling tournament when he was nine years old. He hadn’t been working out with other kids very much so his takedowns were not very good. I showed him a simple head and arm throw. He drilled it about ten times and then went out there and did it against every kid he fought. Now take the nine year old out of that scenario and put in a twenty five year old. The odds are he will not even try his technique. It is much more difficult to teach grown ups throws and takedowns. Most are just too scared to try them and if they do they will not commit to the move sufficiently for it to work. How do you get them over it? One way is to make them less afraid of failure by making them competent ground fighters.

Standup fighting is taught by teaching them to control the Range, Angle, and level. The first step is to teach them to achieve the clinch against someone who is trying to hit them. The next step is to teach takedowns from the clinch. If you initiate action, you automatically limit your opponent’s potential actions. These can then be planned for and drilled. For instance, if he is trying to push you away in order to gain room to strike you can seize the initiative on the range, land strikes of your own, and then achieve the clinch. The fighter who controls the range, angle and level controls what techniques will be used and therefore can dominate the fight. Who lands the most strikes? Not the better puncher, but the one who controls the clinch.

From the ground grappling of BJJ we progress to the throws and takedowns from wrestling and Judo, Striking from Boxing and Muay Thai, weapons fighting, close quarters marksmanship, and put on the Blauer suits for fighting in teams with equipment and with simunitions and pretty soon you have some real training.

Matt Larsen

INFINOO
14th September 2002, 04:19
Matt: So what your saying is that the foundation of the Ranger training is based on sports like wrestling, boxing, BJJ and Mai Thai?


Regards

Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary Alberta Canada

Mitch Saret
14th September 2002, 17:10
I agree with all you mentioned, Greg,and others that refer to more realistic training. But look at this point....how many would continue training if the first thing you did was bloody their lip or break their nose? Not many, and that's a shame.

I agree with tough soldiers having to do tough things. But, as most soldiers coming in to basic training have no idea what they are going to go through, you have to build them up first. Varsity football was not match for infantry school. In order to shoot effectively under combat condititons, you must first know how to shoot. In order to maintain balance in adverse conditions you must first know how to balance. Then you go to odd terrain. In the summer I take my student to a local park with a decent hill. Doing kicks down the hill is fairly easy, but going up the hill...not so much. The longer the students are here, the tougher the training gets.

And sports, by the way, were actually based on different forms of combat, not the other way around.

Matt Larsen
15th September 2002, 01:26
“And sports, by the way, were actually based on different forms of combat, not the other way around.”

This is exactly right. All of our combative sports evolved from forms of combat. The effect of competing within a set of rules over the years and the natural tendency to make victory the goal instead of training, slowly makes the techniques drift from combative reality. It is also true that the combative sports do not have the encouraging of good combative technique as a principle when making rule changes. Rule changes are done for the same reasons that they are done in non-combative sport, Safety of the contestants and crowd appeal.

So to answer you Gregory, combative sports are not the basis of our training. They are however wonderful training tools if steps are taken to counter the effects that I listed above.

As far as tough training, ask yourself who trains harder soldiers or boxers. After 18 years in the Marines and the Rangers I can tell you boxers do. The threat of war simply is not immediate enough to motivate allot of people. The threat of a beating on the other hand is.

I hear the question of realistic training allot from those who advocate for instance training with your kit on. Many assume that because we are not wearing our gear in the FM that we never train with it. We do. However we do not do it in the way that is mostly advocated. If you fall and land on your canteen you will be injured. This being so, the minute that you put on kit you must make some sacrifices in realism for the sake of safety. Mostly this is to have prearranged techniques and less than fully resistant opponents, not my idea of realistic. You will probably have your kit on when you need to fight. You will definitely have a fully resistant opponent. It is more a question of what is more realistic training.

When we fight with our kit on, we do so in scenario training much like Tony Blauer advocates. We use impact reduction suites so that striking techniques still hurt but will not cause injury. We also use simunitions, and stun devices to ad both projectile and bladed weapons. I can’t think of any way to make training more realistic than to do force on force live fire with hand-to-hand and pain inducing weapons.

That stuff however is the product more than the process. We can train soldiers to operate at that level because of what we are doing before they get there.

We are conducting after action interviews with guys involved in hand-to-hand in Afghanistan, commissioning real research into psychological and physiological reaction to the stress of close combat, not just buying into the pop-psychology that is so prevalent these days.

The only thing that they did better in the WWII era was to teach close quarters marksmanship at the same facility and we are working on that.

Since the beginning of the modern era, hand-to-hand instructors have been repeating the mantra that commanders need to dedicate more training time to combatives. They haven’t and they won’t. Commanders are under the same pressures now that they were under fifty years ago and will be under fifty years from now. We have to be a little smarter than that if we actually want soldiers who are competent hand-to-hand fighters.

