MMA combatives training a hit in military
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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Not too long ago, GI Joe, a real American soldier involved in life-or-death combat in Iraq, brought down his attacker with a mixed martial arts technique and captured him. It wasn't too long ago that his only choice would have been to shoot -- and kill -- him.
"Instead of using my weapon, I choked him out and we were able to capture and interrogate him," the soldier said.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) has come a long way since 1995, when John McCain, the former Navy pilot now running for president, called the Ultimate Fighting Championship "human cock fighting."
Today, McCain's military brethren in every branch of the service are undergoing combatives training that is rooted in the science of mixed martial arts.
While it still faces pockets of opposition in the mainstream -- MMA competition is sanctioned in only 21 states -- it is extremely popular in the military as a spectator sport, training regimen and intra-service competition. Even though the Army distinguishes between its "combatives program" and mixed martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and other techniques you see inside the octagon have become primary combat tools used when a soldier engages in hand-to-hand combat.
Many UFC stars -- Royce Gracie, Matt Hughes, Randy Couture among them -- have visited Army bases to train soldiers. The use of MMA gives soldiers who have lost their primary weapon, or who is in a fight and cannot access their weapon, more options to survive. It affords them effective strategies for fighting on the ground, standing up or with someone clinging to their back.
"MMA is a portion of the combatives program," said Matt Larsen, director of the U.S. Army Combatives Program at Ft. Benning, Ga. "The biggest differences are that we spend quite a bit of time fighting with weapons and learning how combatives fit into missions. We are always armed and the person we are fighting is usually armed, so grappling over control of the weapon is what's really going on. You don't see too many people at your typical MMA gym grappling over control of a rifle or a knife."
In 1995, the Army began to reassess its hand-to-hand doctrine and Larsen, a former Marine turned Army Ranger, was given the task of developing and implementing a new grappling-based system. It was purely coincidental that the Army's interest in MMA evolved simultaneously with the sport's explosion in our culture. What made it popular to Army policy makers was that it saved lives.
"Not only does it save the lives of U.S. soldiers, but it also saves enemy lives," Larsen said. "When a soldier is well trained, he has the option to use a lesser amount of force. There are many situations now that involve soldiers restraining and detaining people whom they could clearly have killed under the rules of engagement."
In an era of Shock and Awe campaigns and bunker-busting bombs, the general perception is that hand-to-hand combat was obsolete. Not true. Larsen has conducted 900 post-action interviews with service men and women who have engaged in hand-to-hand combat in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
"Because of the nature of the war, we are going into buildings more," Larsen said. "When a soldier enters a building he doesn't know if he will end up helping someone or fighting them for his life."
The Army has gone beyond training. There are competitions -- some on bases in states where it is against the law to stage a UFC event -- that culminate with the Army Combatives Championships every October.
The competitions are seen as a motivational tool and soldiers at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina have embraced them. Ft. Bragg is the two-time defending Army Combatives champion and is home to Tim Kennedy, the Army's only three-time individual champion.
"The development of the combatives program in the Army has moved so far, so quickly and as a soldier it's reassuring to see the Army getting the right people to train us," Kennedy said.
The MMA instructor on Ft. Bragg is civilian contractor Greg Thompson who also runs a gym in nearby Fayetteville. On any given night the place is teeming with soldiers who can't get enough MMA training.
"MMA training is the hardest training I do," said Major R.J. Hughes, who works out with Thompson at Ft. Bragg and at his Reality of Combat Gym. "I wrestled in high school and at West Point [the U.S. Military Academy] we were required to take a semester of boxing. Each of those sports requires its own level of conditioning. But MMA combines both of them. You have to train in a much broader way."
In one area of the gym, there is Kennedy, a pro who has competed in the IFL and WEC. But across the room are a dozen soldiers simply trying to get an edge before they deploy.
Thompson dotes over all of them.
"For a soldier to be successful at getting to their feet, they need to train with someone who can keep them on the ground," he said. "For a soldier not to get punched in the face, he or she needs to train with someone who can punch them in the face. I take this very personal because these guys are going overseas so I want to prepare them the best I can. I want to be able to see them when they come home."
