Arirang TV, "Korea's Global TV" (read: self-promotion / propaganda), recently aired a program on nuclear terrorism. One insert of the program concerned South Korea's counter-terrorism task force.
Martial art training is covered around 4:55-5:21. It doesn't look terribly practical to me. The main purpose of martial art training seems to be to help with maintaining "physical and mental power", only.
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Civlians often get the idea that because it's the (a) military, that they must be good at H2H. The reality is that the military is only required to be good at firearms and other things related to modern weapons, and many are barely sufficiently trained at that. The time of warriors learning H2H and tactics/strategy at the same time, Sun Tzu's time, is over. Without a way to gauge what works in H2H war, no military can improve their policies. Even if an individual wished to innovate, fighting against the military bureaucracy would stop them. The only way to stop the bureaucratic red tape is to show them an unrelenting victory using one's original H2H training. But while Sun Tzu trained his own army to success, and Petraeus trained counter insurgency to Iraqis and Americans, there's no war that uses H2H as the basic skill set to test things out in. Without it, people cannot tell the difference between bad and good. Conversely, the civilian sector has much superior H2H training. Thus the old adage "go join the military if you want to learn H2H fighting" is actually totally backwards.
That is a very interesting approach. I agree partially. It is true that warfare has modernized so much, that H2H training has become practically obsolete; however, only 100 years ago there were still occasions where H2H combat was still of value during warfare. It is true that the infantry during the wars of the previous centuries focused on gun-power and other assault weapons, yet circumstances on occasion forced them to resort to H2H combat. Much of this have actually been documented for WWI, WWII and the Vietnam and Korean War. From this we can derive some practical, applicable H2H techniques.
Be that as it may, I have to agree with your assessment that the best H2H training is not to be found in the military anymore, for the reasons you mention.
Thank you again for your input.
Are you referring to Fairburn, Sykes, and the others in charge of British SF H2H training? The ones that were spread across the world from Europe to China?
But the military H2H program didn't use those. Perhaps CQC training for the SEALs are based on similar principles (since they have similar goal orientated jobs) but as much as there is a difference between Special Forces and regular Army, there's even more of a difference between Main Army H2H and SF H2H, and even more of a difference between SF H2H goals and Ancient Era H2H goals/ requirements.
Eventually it all gets lost in the army bureaucracy and what most people get is crud.
Another good example and food for thought is the development of Krav maga. Originally it was a guerilla or counter-guerilla H2H method for disarming, killing, or evading sentries. Meaning, concealed armed or unarmed civilians attacking armed military sentries. Or engaging at hand range against military armed kill squads in urban houses because to do anything else would be suicide.
Now a days, Krav Maga is like either a cardio "system" or a self defense system designed for civilians, where they have to run and obey civilian laws.
Quite a bit of change. So even if a system was real in the past, now not so much. The ability to train fighters now, to become fighters that were trained by the environment of a different era, is almost impossible. Almost. Which is why only a few instructors can be trusted to do anywhere close to the job requirement. And those instructors are not teaching the US military, more or less. They're not teaching anyone else's military either, as far as I know. There could always be one, however, but they, like any other modern army, must deal with modern bureaucracy. Which is a lot more powerful than sticky hands.
P.S. I appreciate the welcome and the kind words.
"So even if a system was real in the past, now not so much" and "what most people get is crud" -- Agreed.
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