I have been actively deployed with a Military Police unit for the last 6 months and the strangest thing happened… I found a batch of training partners. It is crazy that there seems to be an unspoken rule when around Military people who see you train:
If you throw a punch in the open where some one can see you (and you look reasonably competent doing it) some one will come up and ask you to show them how to do it.
In my mild mannered life as guy just wandering through life… I really have no contact with anyone. My closest friend and my wife are my most trusted training partners. To suggest to anyone else outside of the “Kungfooligan Brotherhood” that they could come and throw hands with us garners the strangest looks. Walking into a new school is always touch and go as many times the school is not what we hope it would be. We often times end up with “throw this reverse punch” or “stand in this crouching grasshopper stance.” Sometimes we get lucky enough to end up with a good school where people are concerned with “training” and not the social aspects of a commercial school.
On this deployment I never set out to churn out a batch of new martial artists. I am not going to open some cockamamie dojo just to turn a buck and quit my day job. I am also not looking to create some legacy with fancy titles and myself on a pedestal. If it’s one thing I have learned in the last few years it is that I am just looking for cool people to train with. That is definitely what I have gotten on this deployment. I found several people who want to train for one reason… It puts another tool into their toolbox to keep them alive while we are over here.
I tell everyone I train with. I don’t think I am Bruce Lee or that I am invincible. I can be hurt, hit, shot, or stabbed. As a martial artist I don’t think I am going to run into a building and take on the bad guys by myself and by hand. I know that I am part of a team and that team uses GUNS. The training that we do not only gives us options should we get STUPID and let some one get too close but it also keeps us fit and thinking tactically. I don’t plan on letting some one get so close they can grab my weapon, but it happens to Police officers every day all over the world. And since they get more training than we do in firearm retention, every little bit of training for us can help.
The toughest part of having new training partners is that some of them are new. Some of them haven’t thrown a punch other than seeing a “Punch Buggy” on the road. It can be tough building from the ground up but then again… Sometimes it can be fun. The biggest part for me to remember in all this is that when it ends… some of these guys will never train again. Then again… some will.
Regards,
Walt
