Modern Army Combatives Level 1

**The_Ghost** · Posted On: 1/12/2006 9:12pm

Wow, let me tell you something. For being 5 days long its badass, and they cram a lot into it. But you practice everything for so long that you get it down pretty well, though I've got a lot to learn from it still.

Graduated from the class today, the only hard part was the punch drill which was conducted yesterday. If anyone says the Army doesn't train its soldiers for hand to hand is an idiot and I have swelling and bruises to prove it.

But the motto of the class is: "The winner is the first guy whose buddy come back to the fight with a gun."

**HoratioHooah** · Posted On: 1/12/2006 10:58pm

Originally Posted by The_Ghost

"The winner is the first guy whose buddy come back to the fight with a gun."

That's assuming the aformentioned buddy isn't as retarded as the commo guy who smashed my finger off back in the 'Stan.

Yeah, I'm still bitter.

**Sam Browning** · Posted On: 1/12/2006 11:15pm

Could you please provide a more detailed discription Ghost? It's an interesting topic.

**The_Ghost** · Posted On: 1/13/2006 12:48am

Well each of the five days starts out with warm up exercises. You do 'drills' which is basically simple grappling moves most of them with the purpose of gaining dominant position. After you do that you spend some more time practicing drills, only the next group is more just practicing the movements to get people into submissions. At first I thought they were pretty dumb but it really does help with the speed and ease at which you can achieve the submissions. Of course you end the warm up drills with shrimping, and TONS of shrimping.

Next for about 2-3 hours you practice the submissions/dominant positions/takedowns/clinches or whatever may be on the agenda for the day. Go to lunch, come back, do the warm up drills again maybe practice the moves a bit more for reinforcement for an hour to ninety minutes and then after that its about 2 hours of rolling.

You do that for 4 days straight. then on that fourth day instead of rolling you go through the punch drill. At first I didnt think it would be **** because I've been punched plenty of times. But they made sure to pick the biggest baddest dudes in the Battallion to teach us a thing or two. The idea of the drill is to give you confidence in your ability to get the **** knocked out of you while still being able to man up and execute a movement. All the punchers are briefed and in all honesty they are all good guys.

Basically you have 4 rounds, and every time you start a new round the intensity increases. All you can do is protect yourself and move in for the clinch. They can hit you, they WILL hit you. lol. This drill knocked me around like crazy, but I passed.

On the fifth and final day you warm up like the other days and then you spend the rest of the morning being quizzed on EVERYTHING you learned the last week. And I mean everything. After lunch break you come back and basically they set up Pankration rule sets and let you fight one or two matches and lets you see the difference when people are hitting you.

The class basically familiarizes you with basic combatives so you dont do anything too stupid and so that all soldiers facing a combat situation aren't left defenseless if put into a hand to hand situation.

**Gezere** · Posted On: 1/15/2006 8:35pm

Be thankful I wasn't you instructor. I always look forward to "PUNCH DAY".

**BSDaemon** · Posted On: 1/15/2006 8:41pm

Did they teach you the Gracie Gift Guard Pass??

**Lucky Seven** · Posted On: 1/16/2006 5:19am

the one that makes the one doing it be triangled ?

**Locu5** · Posted On: 1/16/2006 6:48am

HAHA, I LOVE the "you must get double-underhooks while Sgt. Ugh tries to beat your face in" drill. You should see the Level 3 guys line up to get to be the puncher. I also like the disclaimer "this is not hazing... no really its not."

It is very possible we will be offering courses for the syllabus soon; Bull is a certified Level 3 instructor and is working with Larson to finalize some details IIRC.

**Spunky** · Posted On: 1/16/2006 7:36am

What kind of gear (if any) do you guys wear when you do this stuff? I mean protective gear, mostly. Also, how are the "levels" broken down? I assume they have you go over the same scenerios with knives/ETs/etc at some point?

**Gezere** · Posted On: 1/16/2006 8:01am

Originally Posted by Locu5

HAHA, I LOVE the "you must get double-underhooks while Sgt. Ugh tries to beat your face in" drill. You should see the Level 3 guys line up to get to be the puncher. I also like the disclaimer "this is not hazing... no really its not."

It is very possible we will be offering courses for the syllabus soon; Bull is a certified Level 3 instructor and is working with Larson to finalize some details IIRC.

For punch day we have everyone line up and thend the have to go into the converted raquetball court and they don't know which instructor they will have to face. I love seeing the fear in their eyes when the come in and see:

What kind of gear (if any) do you guys wear when you do this stuff? I mean protective gear, mostly. Also, how are the "levels" broken down? I assume they have you go over the same scenerios with knives/ETs/etc at some point?

For us we use mouthgaurd (if striking is involved), MMA gloves, BDUs/ACUs/DCUs, and running shoes or wrestling shoes. Students are allowed to bring things like a cup or protective bra if they want. For "Punch Day" the instructors use Boxing gloves.

You can go to the Ft Benning link for Modern Army Combatives to get some info. Basicly there are 4 levels and 1~3 mostly deals with H2H in a MMA style 4 deals with weapons. The program is always being evaluated and reorganized.

Did they teach you the Gracie Gift Guard Pass??

It is part of the program and we are told we HAVE to teach it the "Army way" but I always so other ways because that one SUCKS.