MMA and the Armed Forces

My cousin was at Annapolis for a few years and he told me they required guys to take some sort of combative class. He did boxing and grappling

But thats at the Naval Academy so things may be different elsewhere.

My instructor helps run some army combative programs at some local bases around the D.C. area, they hold tournaments every so often for the guys and run combatives instructor licensing every month or two as well. I know there’s a major Army tournament coming up in George later this month (first round: grappling, second round: pancration, third round: mma) and that seems to be how most of the combatives tournaments are set up.

The Canadian Special Operations Regiment trains in quasi MMA (sparring while wearing full combat gear).

I am in the Navy…have been 9 years

The Navy has no dedicated MMA team like they do with the other sports such as wrestling or boxing.

Depending on your job, it may even be frowned upon as well. One of my good friends is 1-1 as an amateur MMA fighter, due to his job, they wont allow him to fight. When he does he has to take leave.

Do your homework, don’t just join… Make sure that you have a dedicated job in your contract. If you have any questions let me know.

You will be hard pressed to find any true formal training in the us military….

Army combatives and mcmap are a far cry from mma in the sense you are reffering to it, though they have basis in what is commonly used in mma they are more for people who have no martial arts experience or have never been in a real fight… the programs are well intentioned but so little emphasis is put on them that you won’t get far.

If you are serious you will find small communities of true martial artist (you’ll find that everyone was some sort of “martial artist” or badass before they joined). for example I know in camp lejeune they have a small jiujitsu school that has a handful of guys that have serious talent, on ft myer in arlington va you have soldiers like Colten Smith who are pretty good fighters and compete regularly… but honestly speaking you’ll more then likely have to seek instruction elsewhere.

One thing I can promise you will be able to learn is wrestling. There are many guys from solid wrestling states who are willing to get on the mats…. outside of that ask around and see if you can find someone with formal training who isnt out to pad their ego by beating on others. When I got to iraq a few months back I waited by the grappling mat everyday until I met a bunch of guys who wanted to learn how to roll and from there it evolved into a small class. Every two or three days we get guys who claim they “used to fight mma” or were “purple belts in jiu jitsu”, but they normally prove to be speaking out their rear ends, though we have gotten a few guys with serious talent and now everyones game is opening up….

So to break it down Barney style… If you want to learn mma in the military, it’s something you are going to have to do on your own time and you will probably have to come out of pocket…

On a sidenote, there is about 7 seals that sleep in the building next to me, I can tell you from what they told me that the seals do not have an organized combatives program…