During hand-to-hand combat training at Taegu, South Korea, last month, Sgt. Kareen Richardson executes a basic takedown move called the "drop knee sayo" on Cpl. No Sang-myun. (Galen Putnam / Courtesy of U.S. Army)
During hand-to-hand combat training at Taegu, South Korea, last month, Sgt. Kareen Richardson executes a basic takedown move called the "drop knee sayo" on Cpl. No Sang-myun. (Galen Putnam / Courtesy of U.S. Army)
During a training session in the Army’s current hand-to-hand combat methods, Master Sgt. Matt DeLay, rear, demonstrates the “rear naked choke hold” on Sgt. 1st Calvin Russell. Both are with the Area IV Support Activity in Taegu. (Galen Putnam / Courtesy of U.S. Army)
PYONGTAEK, South Korea — If Army Pfc. Nathan Fisher ever had to fight an enemy soldier hand-to-hand, he’d prefer to take him out with a move called the “rear naked choke.”
That’s one of 19 “core” hand-to-hand fighting moves Fisher and others in his unit in Taegu, South Korea, began learning recently, part of the “Army combatives” fighting method adopted by the Army a decade ago but recently given new emphasis by the Army’s Chief of Staff.
Adapting the techniques of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the current form of Army combatives is geared to fighting an adversary while on the ground and consists of a variety of choke holds and blows, as well as ways to escape the adversary’s holds, said Master Sgt. Matt DeLay of the Area IV Support Activity at Camp Henry.
It’s especially well-matched to the realities of present-day Army battle conditions, in which soldiers in a war zone may be too weighted down with battle gear to be able to readily fight hand-to-hand standing up, DeLay said.
“Eight out of nine, 10 fights that a person will be in will be on the ground, and all those spinning kicks and all that fancy stuff doesn’t work if I’m on the ground,” he said.
“I just came back from Iraq,” DeLay said. “When I wear all my equipment, my kit alone weights about 70 pounds. I’m about 5-5, weighing about 140, 142 pounds. It’s almost physically impossible for me to go ahead and do any kind of kick, any form of spinning. On the ground we’re both equal and I can go ahead and do what I need to do.”
The rear naked choke is one of the basic techniques DeLay teaches.
It’s a “blood choke,” in which blood flow to the brain is interrupted by pressure on the carotid arteries on either side of the adversary’s neck, he said.
DeLay tells the troops, “Okay, we’ll do it with the right arm first. Make sure that you have your arm extended. Go ahead and trace the outline of the person’s neck around, and you’ll go ahead and close it around the person’s neck so that their chin is in line with your elbow.
“Upon that, you’ll take your right hand and you’ll grab the bicep of your left arm and that locks the choke in. And with the left hand, you’ll ‘comb the soldier’s hair back’ so it’s placing the left hand behind the head and that locks the choke in.
“Now as you do this, you’ll push your hips forward and you’ll arch your back ... try to touch your shoulder blades at the back.” That, he said, will “put the choke on ... it only takes about four or five seconds.”
Fisher, a transportation clerk, said he likes the Army combatives and is glad his unit is teaching them. “If it comes to hand-to-hand, you’re out of bullets, you don’t have a knife, you’re going to use this stuff,” he said.
He knows which techniques to use will depend on the positions of his and his adversary’s bodies.
“You can’t really force a move” if the two combatants aren’t positioned properly, he said, but if they are, “the rear naked choke would be my dominant move, I would say. ... It’s quick, easy, and it may not kill him but it’s gonna knock him out. They’re gonna be unconscious because that stops the flow of blood to their brain.”
