As is known, for a number of centuries before the advent of "firearms", forms of close combat fighting, or "man against man", were basically based on the use:
- using their own body as a weapon, using "percutaneous techniques" (employing mainly head, arms and legs to strike and break down) and / or "flaming techniques" (using combat techniques to land, block, immobilize, fracture, strangle) ;
- "White Weapons", exploiting, depending on the type of weapon, the specific cutting, perforating, fracturing, tearing, or exploiting a "mixed effect" to truncate, break, break through.
The skill in fighting "body-to-body", understood as lethal capacity, was thus determined by the sum of the dexterity with which it was known to fight unarmed, that is, "with bare hands" combined with the dexterity and ability to handle white, long or short arms that they were.
The subsequent evolution of firearms, however considered "more humanitarian" than white weapons (because of the types of injuries inflicted), had necessarily brought the fight to distant distances, thus causing the direct physical clash in the background.
After World War II a number of Western armies, believing that the long-range technological war would completely eradicate the physical clash, they overlooked their methodical and rigorous training of their soldiers in physical combat. In recent years, however, with the new types of threats and the new types of military intervention, it has become apparent the need for some armed forces and police forces to reorganize, both quickly and quickly, to look again at the aspect of "individual combat body to body".
Many Western nations have been capable of cultivating and developing their combat systems over the years, obviously a few more than others, by implementing them, necessarily, with those combat disciplines that have always guaranteed high-level technical solutions to lethality, both for the purely military and police use, which are the so-called "Martial Arts" (or "the arts of the war") and more specifically the Far East. The extreme-eastern peoples, in fact, have never abandoned the development of their individual fighting arts. However, it is necessary to specify that when speaking of generic Martial Artsperhaps because of excessive globalization, there are many different disciplines involved and that do not provide a significant contribution to the art of combat, or they are not suitable for a specifically military use: they are in fact "the arts", or their "interpretations", which are valid mainly in a gym or in a sports competition (with rules that form a real fight) or, conversely, interpretations ranging from particularly spectacular fights to funamboli, from excessive cruel cruel fights to "clandestine gabbionata ". In short, things out of combat combat, albeit violent and with a few chivalrous rules to which to stand.
Provided this premise, belonging to a particular "Combat School" of a particular "Combat Discipline" takes on a great importance, especially at the initial stage, when learning the basics. When you learn a language, you study a grammar that will very likely be the same as your partner has studied, but you can speak well equally ... the important thing is to be able to communicate. It is also the case for the study of combat: regardless of the discipline that is being used ... the important thing is to fight! In fact, there is no better discipline than another, there will be more discipline more suited to real combat, free from any formal rule, but it will always and only the individual who makes it actually lethal.
In the following, technical terms will not deliberately be used for two specific reasons: not to weigh the reading and not to give the impression of wanting to frame the discourse through a single and specific discipline. Moreover, modern forms of military combat generally appear as a real mix of techniques that are almost always coming from different disciplines, even if they come from different styles within the same discipline. For this reason, these forms of combat are called "Combat Systems". By the way and by the way, just think of the old Greek "Pancrazio", which was a mixture of boxing and fighting, or of the Japanese "Bugei" (war version of "Budo"), which was a mixture of karate, ju-jitsu and handling of various white weapons.
Those who come from the extreme-Oriental martial arts world will not be aware of the "karateistic" systemic approach ... but the fact of itself, in the more general context, will be quite irrelevant (somewhere else to start!).
As a prerequisite of any further discernment, there are three points to be made to stigmatize what the mental approach to combat is:
- there are drugs under the influence of those who have hired them to develop a degree of ferocity immediately and are unable to experience any kind of pain, which means that to stop any attack by these individuals are required techniques that they can immediately break down "biomechanically", not using the techniques that only produce pain;
- there are violent and unscrupulous energies, with the dark ancestral eyes in the eyes, with a crude and prehistoric force, of true Gargoyle self-propelled, capable of striking hard and hard punches like cement ... which can only be countered and killed by possessing an adequate conditioning the physical and possessing the full mastery of an adequate combat technique brought to the extreme of power;
- the present society has been very reluctant to recognize the level of violence and wickedness that is easily perceived in continuous daily news stories. This attitude, naturally promoted by highly qualified opinion-makers, who still talk about the crumbs of biscuits on the jacket, leads to a general and dangerous "lowering perception of the threat".
Going now specifically, the ultimate goal is to establish what requirements and what prerogatives must possess a "combat system" that you want to define "military".
As a rule, after a severe training training, operational soldiers, for a variety of circumstances, will no longer be able to have all the time necessary to maintain a regular training program. However, their potential capacity must remain to be able to express a certain lethality, however and in any case. For this reason, a "combat system" must necessarily select and determine which techniques can be used in different tactical contexts, which can maintain their latitude in the face of scarce training and are more responsive to applicability and effectiveness in diversified contexts different garments, with different equipment and with different armaments to follow. As part of the selection of techniques, they must surely find "white-collar techniques" and "defense and disarming techniques" that are technically effective and can actually be implemented in different operating environments (avoiding particularly complex, and dangerous ones that can be seen in some gymnasiums).
As with any discipline in which you want to experiment, it is necessary to possess and cultivate all those individual faculties and qualities that enable meaningful results, namely: discipline, determination, will, energy, commitment, dedication, perseverance, perseverance, sacrifice spirit and courage.
Thus the right individual approach is highlighted, the "Combat System" must shape the future combatant, must essentially "forge the future blade".
In substance, two different methods of "physical conditioning" must be practiced:
- generic conditioning: this is a physical training aimed at prompting and strengthening all muscles, bones, nerves and tendons correctly in order to face and support those exercises and those motor and neuromuscular activities that will be required by training to combat techniques. Strength, power and agility are increased;
- specific conditioning: this is a physical training aimed at using the limbs, joints, nerves, tendons and muscles to perform those specific movements and those particular efforts that will be required for the acquisition and proper execution of the various techniques of combat, falling techniques included. In this phase, the agility of movement, the resistance to the articular levers, the speed of dodging, the speed and the explosive power of the individual shots are also taken care of, and also the conditioning of the limbs with hard impact on materials of various nature and consistency.
It goes to the study of the techniques of the "Fighting System", their acquisition and, above all, their mastery in different situations and with different sequential concatenations. In this phase, the following aspects are particularly taken care of: concentration, movement and direction change, balance, stability, breathing, muscle contraction, instant reaction capability, resistance to time, perception of space and distance, accuracy and accuracy of strokes (or of moves), timing, reflexes, and rhythm of combat. In fact, during the application of high-speed techniques, a form of "physical-mental conditioning" activates, which, through a very high number of rapid repetitions of the techniques, will allow rapid and "automatic" actions and reactions. Incidentally, such mental conditioning should not be confused with the "mental indoctrination" that has aspects of discipline, inner awareness, and quasi-ascetic formation typical of a number of extreme-oriental combat schools.
Training goes to an advanced stage in which, through different types of combat, the unarmed techniques and the armed forces are developed and combined, and different combat situations are tested to gain confidence in different operating environments: with different set of equipment, with uneven terrain, with low visibility, in confined spaces.
In this context, by going to analyze a number of "systems" currently in use with various Armed Forces, it can reasonably be assumed that a complete cycle for obtaining a soldier possessing so-called "operational readiness for body-to-body combat" has achieved a certain physical combat-oriented form and is able to master well at least some thirty techniques, and it runs over an average of one year. A year structured so that two training sessions per week can be provided, each of which is of a desirable duration of approximately two hours (with half an hour dedicated to combat).
As mentioned, a number of "Combat Systems" have a selection of techniques from different disciplines inside. Each instructor responsible for a particular "System" will rightly, by virtue of his personal and professional experience, apply that choice of techniques that he thinks may be the best or at least the most suitable "for the fulfillment of the assigned mission." Moreover, this was how the different "styles" of fighting were born in the past.
On closing, a small goliard note: the famous 22 ° regiment SAS English has ironically and sympathetically called its own System ... "The Five Japanese Slavery"
Marco Bandioli (Karate Renshi)
(photo: web / US DoD)
