Wounded Ronin
06-09-2005, 09:41 AM
Phil claims that the current Army hand to hand combat manual is crap because it contains BJJ, and writes that (snort snicker) the stilted karate-like Applegate unarmed stuff is better.
http://www.themartialist.com/0604/criticalfm.htm
Apart from a brief section on the bladed boxing-style "fighter's stance," the next 114 pages depict pairs of men in camouflage BDUs (one or both of whom are wearing sneakers...?)
Ah hah hah, Phil dosen't even know wrestling shoes when he sees them. In spite of his gigantic paraphenilia fetish.
working through a seemingly endless succession of mounts, controls, guards, chokes, sweeps, and locks.
Yes, endless. Clearly. Not, you know...stripped down and simplified.
Setting aside one paragraph on the need for dominant body position, there is no discussion of the dangers of groundfighting (particularly in the hazardous physical environment of a battlefield, where armed multiple opponents are virtually guaranteed and smooth gymnasium floors are few and far between). There are no strategies or techniques offered for avoiding going to the ground and no discussion of the increased danger of being knifed (or bayoneted, if you will) while grappling.
Broken Warsaw Pact glass and Soviet lava?
I haven't exactly made an exhaustive study of military field manuals, but comparing this text to previous Army curricula reveals a disturbing contamination. Gone are the brutal, practical methods of Applegate and his WWII contemporaries, replaced by popular grappling sport methodology that turns the requirements of the battlefield on their collective ear. In an environment characterized -- by definition -- by armed, plural enemies often clad in body armor, committed grappling techniques are the least suited to the pragmatic needs of soldiers. Yet it is these methods that dominate the field manual, displacing appropriate techniques while flagrantly at odds with the context in which they are to be applied.
It's hard not to call this the worst combatives manual yet produced by the Army. The popularity of BJJ has taken its toll on the curriculum, leaving me wondering how many years it will persist in military doctrine.
Poor Phil. Unable to deal with the presence of stripped down basic grappling in the current Army manual, he has to go and claim that Applegate's stuff was *clearly* better.
I'm not knocking on Applegate; I think his stuff was good for the time. But, seriously, his stuff is hardly the end all be all of hand to hand combat. I remember reading this Applegate stick technique where he was saying that you could defeat your enemy by first scraping him horizontally across the belly with the end of your stick, and then ramming the end up under his jaw. I mean, that's sort of random, and by no means a guaranteed finisher.
http://www.themartialist.com/0604/criticalfm.htm
Apart from a brief section on the bladed boxing-style "fighter's stance," the next 114 pages depict pairs of men in camouflage BDUs (one or both of whom are wearing sneakers...?)
Ah hah hah, Phil dosen't even know wrestling shoes when he sees them. In spite of his gigantic paraphenilia fetish.
working through a seemingly endless succession of mounts, controls, guards, chokes, sweeps, and locks.
Yes, endless. Clearly. Not, you know...stripped down and simplified.
Setting aside one paragraph on the need for dominant body position, there is no discussion of the dangers of groundfighting (particularly in the hazardous physical environment of a battlefield, where armed multiple opponents are virtually guaranteed and smooth gymnasium floors are few and far between). There are no strategies or techniques offered for avoiding going to the ground and no discussion of the increased danger of being knifed (or bayoneted, if you will) while grappling.
Broken Warsaw Pact glass and Soviet lava?
I haven't exactly made an exhaustive study of military field manuals, but comparing this text to previous Army curricula reveals a disturbing contamination. Gone are the brutal, practical methods of Applegate and his WWII contemporaries, replaced by popular grappling sport methodology that turns the requirements of the battlefield on their collective ear. In an environment characterized -- by definition -- by armed, plural enemies often clad in body armor, committed grappling techniques are the least suited to the pragmatic needs of soldiers. Yet it is these methods that dominate the field manual, displacing appropriate techniques while flagrantly at odds with the context in which they are to be applied.
It's hard not to call this the worst combatives manual yet produced by the Army. The popularity of BJJ has taken its toll on the curriculum, leaving me wondering how many years it will persist in military doctrine.
Poor Phil. Unable to deal with the presence of stripped down basic grappling in the current Army manual, he has to go and claim that Applegate's stuff was *clearly* better.
I'm not knocking on Applegate; I think his stuff was good for the time. But, seriously, his stuff is hardly the end all be all of hand to hand combat. I remember reading this Applegate stick technique where he was saying that you could defeat your enemy by first scraping him horizontally across the belly with the end of your stick, and then ramming the end up under his jaw. I mean, that's sort of random, and by no means a guaranteed finisher.
