English Military

Dose any one here have any experiance in the British army?
Genrally the regular as opposed to the Territotrial, im just curios to the trainning and self defence methods they learn becuse i figure they have to be quite pratical, the average person wouldent genrally come out of a fight with a solider better off would they?. im thinking about joinning in a few years for the experiance, benefits and to keep fit, learn alot of new stuff and get tougher.

Hi,
I spent 5 years serving in Royal Marine Commando Units and from my experience, most military self defense is bordering on a crap afterthought…. Honestly!
On the plus side, you can broaden your Martial Arts experience as you can try out new clubs and new styles when your posting changes. Also inter-Service competitions are very tough and extreme fun. I participated in many Commando Open Weight Judo Tournaments which were definitely an experience.

The best advice I can honestly give you is to be as sharp as you can BEFORE joining up.
Most military training can be physically demanding and stressful as it is designed to weed out those who will not be able to cope “in the field”. Therefore, like it or not, pack mentality prevails. If you are as sharp as you can be prior to joining up, then you will have no worries.

I have a couple friends that were and are in the British Army where I'm stationed right now. One of which just retired of 30 years. Shame I don't have any of their email addresses or I'd ask them if they'd answer your questions for ya.

Personally I'm a US Marine, but I don't think we train much the same as the brits. Quite honestly, If I were to take serious interest in the way another countries military trains I would look at the IDF. I know a couple friends of friends serving for them as well. Cool guys.

I have a friend who served two tours with the Royal Marines. He is a tribal elder of the Masai, and when I met him, he was on a mission trip to America. He might have weighed 160 pounds, but was tough as nails, and his "testimony" at the church supper was to describe how his "manhood ritual" was killing an African lion with spear, sword, and shield.

Now, an African lion usually weighs between 350 and 450 pounds, and he killed his with a single stroke with his sword. The lion charged him, and when it jumped, he put the sword in front of him and the lion impaled itself on it.
It landed on him, and he said the only thing that he remembers clearly was the last breath the lion took was exhaled right in his face.

Any military unit made up of that kind of moxy would be tough to handle...

Yes, Griff is correct, and has more experience than me in this area. I served three years with the transport corps (rather than one of the 'teeth' corps) and there was absolutely no SD training, except the odd one in a blue moon by a PTI who knew a bit.

Then there was the 'milling'. two minutes of 'controlled aggression' where guys were given boxing gloves and told to get on with it. Pray you never met someone who had done boxing!

My father once told me it stemmed from a time when they did teach these things but the casualty wards were too full of civvies on saturday nights after a few pub brawls (not sur how true that is!).

Like Griff says, you do get the chnce to train in clubs abroad and perhaps a unit will have a club but the military syllabus generally doesn't have it.

That said, the military training itself is useful in other ways which can be applied to your MA.

Oh, a niggling point... there are also Scottish, Welsh and Irish units in the BRITISH military.

What? so they dont get taught any hand to hand combat? thouge i know in a war situation being in a hand to hand fight would be the very last thing it would come down to, but swat teams the cia, mi6 etc would be taught more hand to hand skills wouldent they?

1. I don't know anything about the british army
2. whether they know how to fight or not, an infrantryman is pretty tough - in the same way I would avoid fighting a bricklayer, I would suggest avoding fighting an infantryman. being in the infantry is about being tough and fit, so they may not know alot about SD, but they are formidable.

3. I was in a unit of the IDF that trained for H2H. I took 2 seperate courses, each of several weeks. I imagine that the british units that prepare for swat operations train in a similar manner.

I imagine the more specialist you get (SAS, SBS etc) then the more you get taught but in my experience there is very little taught. Griff was a RM commando and he doesn't seem to think there was much decent stuff taught. Certainly in my 3 years in the army we were never formally taught anything. Maybe a boxing club but nothing compulsory. You were very much left to your own to train in SD/MA.

Funny thing is that I read that in the French Foreign Legion they don't do boxing (except maybe the 2nd parachute group).

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swat teams the cia, mi6 etc would be taught more hand to hand skills wouldent they?

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I believe the police generally have more training in this area than the average squaddy, but then they probably need it more on a day-to-day basis. (SWAT and CIA, btw, are not British, they belong to our colonial cousins in US )