USMC and the martial arts

theletch1

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I found this poster on a USMC forum to which I belong. Thought it appropriate for this board. By the way.... this coming monday, November 10, 2003 is the 228 birthday of the United States Marine Corps. OOOH-RAH!!!
 
Not combat TKD. None of the kicks in the picture are higher than the waist. The point of the poster is not to indicate that the USMC is teaching any type of martial art that is studied in a dojo/dojang/whatever. The martial arts here is in a much broader sense. It's a promo, pure and simple. I enjoyed it.
 
I understand that it is a promo. I was stating though, that the style they teach them is a style of Taekwondo. I read the article.
 
The site that I got the poster from just had the poster. There was no article associated with it there. Could you post a link for the article? I'd be interested to see what has changed in the last decade. The terms for the techniques that we were taught when I was in usually came from some salty old gunny who had done a couple tours in Viet Nam and can't be repeated here. They never mentioned TKD or any other actual style of MA for that matter and to be honest none of us took it very seriously at the time. It was just something to fill a slot on a report to the S-3.
 
The day before, 2nd Lt. Anuradha K. Bhagwati seemed to suspect the tall, powerfully built Marine with whom she was grappling of slacking off a bit: "Come on, sir, fight!" she demanded. "I'm fighting!" he replied
God, I miss those women Marines!

I left the Corps in '95. We didn't have anything like this when I was in. I really wish we had. The last article linked does bring up a good point about h2h techniques being necessary for "peace keeping" missions as we seem to be in more of these than anything else these days.
I was stating though, that the style they teach them is a style of Taekwondo.
The last article linked was saying that the "system" (not a style really) was made up of several different styles. The only time TKD was mentioned was to say that a TKD style kick to the head by a Marine under full combat load would be impractical. I'm certain there are techniques that are similar to some of the TKD techs as TKD is a good style (so long as it isn't Mcdojo style) but to call it ANY one style would be incorrect, I think.
 
They took the practical aspects of several different martial arts, and put it into a belt ranking system.

If your in the Marines, getting a black belt is a lot less involved then most normal martial art systems where it takes 3-5 years of continous training to get one.

However, they take the "art" portion out of the equation. What they do seems very practical for their needs.

Paul
 
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