Matt Larsen

INFINOO
15th September 2002, 03:43
Matt : Thanks for answering my questions . You have been very forthright and open with information, thanks. Im sure your doing your best and I can sense your frustraion with training prioritys of the commanders.
Im curious, do the Blauer suits protect you from techeques like elbow breaks, neck breaks, knee dislocaion ect OO . Secondly, how is the wrist mobility while wearing the gloves. Does it facilitate wrist flexibility you would want for padded weapon training(knife,bayonet). Thanks in advance.


Regards


Gregory Rogalsky
Rogalsky Combatives International
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

AmerROSS
15th September 2002, 16:10
Matt,

All I have to say is this: you're a freaking genius and a work-horse. You remind me of John Ruskin's comment that "The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it."

NO ONE knows the institutional restrictions within which you must operate as a program designer. If anyone did, they would not only applaud your achievements in spite of the Brass Curtain, but they would be as stunned at the sophistication you've pulled off as I am.

NO ONE knows what can be done with the X factor of limited training hours. People pine on their speculations, but you have actually taken the bull by the horns and experimented with that factor. The ACTUAL results of those experiments formed and continue to reform how you specifically intensify the learning saturation of said training hours. If only there were other true scientific investigators to see the beauty of your process which I've observed over the years.

NO ONE knows the amount of effort, passion and forethought you place in your on-going investigation (as opposed to the incumbent conclusions that "enthusiasts" make regarding "realistic combat.") I wish that people would objectively observe your posts on the internet over the years, as I have, and see your "willingness to close" with opposition to your investigatory program evolution. I have seen you and your brain-child program assault by has-beens, wannabes, and could-have-beens, & even a few should-have-beens. And yet, you have not once reverted to the proverbial "internet tough guy-isms" with which the "combatives industry" seems infested (including the so-called "martial art industry.) You battle fairly, squarely with each critique. I believe I understand why you do: in fairly, squarely addressing each critique over the years, your arguments have become clear, succinct and lucid. That, and those arguments are damn strong, Matt. Damn strong. IMOFWIW, you demonstrate what David Brinkley intended to convey when he said, "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him."

NO ONE else is doing it. This is the final testimony. The bottom line shall always be reduced to one and one final measuring stick: your men willingly to close with opponents, and... kick ass. Anyone that has fought on a consistent basis in any form of human conflict knows that the warrior finds his survivability and victory in two vital characteristics: fighting élan and esprit d’corps. Unsurprisingly considering the brilliance of your work, these are also the two filters for which your investigation has evaluated skills, and the two conclusions that your experiments have proven:

1. The defining characteristic of a warrior is the willingness to close with the enemy.
2. The winner of the hand-to-hand fight in combat is the one whose buddy shows up first with a gun.

Let me leave you with two quotes:

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them." - George Bernard Shaw

Thanks for the work you're doing, Matt. No one else would do it, and in my opinion for what it's worth, no one else could. Like Hannibal, you couldn't find a way to make what was handed you work, so you made a way. Freaking genius.

Keep on keepin' on, brother.
Coach Sonnon
www.RMAX.tv

tmanifold
15th September 2002, 19:52
I have seen you and your brain-child program assault by has-beens, wannabes, and could-have-beens, & even a few should-have-beens.

Ouch, Baby. Very Ouch.

It is called disagreement. I don't agree with his program and I addressed that. I wasn't assualting him and I don't think anyone else was either. I nobody ever disagreed things would not get done, nothing would advance.

I think Matt should be applauded for getting to the point where he could institute a program. In fact, when I realized I was talking to the creator of the system I toned down my arguments because, frankly, tell the creator of a system his system is dumb, is pretty rude and does nothing to further intelligent disscusion.

I think a problem of this online world is that we often forget that the people on the other side are real people. We often forget to talk to them as if they were real people. I mean, I could pull out a thousand quotes from online forums such as this that people would never say to someone's face (probably a couple of my quotes, too).

So to further this discussion, I would like to say that Matt regardless of people who disagree with you, regardless if I disagree with you, I hope you are proud of your program. Making it offical Army doctrine is very worthy of praise. I just don't agree with you on the style used. I would like to continue this disscussion, if for no other reason, because it is interesting to learn why you choose what you did.

Elliot Harris
15th September 2002, 22:51
SFC Larson,

First I’d like to reiterate AmerROSS’ kudos on a job well done.

