Hey...not sure if this was posted already. I just ran across this video of the army using BJJ. I thought the guard pass was hilarious...check it out
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1462151077277855734&q=muay+thai
the focus is on shooting, as it should be, since there isn't much hand to hand combat in war. some military guys would have you belief that they are studs in hand to hand combat though.
OMG! The guard pass is at the 8:00 mark. I was thinking you guys were ragging on the video because of something subtle. Holy crap...Who teaches these guys?
My brother in law was so proud of going through this training....LOL!
Smasher,
I hope you aren't going in with the impression you are going to become some hand to hand badass. The stuff they teach is crap (and I was infantry so I'm sure we got more training than cooks, secretaries, etc.). Enter some boxing smokers and try to get some outside instruction. For the most part the army guys should stick to weapons. JKB
I just got out of the Army 2 days ago after 3 years of service and can vouch for the Army combatives being totally bogus. All these dudes get Level 1 and Level 2 certified and are immediate masters of MMA, it's totally pathetic. They train for 3 weeks and they think they are total bad asses.
SmasherSnu, you'll do a couple of days of combatives in basic training. The Drill Sgt. will teach it and it will be even worse than what you saw in the video. He will have gone to Army Combatives Level 1 training, which is 5 days long, and he'll make it seem like he's a BJJ black belt.
tttfl
Old School guard pass, probably before triangles were well developed. In fact most of the techniques seems like old school BJJ.
Actually it isn't all bad, because at the end he teaches to posture up and put your knees under the hip which is a good triangle defense. But the beginning of that pass can defenitely get you in serious trouble.
Keep in mind what the army was hoping to acheive with the combatives program.
1) Teach the soldiers some minimal hand to hand skills
2) Don't waste a lot of time doing it
3) Give them a few tricks, so the soldiers FEEL that their combatives training makes them badasses. This is the most important part, to instil fighting spirit.
Unless they are fighting a war against brazil, those basic techniques will be pretty effective against a random schlub, moreso than 3 weeks of boxing would be. Even knowing the positional heirarchy and some basic escapes from the worst positions is a huge advantage.
I knew a marine dude who was always going on about what a killing machine he was, and would talk about how he could kill a man in 3 seconds with his bare hands (double knife hand to the sides of the neck). Utter horseshit, but probably useful in pumping him up before battle, and he would never need to use it in a million years anyway.