The army also doesn't have time to train combative martial arts like the movies would like you to believe. There are a lot of people out there who honestly believe that special ops are spending there days out in the jungle practicing secret hand-to-hand killing techniques, when that simply isn't the case. The real fact is that they only have time to spend a week (or two if they are lucky) every six months or so for close qaurter combat training. Most don't even train close quarter combat after basics anyways; it's only the elite that spend any time, or $$ on it at all.
The reason is that a. they have so much to learn and train, and a lot of it is technology related. And b. the situation where they will have to use close quarter combat skills most likely will not occur in todays modern warfare. Granted, a Green Beret is more likely to run into this situation then your ordinary non-airborn soldier, but even in that case the situation is still rare. Basically if your in the military and you find yourself in close quarter combat w/ the enemy, then someone screwed up royally. On todays battlefields, you should never be that close where you can't shoot the enemy....period. Like Yiliquan1 said, they have these things called guns
.
This is just my civilian understanding of the situation, anyhow.
A side note....just because the likelihood of close-quarter-combat is small in todays warfare, that doesn't mean that our soldiers have it any easier, or deserve any less respect. I feel that they have it more difficult then I could even imagine, and actually need to be respected even more then people do. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be able to fight my enemy gun-to-gun, or hand-to-hand, then be sitting in a trench wondering is I'm going to get hit with a scud, or sprayed with chemicals. The later makes it even more difficult because there is sometimes little sense of control.
Yiliquan1:
I taught Yiliquan and Taijiquan at Fort Riley, KS from 1995 to 1997, I taught the same at Camp Zama, Japan from 1999 to 2002, and I am hammering out a contract to do the same here at Fort Lewis, WA, so I know what I am talking about.
That's pretty cool. I've never gotten anything as cool as a contract. I just had, on a couple of occassions, run into military guys who were temporarily stationed at sulfrage in Michigan who would go to the gym that I was teaching Filipino Martial Arts at. They saw what I did, got guys from their unit together, and we trained for a couple of weeks, on different occasions. One time was all knife, the other time was improvised weapons and empty hand. We had a really good time. Also, one of my best friends is airborn; special ops. Although inactive training with me at this time, he is also one of my students.
A couple of questions:
How do you go about hammering a contract with a base? As a civilian N.I.N.J.A.
(LOL), what is the likelyhood of me being able to do the same? Also, how do you go about teaching your system(s) (Tai-Chi, and Yiliquan) to the soldiers? I'm asking because these are internal systems, so I'm wondering how you go about making them practical for these guys who may not have the time available to learn an internal system in a traditional manner.
Just some curious questions, and you seem have experience and to know what your talking about regarding the matter.
:asian:
