24 years ago when I was at infantry school in Wainwright, we did quite a bit of hand to hand. We also did pugul(sp?) stick training to simulate using our rifles like staffs, or short pikes if you had a bayonet attached.
We used a sand pit and at time you had anywhere from 2 to 30 guys in there at one time. The only rules were no eye gouging, groin blows, or closed fist (although that rule tended to be variable). The objective tended to be take the person down until he tapped out, or throw him out of the pit, or he was unconcious (which was more accidental than done on purpose, but with some of the guys you were never sure). With 30 guys in there you developed eyes in the back of your head quickly.
I’m glad I didn’t have that Sargeant you quoted as my instructor. By being in that pit, it helped me overcome the adrenaline response. This carried over to the typical situations an infantryman finds himself in with his rifle. When you train using blanks in a rifle you know that your chances of getting hurt are nil, so you don’t have the opportunity to temper yourself for combat situations. You have the techniques, but you don’t have the mental toughness. Being in the pit, I believe, would have helped tremendously during an actual combat situation even though you may never use any of the hand to hand skills you were taught there.
Uzi:
First, the sargeant was referring to the ongoing skills that infantrymen in the CAF. According to him, there is little emphasize on empty hand fighting because it has little place on the modern battlefield. And he is quite correct.
Second, they still do some hand-to-hand training during Battle School (now in Gagetown btw), in order to develop the internal skills you mentioned.
Answers to the Scenario:
I actually didn’t expect any answers. 
I’ll write something up shortly and post it.
He is wrong, but that never stopped a Sargeant before. Any training where you learn your about your abilities and gain confidence from it is valuable.
**
No, battle school’s are in the location listed below. Gagetown, IIRC, does offer advanced courses for NCO’s, etc. The RCR 2nd battalion (Royal Canadian Regiment: affectionately known as the ‘Chicken Fuckers’ by everyone else in the military) is based there and I was there on one of the Rendevous’ back in the early 80’s.DND
It is nice to know that the time I spent serving my country qualified me as ditch digger! Wow! Think of the possibilities for career advancement!
First, your obviously right about the enlisted battle schools. My mistake, I did a little research and discovered I was thinking of the officer battle school which is in Gagetown.
Second, please tell me that the first half of your post is some kind of joke. I said quite clearly the type of training you specify does develop the skills you mention and those are useful; however, hand-to-hand fighting is not practical on the moden battlefield. I don’t think you’ll find any current military doctrine emphasize hand-to-hand fighting as a viable tatical military option. If you can find one I’d love to see it.
Allow me to make it clearer:
Hand-to-Hand Training (military style) gives you confidence, aggressive warrior spirit and hand-to-hand skills.
Confidence = good
Aggressive warrior spirit = good (for a soldier)
Hand-to-hand skills on the modern battlefield = not good
Sorry for the delay in responding to the rest. Just got back from teaching. Been a busy night. One of those nights where the students just won’t let you go without asking “One More Question” ™. I’ll try to post something tonight, if not then tomorrow.
I should have added a smiley behind my first sentence. From my memory of Sargeants there was only one way to do things and that was their way.
Look at the link I posted.
Under the section ‘What they do’:
“Engage in unarmed combat”
Under the section ‘Specialty Training Course’:
“Unarmed Combat Instructor”
Why would you engage in unarmed combat?
-Taking out a sentry - most likely use a knife for this.
-Run out of bullets - had it happen myself in training. I was out of bullets, he was out of bullets. Now we didn’t fight because it was in training, but if it wasn’t I’d have done my best to kill him (and I would have as the idiot was attacking with his full pack on!).
-Peacekeeping operations (pretty much the only thing the Canadian Forces does now) where shooting someone isn’t an option but you have to subdue them.
I certainly agree the ‘modern battlefield’ doesn’t require a lot of unarmed combat skills, but as the Canadian Army isn’t seen much in that context anymore then it should be prepared for anything and everything.
Some interesting stuff in this thread. I do feel that there are some
misrepresentations about Tai Chi, though. The slow-motion forms
that most people associate with Tai Chi do not make up the sum
total of the art. They are forms, just like the kata in karate or the
forms in other martial arts. The reason that Tai Chi is so popular as
a form of exercise is that the slow-motion, low impact forms are
usually suitable for people of all ages and differing physical abilities.
To be sure, there are plenty of schools out there that only deal with
the forms (without their meaning), and in my opinion, these schools
don’t offer anything much better than Yoga for self-defense. But
there are plenty of crappy strip-mall Karate schools too. That doesn’t
negate the value of these arts when they are well-taught. Granted,
it’s much more difficult to find a decent Tai Chi school than a decent
Karate school in this country.
The forms make up only one part Tai Chi. Grandmaster
William Chen said something to the effect that learning a form is
analagous to getting an MBA. It won’t necessarily make you a good
businessperson, but it can teach you a lot. The main purpose of
the forms seem to be to teach how to “energize” during a move
then “deenergize” in-between moves. A punch that starts out
“deenergized” and relaxed then energizes on impact will be much faster and
stronger. The velocity of 0 to 60 is much greater than 30 to 60.
Obviously, it’s much more complicated than this, but it’s a start.
All of the fighting training that I’ve participated in is done (at
William Chen’s school in New York) is at full-speed
and with full contact.
The famous push-hands training offers an excellent way to learn
to understand the nature of balance in a variety of attacks. It’s
a mixture of grappling and wrestling (standing up), and can teach joint-locking
and escapes as well as rooting, balance, and sensitivity (learning
to understand what your opponent is doing). It teaches fantastic
“reactive” skills that are often overlooked in other forms of self-
defense. Coupled with Tai Chi
boxing techniques (practiced with gloves and more similar to Western
boxing than, say, Karate), you have a fairly comprehensive art.
Tai Chi does have shortcomings. The art as I have been taught it does
not seem to have much to teach regarding ground work. But it is a
an otherwise fairly comprehensive martial art,
and even includes weapons training for those who are so inclined.
It is certainly misunderstood in this country, but I feel that this is more
due to the lack of good instructors out there than to any shortcomings
in the art.
The Tai Chi practitioners from William Chen’s school routinely dominate
san shou and other fighting competitions. No, not because Tai Chi is
their “secondary” martial art.
Macartie,
Did you register just for this post?
Yup. That was my first post. This is my
second. I’ve been reading these Bulletin Boards
for years, but I had resisted registering
because these boards are SO SLOW!
I have a pretty good connection, but I almost
always have trouble.
Not only was that my first post, but it was
my first foray into the “In My Humble Opinion”
boards. I usually check out “Great Debates.”
Macartie,
Did you see these posts?
SimonX,
Yes, I read these. You made some good points. I still feel,
however, that Tai Chi has been somewhat misrepresented
in this thread. Not so much by you, but by others. For example,
I disagree with the position that a Tai Chi practitioner with superb
skills must have learned these skills from another art. Or that
all of the good martial aspects of Tai Chi must really come
from elsewhere.
As I said before, there are plenty of lousy Tai Chi teachers out
there, just as there are plenty of lousy teachers of any variety
of martial arts. But there are also some great ones, and even
a few world-class great ones.
There are any number of reasons why Tai Chi is perceived the
way it is in this country. For one, Tai Chi has never really lent
itself very well to flashy competitions, so the art hasn’t attracted
as much attention. Also, many people practice the form part of the
art without progressing on to (or often, even hearing
about) the martial & self-defense aspects. And there’s not a
thing wrong with that. But the fact remains that those aspects
are there.
I can only go by what I’ve seen. I’m NOT a martial arts expert, but
I have studied Tai Chi for over ten years, and I have boxed, pushed-hands,
wrestled & grappled with a huge variety of martial artists from all
types of schools: Aikido, Jujitsu, Pa Kua/Hsing I, more kinds of Kung Fu
that I can remember, Karate, Judo, TKD, Krav Maga, etc. I’ve been
lucky, because the NYC Tai Chi school I go to does attract a lot of martial
artist visitors from around the world. I’ve found that Tai Chi training
works pretty well against a wide variety of techniques. That’s NOT
to say that it’s better or worse, only that it is a real martial art.
It seems to work especially well as a defensive art. I feel that I have
been able to defend myself against VASTLY superior martial artists and
escape without injury. To me, that says that Tai Chi offers some things
that are unique (and REALLY misunderstood) in the world of martial arts.
What if you are attacked by someone wielding a banana?
You split?
First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
I don’t know what to do if he has a bunch.
what about pointed sticks?
Shut up!
Gettin’ all high and mighty, are we? Fresh fruit not good enough?
WELL LET ME TELL YOU - WHEN YOU"RE ATTACKED BY SOME HOMICIDAL MANIAC WITH A BUNCH OF LOGANBERRIES DON"T COME CRAWLING TO ME!
What if you don’t have a 16 ton weight?
Release the tiger!
a pineapple
Shoot him.