New guy here

[PBR549]

My wife found this message board and sent me the link, its a nice site. Anyway, Im in the Army, I am a Staff Sergeant. My MOS is 11B3P Infantry Parachutist. I am currently stationed in Korea. I dont have a whole lot of experience with martial arts, I have graduated from the Army's Combatives Course at Ft. Benning, Ga which is based off Gracie Jiu-Jistsu. I have also trained with Rorion Gracie during a 1 week course he taught to leaders in my Brigade here in Korea. Ive also done a bit of Tae Kwon Do, we are made to do a little training in this for cultural awarness. I prefer Jiu-Jitsu though.
I leave Korea soon and I will be back at Ft. Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Div. I am looking forward to finding some people to train with and from what I understand there is a BJJ school in the area.

[Guest]

Welcome to the forum. There awas a thread a while ago about the H2H training given to you lot. Many felt that BJJ type fighting wasn't the best way to go. What do you think?

The system I study is called Combatives, and was based on a system taught to British Army Commandos and USMC in WW2.

Basically some guys studied loads of martial arts, and then binned anything that wasn't both easy to learn and real nasty. What was left included edge of hand blows to the throat, kicks to the knee and fingers in the eyes etc.

Somehow I can't see how groundfighting could work when you're full of helmets, body armour and webbing.

[PBR549]

Our system is called Combatives also. It is based of Grappling. And if you think about it, its perfect if your wearing all that gear, you can use it against your enemy. I have done some sparring wearing and LBE and it has its advantages. You can hang on to your enemies gear easier than actually holding on to him. Anyway, BJJ is just a base for Combatives, once you progress, you learn different techniques.

[ryanhall]

Welcome, PBR549. What is your opinion of Army Combatives as you were taught them? I can't consider anything 'techniquey' to be combatives, and BJJ definintely falls into that category. Grappling may still be viable when you have gear on, but think about doing it in a combat situation with bullets flying past your head. As you know, you won't be so level-headed in that situation, and applying that arm bar/keylock/kneebar/whatever would be a tall order. Also, grappling ties you up on the ground--a bad thing for 'street' self-defense, and a worse thing for a military combatant. Secondly, WW II Combatives are very simple to learn (it doesn't take long to learn how to cause a lot of trauma to a person if you don't take thier personal well-being into consideration) and apply. I love BJJ and I think that it allows the student to progress quickly, but it wouldn't cut it for the battlefield. If you're on the ground in a bar fight and a bystander MIGHT try to whack you upside the head with his boot if he feels the need, how will you do when everybody not wearing your color uniform is trying IN EARNEST to stab, shoot, kick, crush, etc. you with every means available to them? Not well, I would presume.

Back to Combatives: you shouldn't have to 'progress' to learn the good stuff. It should be all that is taught. The more politically correct a country gets, the less dangerous it wants its military to look. Teaching soldiers to guard and mount and punch or look for an armbar is a lot more palletable to the public than teaching them to crush someone's windpipe with an axe hand, blow out their knee, aim tons of strikes at the groin, and stick fingers in their eyes after a palmheel/chinjab. The powers that be don't want to create a bunch of killers who come home after war and critically injure members of the populace. I'm not demeaning the current method of Army hand to hand combat, I just submit that it is for morale building rather than total practical use. If you are unarmed (no gun, no knife, no stick, no buddy) in war, you've screwed up royally and your best bet is to run until you can get one of the aforementioned armaments anyway. The more advanced a country's military gets, the more its unarmed combat tends to degrade. What makes our soldiers tough is not their knowledge of the guard of some martial arts technique, it's that they are strong, in shape, and they will do everything they can to win. None of the soldiers I have encountered have been anything special at unarmed fighting, but give them a rifle and I'm sure they can take care of business. It's all about priorities. Why waste time on unarmed combat training when you will be using a rifle?

For information on WW II Combatives (recommended):

https://www.gutterfighting.org

https://www.selfdefenseforums.com

This is good stuff, especially the first site. I wish that the military still used this stuff, as the guys who it originated from had more combat experience than just about anyone still active in the US military.

[Guest]

What ryan said.

[PBR549]

Grappling isnt the "end all be all" of Army Combatives. That is what is taught at Skill Level I. It progresses from there and includes different fighting techniques. The ground fighting is were it starts since that is the easiest to teach. The greatest skill the Army teaches its Infantrymen is hitting what you shoot at . But if all goes to shit, you have other skills to fall back on.

[sth2k]

Welcome!

(This is probably the smallest post of them all, since I don't know what else I could put... )