As an infantry officer with more than a passing interest in combatives, both personally and its development within the military at large, I have often felt like I was climbing Hamburger Hill in trying to get any kind of program developed at the unit level that could function without my direct supervision. I have met with moderate success at best. Having observed this in a variety of units I have made a few observations on why this is and you have effectively addressed and dealt with some of these issues. I will briefly outline them below:

First - all of these issues stem from the basic truism (as I have experienced it) that there is no institutional attitude that says that this is not only good, but necessary training. Although attitudes may differ by degree on this from “it is a waste of time (ie. since the army doesn’t take it seriously, why should I),” to “yeah, that’s good, but it’s adventure training and we’ll get to it when we have the time (ie. this stuff is not really relevant to modern combat),” to “this is great stuff, I just wish we had a qualified instructor/time.”

The obvious first step would be to not only have a manual, but make it useful as a training guide by the average NCO/officer (while I think the 1992[?] FM had a lot of great material, it was useless as a training guide except by someone who already knew what they were doing [IMHO this is true for most any military manual]). The key to making it useful is to actually teach the material in a course – either as part of the NCO/officer professional development courses or independently. I think the current program (as I understand it) does this effectively– at least for the infantry. This in itself is probably the single most important step in really cementing combatives training into the institutional mind set (especially with its own course) as it tells NCOs and officers that this stuff is real and the army takes it seriously – it is not just adventure training!

The second and third issues however, are (and have been) a bit more difficult. That is addressing what is actually taught so that it is combatively relevant in a way that both soldiers and leaders will want to train. This “what do we train” is where real disagreement comes in as is seen here on this board as well as others. I won’t get into this here as SFC Larson has done a fine job of explaining this on his numerous posts.

The third issue is that now that we have a manual and a school – with a coherent methodology, how does this translate into the field. How do we get the qualified instructor/time to train part to the units? SFC Larson, have you gotten any feedback from some of your students as to how the program is actually being implemented in various units. I have some distinct ideas on this but my post is already too long and I am more interested in hearing about any feedback you’ve received.

Thank you.

Cilian McHugh
21st September 2002, 10:06
.. But has anybody seen the new Marine Corps Physical Fitness Manual yet?

Matt Larsen
25th September 2002, 14:10
Elliot, I agree with your points.
On the first, you are exactly right. The real questions are why is this the prevailing attitude and what can we do differently to change it. When somebody who is interested in the martial arts gets a chance to show it to the men, he is almost always more exited about it than they are. Remember how awkward you felt with the techniques of your system when you were first learning them? That is the level that soldiers are left at. They walk away from that first or second or tenth class thinking that it is a waste of time. Without the self motivation that keeps all of us training past that step they will never get there. This has always been the case with combatives in the Army. At the end of the training the soldiers and the commanders have not seen enough actual improvement in their abilities to warrant spending more valuable time. That is the bottom line. If they felt like they were actually learning something that they could successfully put into use after the training, they would see the benefit of training and would continue to do it. It is a testament that the traditional approaches have failed that this has not happened.

That is why starting with ground grappling is proving successful. After the very first training session, soldiers walk away and know that they have learned something useful. It also helps that most have no idea what to do on the ground before that first class whereas everyone has some idea of how to throw punches, or at least thinks they do.

To address your other points, there is currently a renaissance of combatives training at least in the infantry that has not happened since WWII. The feedback is constant, overwhelming, and only limited by the practical problem of producing enough qualified instructors and sending them out to the force. There have been championship tournaments for both the Ranger Regiment and the 82nd Airborne and more units to come. The TRADOC commander spoke about our program in his address to the infantry conference as an example of what the army needs.

As for the style that we used, I think that too much is made of this. I think that people like to pigeonhole martial arts and martial artists by attaching names to what they do. This is in my opinion an artificiality. After all, what is a “style” of martial art but one person’s or a group of people’s opinion about training techniques and fighting tactics. What we do and how we train is very different from what the BJJ world is doing. It is true that we use them as a source of useful knowledge, but they are far from our only source. For instance you might have gathered from the things that Scott Sonnon has said on here that we draw allot from the ROSS system.

Matt Larsen

Walt Harms
25th September 2002, 19:49
Just an short note:

The US Army at Ft. Bragg (SOF) just issued a Solication for HTH/CQC instruction/course development. This is unique because they specified the USMC CQC LINE program. Fancy That

Walt Harms

Joseph Svinth
26th September 2002, 23:10
Special Forces Groups do not have standardized programs in close-quarter battle and hand-to-hand combatives. Instead, each Group gets to develop its own individual program. Furthermore, each Group has its own budget, and gets to hire whomever its training and operations folks want. Thus, to give an example, aiki-based arts have been popular with the SF at Fort Lewis for the past couple decades. (Instructors have included Richard Strozzi Heckler, Bernie Lau, and Don Angier.) However, because of the frequency of troop deployments, Special Forces support personnel often receive more training in hand-to-hand fighting than do team members.

