Boxing for Uncle Sam (paging military members)

**Eldarbong** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 11:43pm

I read that Mike Bernardo ran the boxing camp in his station when he was in the south african navy (before he signed with K-1 obviously). I'm sure his training was awesome.

**meggaman7** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 11:49pm

I've been to a good number of Navy bases and a few Marine bases and the most I've seen offered were some Karate or cardio kickboxing classes. Don't know **** about Airforce bases, but I'd still guess that you'd be hard pressed to find a decent boxing club on one.

**agamemnon5150** · Posted On: 8/02/2007 2:02am

Originally Posted by balzomin18

Hey agamemnon5150 vbmenu_register("postmenu_1482552", true); where do you take muay thai near ramstein? I've looked but cant find anything.

there's a little gym in K-Town, pretty much all german, but they speack english pretty well too. It's tuesday, thursday and friday, 1930-2130. It's pretty good contact, you can spar if you like, but they wont force you to if your not ready. PM me if your interested, I've been tdy for awhile, so I'm going back today after being gone for almost 2 months.....it's gonna kick my ass

here's the website with the address and contact info. Good luck

http://www.barbarossa-gym.de/wirueberuns/wir.html

**balzomin18** · Posted On: 8/02/2007 3:23pm

Thanks aga. The price is really nice and the times should be great. I'll definitely have to check it out.

**Devil** · Posted On: 8/02/2007 3:42pm

Originally Posted by D Dempsey

I I spent some time at Kadena AFB in Okinawa .

Representin' Schwab. Frank's Franks FTW.

Anyway, in the Marines, we had organized boxing for the guys who were really good - like potential Olympians. Other than that, I don't remember seeing much boxing that was worth a ****. Just my recollection, though.

**AlienGunfighter** · Posted On: 8/10/2007 6:55pm

It depends on where you go. Some bases are ok with boxing and martial arts, others ban it outright "because you could get hurt and have to take time off to heal and that is lost man-hours and work won't get done blah blah blah."

I was once stationed on a ship that had attitude B. In port I would train 2-3 times a week at a dojo, and one day I caught a punch with my face and had a black eye. No big deal, it happens, right?

Wrong.

As soon as I got back to the ship, the **** hit the fan. I was actually sat down and asked who had assaulted me, did I have a drinking problem, etc. Once they found out it was from sparring, the duty officer wanted to know if I wanted to press charges for assault, "because things like that shouldn't be happening even in a dojo," etc. (That opinion came from an officer whom I later discovered had a second-degree black belt in--you guessed it--TKD).

Once everybody learned I was cool with what happened and that it was just an accident, the discussion turned into a heart-wrenching, "should we let him participate in such a dangerous activity?" debate.

The irony goes thusly--at the time I had trained for several months at this dojo while stationed on that ship, having nothing but the odd bruise or two as injuries. Meanwhile, the base softball league is in full swing, and all of the softball players are tearing ligaments, rotator cuffs, breaking bones in their hands, etc. The base is full of people on crutches and in slings. But my black eye rated a debate in the perceived "dangerousness" of an activity.

I was told that I was no longer permitted to participate in martial arts. I went anyway. I didn't need them, but I had lies ready in case I got bruised again.

Lesson learned: "military" does not always = "tough" or even "knows anything about hand-to-hand combat." In fact, it often means "let's make up a new stupid rule to combat a non-existent problem and justify our own existence."

**Emevas** · Posted On: 8/12/2007 10:54am

The base I'm going to has a boxing gym, so I have a feeling they'll be ok with me boxing at their boxing gym, but thanks for the story.

**klefmung** · Posted On: 8/12/2007 4:21pm

who the heck boxes at a boxing gym?

**NoMan** · Posted On: 8/14/2007 10:13am

Originally Posted by Emevas

I'm going Active Duty with the Air Force soon, and plan to join up with the on base boxing gym to keep up my training, because I figure it's cheaper and more convienient than anything else available. Curious if anyone has had any experience with this route. Is the quality generally good, or is it kinda "hands off" and just free access to some bags? I know every base is different, but hell even personal anecdotes would be great.

Edit: Oh, and I had no idea really where to post this. If it needs to be a YMAS thread, go right ahead.

I was the boxing coach for USMAPS when I was stationed there. The only other boxing "camp" I saw was at Ft. Bliss in Texas.

My experience was the exact same as Aliengunfighter. At USMAPS, I went to several Commandant briefings, athletic meetings, etc., about the dangers of boxing and MMA *. After coaching for six months some two dozens Cadet Candidates, I never had one single boxing related injury. The three months I coached it the next year, I coached about 30 CCs and never had an injury there either. I received no funding for it and paid for almost all the equipment out of pocket. (On an E4 salary, no less). The boxing coach at West Point was fortunately more helpful and donated some equipment and support.

Meanwhile, the basketball team almost couldn't play because the injury rate had cut them down to six players, the football team had a almost a dozen players with torn ACLs or other serious surgery related issues, and the people who weren't affiliated with any sports team were failing P.T. and CFA, (Cadet Fitness Assessment) tests, while my co-ed team had one of the highest P.T. scores overall.

I never received one word of thanks from anyone in the higher chain of command for all my help or time. If it weren't for the Cadet Candidates, I would have quit it a long time ago. The only reason that they allowed the team was that three of the Cadet Candidates would spar each other in places like the raquetball court or go to boxing gyms on their own free time, which freaked out the chain of command that they could be hurt outside the installation.

(* I helped coach the BJJ team, but Joe Viz was my trainer and the man in charge, but since he was a volunteer civilian, they could only yell at me).

The Ft. Bliss camp was just a few bags set up in a raquetball courtroom where people hit the bags. The dedication of the people that started it was awesome, but it was never an ofificially sanctioned thing, it was more of a bottom-up type of arrangement.