When I arrived to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Ft. Bragg North Carolina; I thought that the sky was the limit. I had envisioned all of the images and preconceived notions of the typical“Special Forces” Soldier that we read in books or see in movies. I just knew that when I graduated I would be the most elite machine that the world had ever seen. I was extremely excited to learn all those deadly and lethal Hand to Hand and Knife Combat skills. What I didn’t expect was I was already far better trained than most of the entire Special Forces in these skills.
Most Special Forces guys come to the regiment with limited Hand to Hand skills and little if any knife training. The “Q” Course or Qualification Course teaches a little Hand to Hand in the beginning and attempts to reinforce it through out the remainder. The Cadre always emphasize that, these skills are introduced in the “Q Course” and meant to be picked up and practiced on your own. There was a particularly interesting 3 day block of instruction of Combatives in (S.E.R.E.) We were finally introduced to “Knife Fighting”.
Notice I labled it as “Knife Fighting”. I detest this term; as it contains the word fighting. Fight is sonanomous with Struggling. Struggling means waste of energy and is time consuming. I prefer the term “Knife Combat”. Combat is a unique often used and all encompassing term. What I mean by that is ; for example: In Combat we can send in a bomber to annhialate our enemy if we so choose, therefore elimanating any struggle. In Combat there are no rules; inspite of what the liberals or UN believe. When I teach seminars. I teach the trainees to Kill and not Fight.
Psychologically when we hear the term Fight we believe that there will be a struggle. When I go into Combat I go in not thinking abaout a fight; but focusing on killing and dominating my adversaries. This leads us to the “Mental Edge” philosophy. When we believe that ther will be a fight; we lose the “Mental Edge”. This is a term I picked up in S.E.R.E training as well. He who has the mental edge is in control. Let’s now look at the reason I labled my S.E.R.E. knife training as “Knife Fighting”.
The training was very basic , as it should have been. We began with gripping the knives. For some strange reason they taught us to use the “Pick” or (Reverse) Grip. I find this highly impractical as the “Saber” Grip is far more simple, efficient and has the greater reach. We then went into basic attacks. We learned Slashing, Stabbing and Thrusting techniques. I was quite amazed that there was little instruction on how to utilize or maximize the techniques taught.
After two days of the basics of gripping and attacking we ended the training with live fighting drills. We formed a huge circle and two at a time we fought eachother as the instructor judged. This is where the term “Knife Fighting” comes in. It looked like a bunch of children brandishing and flailing sticks or play swords at each other. There was never any entry into the trapping or grappling range noone ever attempted to control or disarm the weapon , nor were they taught to. It looked like a three muskateers duel! If it were real life bothe men would surely collapse at some point and both die due to the amount of blood lost. These matc`hes went on for minutes at a time. real Knife Combat would last seconds!
Although the training was extremely fun and a great confidence booster if you were decided the winner for all your matches; it just wasn’t practical. Between Ron Donvito’s “LINES” training which was completely un realistic although highly brutal and the Three Muskateer duel training; I believe that I was surley on my way to being one of the most dissappointed Green Berets ever. We often supplemented our training with JuJitsu or grappling. These techniques are ideal in Combat……..NOT!! Believe me the ground is not where you want to be spending your time in Combat Especially with over 70 lbs of body armor, ammo and water strapped to your body. You need to move quickly and efficiently in those scenarios. You cant do either in that situation on the ground.
I had already been working on a Combatives Program for my old (LRS Ranger) unit. I was tasked with devising a Hand to hand program for my team and my platoon. It had been about three years at that 
point. The program never relied on going to the ground with the adversary. that doesn’t mean that there are no apprehension techniques taught. It means that there grappling competition style moves are not taught. After the “Q Course” my team sergeant Frank asked me to develop a combative training program for our team that was based on our Standard Operating Procedures and the equipment that we used. Since I already had the base of the program I was ready to show Frank what I had started to develop. I explained to Frank that there would be factors involved with the techniques.
The factors of our S.O.P.s, Equipment, Malnourishment and Fatigue. Many of the techniques taught were based from Women’s Self Protection Techniques I taught. Women can not rely on brute force to over com their adversaries and neither can a team guy who is malnourished and fatigued form combat with brittle bones and weakened muscles.
I had developed this program for guys with little or no unarmed combat training. There were not a lot of different techniques. I instructed entry and counter techniques along with basic Attack, cover and counter techniques with the Knife. Every sequence is taught so that a few things are accomplished. The operator “Enters” Simultaneously “Covering” for protection. He “Checks” the adversaries weapon hand. He “Defangs” the serpent thus “Disarming” him and “Controls” the attacking limb. The operator “Attacks” the attacking limb then continues to atatck as he enters deeper through the “Trapping zone” into the “Grappling zone” and goes for a “Take Down”. From the take down there are final arm “Breaks” and skull “Stomps” that lead to a kill, an apprehension or an escape. The entire series can be taught in five complete 8 hour days. It can be maintained with 1 three hour session a week. Thus the arrival of a New Combative Program.
As the years went by I continued to expand and develop the program. I began to develop a System that takes each and every aspect of combat and tie it all together based on the basic relative principles of science and physics. That brings us to the development of Combat Application Techniques System. I began writing the first installment of the system in August 2006. I decided to begin the series with what the system started with; Hand and Knife Combat Techniques. I believe that the true essence of a warrior starts with out weapons and focuses on building the fundamentals that can later be applied to his other weapons, tactics and equipment. So I titled the first book Combat Application Techniques: Principles Of Destruction.