Walt Harms
27th September 2002, 13:58
Joe,

I was refering to an official solicitation from US Army SOCOM Ft Bragg for instruction and instructional materials for CQC training specifing the USMC Line system. It was in support of the Special Forces Qualification Course making it SF wide not group specific. The solicitation number is ZA92-02-Q-0024. This would be a change, and once again I find it interesting that the the Army is using LINES training. I am including this quote from the Sol. "Most recently during fiscal years 01 and 02 LINES training has become the standard training incorporated into the Special Forces Qualification Course. " IMHO I believed that all readers of this forum would find this interesting. I certainly did.

Walt Harms

Joseph Svinth
27th September 2002, 22:18
My information comes from August 2002 correspondence with a serving member of an A-team stationed on Okinawa. So, if Fort Bragg is thinking of instilling doctrine SF-wide, the news hasn't reached company-level at Fort Lewis or Okinawa. And may not, considering that Army MACOMS can (and often do) ignore policies that are not set by DOD.

Sochin
28th September 2002, 00:11
Let's look at it this way:

the likelihood of a well armed soldier needing to kill/maim an enemy with h2h is obviously a flallacy. So, why train h2h at all? Why to instill fighting spirit and the willigness to engage the enemy of course!

But wait a minute - who will this 'h2h enemy' be in real life? Why the civilians they "practice upon," of course!

h2h is so the soldiers can go out in the general public, find a willing participant and "practice! Marcenco already let that cat out of the bag!

So, for us civilian practicees, which would you rather have them perform upon your sweet self, bjj or FAS (Fairbairn, Applegate & Sykes)?

The next time a marine gets me in a submisssion hold and wants me to tap out, I'll tap like a crazed seal and thank God that he didn't break my neck with a smashing chin jab!

Matt Larsen
28th September 2002, 05:44
Ron Donvito who invented the LINE system formerly used by the Marine Corps trains the hand-to-hand instructors for the Q-course. There are a couple of very interesting things about that. First is that he makes knowledge of the basic army program a prerequisite of his courses and that Gustavo Machado teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu three days a week at his school in Fayetville.

Now as for the object of military hand-to-hand training, first we get reports from the War about hand-to-hand engagements regularly and we are compiling them so that when we one day publish the combat files of the modern army combatives program there will be actual combat files, so to say that soldiers will not need hand-to-hand fighting skills on the modern battlefield is ridicules, second we should definitely take Marcenco’s word about everything. Maybe you should talk to some actual operators about what they think of Marcenco before using him as a source. He also said that everyone on his team could bench 400lbs. He is in the business of selling books about special operations to people who do not know anything about special operations.

Matt Larsen

Sochin
28th September 2002, 18:37
Hi Matthew,

fair answer! a tad more serious than I was but fair.

if you ever get the actual combat files published, I'd love to read it.

I'm curious about why you have a new sign-in name and if you are not a moderator anymore - or are you the same as Matt Larsen mod.?

sifureyes
28th September 2002, 22:09
hello to all the people who use this group, this is my first time posting here.

This post is to answer and debate some of your wuestions that you guys have about the new army combatives program as in FM 3-25-150

This new program is a vast improvement, over the previous H2H program, it helps build confidence, physical ability, stamina, and most important of all aggression, as well as knowlodge of what to do in a combative situation. I have been to the skill level 1 and 2 courses run by SFC Larsen. before i go any farther let me say that I already had a extensive martial arts background that included grappling. with about 17 years in the martial arts including
Tae kwon Do 1st Dan
Tenchi Goju kai karate Do Green belt
Kuk Sool Won Brown belt
Escrima/Arnis
JKD
Kickboxing (international rules)20 wins,losses,1 no contest,18 KO
Kung Fu San Soo 4th Degree Black
Along with 8 years in the army
3rd Bn 75th ranger
H/co 121st Inf Abn LRSC
20th SFG

I believe that the new training the army has to offer, is very beneficial, and definately worthwhile. In the first day of the level 1 course I learned, new things I didn't know before, and it built up from there with the technical knowledge, SFC Larsen has developed a program, that many of you do not understand nor will you ever understand it. It is not only grappling or BJJ, but it is much more, it also incorprates, boxing, kickboxing, Chinese San Shou, and Pancrase style fighting.

"he likelihood of a well armed soldier needing to kill/maim an enemy with h2h is obviously a flallacy. So, why train h2h at all? Why to instill fighting spirit and the willigness to engage the enemy of course!

But wait a minute - who will this 'h2h enemy' be in real life? Why the civilians they "practice upon," of course!"

why train in it at all the reasonis this your weapon will fail or malfunction, or jam, or what ever you want to call it when you are at a place you dont want to be like clearing a room with a enemy 2-5 feet away, what do you, say ¤¤¤¤ I'M FUCKED or do you close with the enemy, and take him out or subdue him until your buddy comes around and shoots the fucker.
and for the guy who said about the marine landing a hard jb onyour chin let him do it I will guarentee, he will prob. break his hand andcause little damage to you.

