| Special Forces Military |
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While many criticize the validity of training empty hand skills or ‘Unarmed Combatives' for modern Military applications, I feel that there is a general lack of understanding of the applicability of many of the skills both indirectly through skills and mindset development gained from sparring and directly through the CMD defense, it’s emphasis on stance/structure, and clinch work. Although an operator may not find himself ‘boxing’ opponents regularly in a combat environment, (as critics point out) we do put ‘hands on’ on every mission. It’s during these times, transporting detainees from a target to a vehicle, controlling non-combatants, or putting flex cuffs on, etc, that situations can go south and force escalation is required. Those who have a trained response and functional skills can defend themselves as required and not always resort to direct escalation to lethal force when not warranted, but can do so if needed based on CMD’s reinforcement of positional/structural superiority FIRST. If you can dominate positionally you can both deliver strikes (to subdue) or access weapons (ASP, Blackjack, knife, Glock) as needed. CMD not only allows for a operator to develop those attributes that can be validated under the pressure testing of Alive sparring but the structure is ideal to translate to other functional battlefield skills such as running a long gun (M4) or transition to a modified isosceles pistol posture which is almost identical to the CMD’s ‘hunchback’ position. Rodney’s CMD is to standing what BJJ is to the ground- simple, functional, effective, non attribute based- and allows for easy modification and transference of skills to other battlefield specific skill sets. This modularity and adaptiveness is the genius of the system. As a Black Belt in Judo and BJJ and years of training in traditional Muay Thai and Filipino Martial Arts I have closely look at most every system or style out there. When tasked to come up with a system for Special Forces I had to look beyond the Martial Arts and what they provided the typical practitioner or even MMA fighter and look at what would keep Special Force operators alive in a true battlefield environment. The current trend in Big Army is to use a BJJ/MMA based system, which has critics decrying, that it is too sport oriented. Special Forces by nature has the flexibility to pick and choose what is used based on what is best in order to achieve mission accomplishment and keep our operators alive. What works on a mat or even in a cage will not always be what works best downrange, and as Rodney points out one of the tenants behind his teaching methodology is that the skills need to be easy enough to learn in only a few hours a week of training. Rodney’s understanding and ability to break complex movements down to the simplest easy to understand (and replicate) patterns shows his depth of knowledge and experience as a coach and trainer. CMD has definitely evolved as demonstrated by their newest material. Rodney continues to further develop and hone the system making it even more functional and adaptable, identifying common errors, how to fix them, and introducing drills that reinforce proper structure and correct fundamentals. I have immediately incorporated CMD into our program here in Iraq and plan on bringing Rodney to our Group back in the states in order to further integrate CMD into what we do. DD US Army Special Forces Tikrit Iraq
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