Basically what ia m sayin is before any of you try to pick apart something you really don't understand, and don't you understand it because you have already read the manual. reading the manual doesn't make you understand it. When was the last time you saw a person reading THE IDIOTS GUIDE TO SELF DEFENSE and see him or her be a bad ass and whoop up on any one.
Come on over to Ft. Benning talk to SFC larsen in person take a week off from work or get a week of permnissive TDY and take the skill level 1 course ,and then you will understand what the course is all about. and then if you still think you know it all we will see what happens on thurdsays in the level 1 course and see if you have the willingness to close with the enemy, when you try to achieve the clinch while having punches thrown at you.

Del Reyes

tmanifold
29th September 2002, 02:45
for the guy who said about the marine landing a hard jb onyour chin let him do it I will guarentee, he will prob. break his hand andcause little damage to you.

He was refering to the Chin Jab not a jab to the chin. The Chin Jab is the name of a palm heel strike developed by W.E. Fairburn as part of his defendu or WW2 combatives.
it is described here:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/tmanifold/physical.htm
scroll down to the techniques.
I also think he was being a little facicious.

Secondly, I can understand how your learned someting new with the neww BJJ based program. Your martial arts background doesn't include any grappling styles (or at least ground grappling). Also I am not arguing whether the program is good or bad. In fact if he can get H2H to become a major part of training then good for him. I do however disagree with the empahsis on ground fighting. Fighting from the guard while wearing webbing complete with butt pack is less than ideal. Also BJJ is based on outwaiting, outsmarting and out lasting your opponent, again this is less than Ideal for soldiers. A soldier's greatest strength is his aggressiveness. A system based more on strikes takes better advantage of this. I also totally disagree with the statement that strikes are an inefficent way of winning a fight. It is my opinion that that statement is completely false.
Now I don't mean to discredit Matt for his work. As I have said before I understand that to make his system a Army wide standard it speaks volumes for the amount of work he has put in. This is not a discussion of whether he did a good job, this is a disagreement on his choice to base the system around a ground grappling sport as opposed to a more striking based system.

Matt Larsen
29th September 2002, 02:51
It’s the same me, I just don’t have access to my work e-mail from here, and I couldn’t remember my password.

It’s good to see you on the board del. Go easy though. The whole reason that I am on this board is to share ideas, and that means inviting people to say what they will. If I didn’t want their input I would just hide in my cave.

For the rest of you, Del Reyez is a good friend of mine and a very experienced martial artist. Most of my background is in traditional Japanese arts, which has many benefits, but also has limitations. To make up for this we try to bring in people with different backgrounds. Del is a good example. We also have some good people around the Army. For instance up at West Point we have Ray woods, a Phd in sports psychology with a background in HopKiDo and Judo, and Jason Winkle, a Kenisiologist who is a full instructor under Dan Inosanto and many other comparable people. So you see what I mean when I say that we are doing more than just BJJ and wish to avoid the whole style vs. style debate.

Matt Larsen

Matt Larsen
29th September 2002, 02:58
tmanifold, I think that you have some very large misunderstandings about both what we are doing and what BJJ teaches. And by the way those two things are different.

Matt Larsen

tmanifold
29th September 2002, 04:33
I agree that I could be totally off base concerning what you are teaching. I can only go by the FM.
I don't think I am to far off on the BJJ though. Or at least GJJ. To my understanding Gracie Jujutsu was designed to replace physicality with technique. GJJ are smart fighters who fight well from the gaurd and will outlast their opponents waiting for an opening to apply a finishing move.
Try to understand, I have the greatest respect for BJJ and GJJ as sporting styles. For any one with a desire to fight MMA, BJJ (with the possible exception of sambo) is the ideal grappling component.

I just think that Soldiers have different needs than Combative athletes although there is overlap.

sifureyes
29th September 2002, 04:51
Actually I do have styles with ground grappling, the filipino martial arts aka escrima/arnis have grappling, as does Kung Fu San Soo, In fact I was first exposed to grappling in San Soo by Master Lari bebee who is my instructors instructor, back in 1991, which was before the UFC, lari has wrestled all of his life, and have trained extensivly, with the Machado's, and Gene Lebell. So I was not learning something new.
It is those of you who thinks that they have nothing else to learn that are the poison of martial arts.
in a quote from GrandMaster Jimmy H. Woo aka Chin Sue Dek of Kung Fu San Soo, a style of which has been called Devestating, and effective, and Jimmy H . Woo in a survey of the 100 most influential people in the martial arts, was number 5.
says.
"IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON'T KNOW LEARN IT, FOR IF YOU DON'T MAYBE SOMEDAY ANOTHER WILL KILL YOU WITH IT"

martial artists who are closed minded be they civilians or military, if they think that what they have is the best thing since sliced bread. are sentencing themselves to death.
how will you be effectivley able to defend against somethin if you don't know how it works.
In San Soo while we don't do the normal ground grappling workout as jui-jitsu , we do incorporate it into our fighting, for instance. when working out, we don't let the person just have the technique we resist it, and counter, if we loose balance and fall we don't stop right there, and start over we begin grappling, but we grapple with added twists, eye gouges, finger grabs, etc. or if someone is taking to long on a technique , we counter and throw them to the ground.
Kickboxing(muay Thai), it does has counter and throws, if you lesarn from a old timer, he will teach you that, if you only learn from a gym, kickboxing school more than likely you will only learn stuff for the ring.
JKD Bruce lee's infamous style, if you look at his books, nearly any of them you will see grapplin gin his book to inlcude arm bars, leg locks, chokes, and this was in the 60's before any one in th eUSA heard of the gracies, and in his movie enter the dragon, you see him submit a opponent with a armbar and a choke.

As a martial artists, you should always, be willing to learn something new, everyday you train you should be learning new things, or observing them. does this mean you have to master every style out there, no but just be open and see what is beyond your studios door.

I am primaraly a stand up fighter with a good ground base, I will never be a full ground fighter, but I will continue, my trainin gin my 3 styles I will always train in Kickboxing, jui-jitsu, and San Soo Kung Fu, 3 styles that I personally feel compliment eachother greatly.
Del reyes

sifureyes
29th September 2002, 05:03
Tmanifold I just read your post, about outwatintg your opponent, and fighting on your back with a buttpack, which is a very good point that pack can make things diffult, and outwaiting your opponent in combat is not a good thing.
here are my take on those two topics,

buttpack, this is where training, and adapting the style to fit your fighting needs, we train without web gear, for the beginingpurpose to help prevent injuries. after you get the basic training, you should then begin adapting the techniques to fit your givin situation, you don't always need to fight from the guard, if you know that you have a buttpack when in a combative situation it would be stupid of you to pull the guy into your guard now doesn't it, this is where time and training come into play, practice onyour own or with a buddy, in full gear if you want to examine what you feel can and can't be done

waiting out your opponent.
in tournaments if your ahead yes
in combat NO
if you think i am going to hold a guy inmy guard and wait him out you are well not going to get ugly here, I am just not going to do it, I had a guy ask me that in a evening class, an di demostrated on him that is all can be done in a matter of a few second, by being aggresive, closing with the enemy, keepin ghim off balance, makin ghim move where I want himto takin ghim down and finishing up, and if I do happen to pull a guy into my guard in battle it will be over about 6seconds after that happens, I always carry a combat folder inmy front pockets, left and right side, not inside but cliped to my pocket so it is barely visible, I will sldie it out pop it open, and the next thing he will feel i smy blade slicing into him, as he pulls away in pain I will swep himover and slice his throat ,and commence searching him for intel and souveniers.

tmanifold
29th September 2002, 07:17
"It is those of you who thinks that they have nothing else to learn that are the poison of martial arts."

Before you make judgments maybe you should find out some information.
check out the about me section on my website. I made a call based on the arts you listed. None of which are primarly grappling arts.

I was a grappler, am a grappler and will always see things from a grapplers point of view. It is because I knew that there is always something else to learn that I moved into striking arts. My personal incarnation of combat involves more grappling than I would recommend from self preservation but that is because it is what I know and there is no value in throwing out things I have already become proficent in.

As a life long grappler I believe that becoming a proficent grappler is harder than become an decent striker. Also one must have a greater amount of skill to over come strength on the ground then with a right cross or a knife hand to the throat.
Another problem I have with BJJ is Rorion Gracie's (an expert in BJJ I think, don't you?) assertation that one can not fight multiple attackers. Seeing as I have done, some of my friends of done it and so have countless others I have heard (either in person or in print), it leads me to believe that this is a sytem limitation. One more reason I don't like it for Army combatives.
I have said countless times, it is listed on my website and in posts here and on other forums, that one should learn to fight on the ground. If you don't you will have to, thanks to Mr. Murphy. I am a great advocate of never discounting something just because it doesn't fit right now.

"It is useless to spend too much time on something that doesn’t fit your set of concepts. However, you never know if your CMA will change (in fact it probably will); also as you learn and grow you may learn that you have a place for that move, after all. I am a voracious learner, I love learning a new move or trick. I normally practice it a few times, until I think I will remember it and whether or not I like it; then it goes into the vault. I can think of dozens of times that I have remember a move and thought, “Hey, this would work really well with what I am doing now.” In short, never dismiss anything out of hand. If someone offers you some knowledge, experiment with it then keep it in the back of your mind until you find a place for it." Look here for the context of this statement: http://www.members.shaw.ca/tmanifold/conceptual.htm
In short I understand that you support Matt's system. That is fine. If you believe it is a good system, that is fine. If you want to express why, then thank you I will listen objectively.
However, if you are going to make a personal attack then please do your research. My website is in my signature. PM me if you have questions. My email is on my site. I don't hide on these forums, I am frank about who I am and what I think. I have no problem disagreeing with people, that is where advancement comes from, through logical, relevant discussion between people of disagreeing viewpoints.

Matt Larsen
29th September 2002, 23:01
"I have no problem disagreeing with people, that is where advancement comes from, through logical, relevant discussion between people of disagreeing viewpoints."

I couldn't agree more, and I thank you for your input. That is why I am on here.

"As a life long grappler I believe that becoming a proficient grappler is harder than become an decent striker."

There are vast differences in training methodology in the different grappling arts. From the perspective of the Judo training methodology I would agree that it is much easier to become a proficient striker. If you recall the boxing experiment that I mentioned earlier, we can do much better in a shorter amount of time with positional ground grappling. Consider that virtually everyone has some idea of how to fight using strikes, and that almost everyone will naturally try to engage with them, and that the mere sense of objective that positional ground grappling gives after even the first lesson is an advantage over someone who doesn't know what they are trying to do. We can, with the same amount of training time approach a 100% success rate with limited training on the ground. While this doesn't "prove" that it is better to train on the ground than on the feet, it does go along way towards showing that it is more efficient.

As for multiple opponents, I will tell you how this comes up in our classes. Almost every week there is at least one guy in the level one course that has quite a bit of previous martial arts training. He is generally the one giving bad advice behind our backs and telling every one on the side that this is all well and good as long as there are not multiple opponents. On the fourth day we spend the day on standup fighting. After the morning session we do a takedowns against the striker practical exercise where they have to takedown someone who is striking them wearing boxing gloves.

After several rounds of this I generally draw out the afore mentioned holder of the red sash who, by the way, generally speaking takes the biggest and most painfully obvious beating in the class. I say “So you have had some training before?…… How long have you been training?…..27 years?…You should be pretty good by now. I bet your thinking that this is all good as long as you don’t have multiple opponents.” By this point he has to agree because he has been saying it behind our back to the class all week. I then say “All right, you, you, and you…….Get him!” He quickly goes down in a nightmare of knees and elbows.

After we have established that twenty seven years of five animal Kung-Fu is not enough to take on three or four guys with three days of grappling, we then talk about the realities of fighting multiple opponents. We could all go down to the local junior high school and take on multiple opponents. Our size and strength advantage will see us through. We can’t however take on two of ourselves because we have no advantage. So we must have some sort of advantage in order to prevail. It can be size and strength as at the junior high, or it can be a technical advantage. Of course the technical advantage required is pretty large. So the real question is, is this skill level one? I think that we are much better off making sure that we can beat one opponent before we start planning on three.

I also think however that the techniques and tactics that we learn to defeat a single opponent must grow into the tactics and techniques that we will use on multiple attackers latter in our training lives.


Matt Larsen

tmanifold
29th September 2002, 23:20
I think we are arguing two sides of the same coin here. We both agree that to be effective one must include all ranges. Your boxing analogy as well as your kung fu analogy show that. I just think that the system should be striking based while you obviously used BJJ as the base. So at this point I think it is time to stop arguing that point and it is time to ask questions.

First You mentioned positional ground fighting. By this I take it you mean gaining and maintaining dominant position. This is a very important part of fighting so we both agree that one should be proficent in this aspect. Now here is my question. In your opinion, and more specifically does the system teach, what is the prefered method of finishing the conflict? This here is the main point of contention in my veiw. Do you prefer the BJJ based submissions?

Matt Larsen
30th September 2002, 01:52
IMO the fight will most likely be finished by one or the other fighters buddy with a gun. If you drop him at your feet with the Vulcan death grip and his buddy comes in with a gun, you still lose. If it did come down to you finishing him the preferable methods would be your own weapon, sidearm, knife, a brick, etc. If you only have your hands, the best option would be to choke. This can of course be made easier with supplemental attacks such as the eyes etc. Submissions such as in BJJ come into play more as a way to teach control of your opponent than as a preferred method to incapacitate him.

If you remember what I said earlier about knife fighting, it will help to understand what I mean. Assume that in a real knife fight you will probably not know that you are in a knife fight until it is too late. Therefore you must always assume that your opponent may be armed. That being the case how do you avoid his weapons? By controlling him. This is not very different from the control necessary for submission.

In fact we train to fight the knife wielder by using a stun gun. If he can get his stun gun out of his pocket and “stab” you, you loose. It only makes people a little more serious about it to add the negative reinforcement. This is the same way you train to avoid biting, eye gouging etc. In addition to all of this, submissions make it a heck of a lot more fun. That may sound unimportant but getting people to actually train is the real key to our success. The perfect system that nobody actually does is a failure.

Matt Larsen

Jody Holeton
30th September 2002, 03:55
Dear all,

Can civilians really try out the training on some of the Army/marine bases?

Is the MA training open to all Army personel? Enlisted and officer?

mt2k
2nd October 2002, 02:59
My father was a member of the orginal BN of Darby's Rangers ( He joined up with them in Feb.1943, and was assigned to the newly formed 4th Bn just before the invasion of Sicily.) He recieved extensive hand to hand combat training courtesy of the British Commandos. He went on to serve in Africa, Sicily and Italy, until being shipped home in June, 1944.
He spent the rest of the war as a h2H instructor.
He was involved in many hand to hand, sentry killing, brutal kill or be killed encounters and still has the scars/nightmares to prove it.
I was also in close contact with Col. Applegate for the last 7 years of his life and I spent a week at his ranch in 1996.
My experiences with the h2h I was taught by my dad and other like minded experts saved my butt many times in my 20 years as a NYC Court officer, and 10 years moonlighting in the security field. It can be adapted to law enforcement with very little modifications.
The FAS methods cannot be truely appreciated through books, videos, etc. And not all WW2 methods were Fairbairn influenced.
All I can say is that the ruthless, rushing in attacks employing a handful of simple brutal blows have to be seen to be appreciated.
I have read here, " If you are close enough to hit him then he can hit you.." Which is true.
BUT..the trick of the system is to attack him first. It really is that simple.
I am not, nor have I ever been in the service. So I feel unqualified to advise Mr. Larson as to what his people should be doing.
But I will say this..I teach combat point shooting to military/LEO's both here and in Europe. Mainly to SWAT instructors. And I use the exact syllabus from Shooting to Live, Kill or get Killed and the SOE syllabus.
But because I learned it from men who really understood it I have heard this from many of my students.." Holy s... I never knew it was this good!!! The books don't do it justice.."
And the same is true of the unarmed systems that I learned from men like my dad, Applegate and Carl Cestari.
Matthew Temkin

sifureyes
2nd October 2002, 03:40
This is my philosohy, on fighting whether it be war time, or out in town,
"YOU MAY BE A BETTER FIGHTER THAN ME, BUT I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU THE CHANCE TO PROVE IT"

A commmon saying in San Soo,
HIT FIRST HIT HARD HIT OFTEN FINISH HIM UP
that can be applied to anything anystyle no matter what

for those who still teach martial arts for self defense only neve throw the first punch, that is very outdated, no and days you have to be open minded as to what sout there, you may try and be the nice guy, but
What if that the guys first punch happens to have a knife init you didn't see and he caught you right across the throat, or a deep chest wound.

just food for thought

Del reyes

mt2k
2nd October 2002, 03:59
Exactly. Or as many of my instructors said, "The fight should be over before the other guy realizes that he was in a fight."
I always felt that if you strike first, without telegraphing, with speed & power from up close, then the system that you used is not important.
Some of the toughest LEO's I ever worked with were former boxers.

Matt Larsen
2nd October 2002, 11:11
I agree completely. What you don't is that moment of hesitation when you are two feet from the enemy and your weapon malfunctions.

When we started this program, believe it or not the doctrine was to take a knee when you had a malfunction.

Matt Larsen

mt2k
2nd October 2002, 12:26
Last year I was a teaching point shooting class at a SWAT conference at the old Fort Devins. One of the students had a malfunction with his pistol at the 5 foot line. He dropped down to one knee to clear it and I stopped the class. Then I showed him the proper response..moving in rapidly and hitting the target with a tigers claw/face smash.
The other students were amazed. One guy said that it never occured to him to attack unarmed during a gunfight.
Which expalins a lot of faults with police training.
As my old man said, it's not what you do. It's how you do it that counts. He always taught that it's not the technique, but the attitude that saves your butt.
Matt..Contact me off board if you want some information about the FAS system. I have some items I can share with you. Matthew Temkin
temahedysa@aol.com

Chuck.Gordon
24th March 2006, 09:27
Update on US Army CQC training in Germany:

Currently, there is quite a bit of CQC training going on here (the Grafenfels summer resort and ski paradise).

1-4 Infantry at Hohenfels has an active and ongoing program as do several other organizations.

They've brought in outside instructors as well, and many of the troops have entered local MMA competitions and have done well.

I've been in contact with Kevin Leavitt (who's on an extended TDY right now) about the Hohenfels program and they seem to be doing good things down there.

LaTerian Bradley laid a lot of the groundwork (pun intended), and the training seems to be catching on here.

The new gym at Graf, in fact, includes a lage, well appointed wrestling/boxing/martial arts room intended to facilitate the training.