"What can you do for us?"

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"What can you do for us?"

Postby Sir Thurat » Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:19 pm

Ok, so I have a small dilemma that I've been trying to ponder out here. Last winter I went to my local National Guard outpost in the town where I live, and I looked at their gigantic, indoor, heated, wonderful, empty gym, and I asked them how I could convince them to allow us (the realm I am apart of) to use their facilities during the winter months so that we could fight all year around. Their response?

"We've turned away the local hospital who wanted to do some activity with their kids ward regularly, because our policy states that our facilities are only for organizations that benefit the Guard. The only way we let anyone use the gym (excluding the oldfolks we let in to walk every morning) is if they can show us how they can be useful to the National Guard. How can your activity benefit us?"

At first I thought this was an easy answer. We use tactics, we focus on training and physical fitness and teamwork, and when the fighting's hard enough we're learning to keep our cool under high stress situations. But then I realized that I didn't really know how to phrase it all. Sure we do these things, but they aren't the exact same as what they do. I figured that this would be the best board to post under because I think the thing that we could offer is an alternate form of training that could help their guys keep in shape, stay entertained, and blow of some stress.

So, am I even barking up the right tree in trying to pitch this to those guys?
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Salamander » Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:32 am

I don't see why what you said just right there wouldn't work. Explain that to them, and offer to do small demonstration for them. During the demo, if you can, get some of them to play with you, hook them. The military is all about cross-training.

We ourselves have had a couple military boys come into to practice with us before, and some of them just slid right into place. They already understood how to work with others, they had no problem hitting hard enough, none of them complained about being hit too hard.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Soo Ma Tai » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:40 am

Full Speed- Full Contact melee weapons combat. You can't get training like this anywhere else. It's like their pugil stick training. Also the other stuff you said about physical fitness, teamwork, tactics, etc. All good points to work on the military guys.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Slagar » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:47 am

Honestly, what I do when I need to convince friends or authority figures that what I'm doing in the funny clothes has merit, I put down the foam stick and pick up a riot baton or an asp, and throw all the same shots. What we are doing is very rudimentary civilian combat training. We emphasize body mechanics and force generation in ways that several martial arts couldn't dream of. Just yesterday I was setting up a sparring session with an ex marine, and showed him peter's single blue vids. He spent about ten minutes talking about how that's the exact same stance and grip and motions that his knife classes (which he pursued to the highest level offered in the USMC) taught.

For an actual demonstration, I'd suggest that a pell demonstration with a baton to start would be good. Couple it with 1v1 sparring working in the shots you just demonstrated. Switch back and forth between them. Emphasizing the practical value of civilians knowing how to defend themselves with sticks will definitely make the point you were trying to make.

For the coordination and tactics stuff, that's a bit less my area. I'd strongly suggest contacting Kyrian and Kayle of Clan of the Hydra. I know for a fact that they've put together extremely comprehensive small group tactics materials that Hydra studies often. I also know they don't really check these boards, like ever.


Good luck, man. Let us know how it turns out.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Teej » Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:05 pm

Coming from a military guy...

You're probably not going to sell them on the whole "we simulate combat deal." Some of them will be combat veterans (if not all) and they're going to look at foam-combat as a bunch of wannabe warrior nerds. Egos are going to get in the way... regardless the fact that we do indeed simulate combat (from a different period).

However, you might be better off pitching the idea of pugil sticks to them. Something they DO use during training. No *, there is a tutorial for making pugil sticks in the Marine Corps MCMAP manual in the last few pages, clearly ripped off from foam-combat down to using the military isomat (blue foam), adhesive spray, and duct tape. Perhaps if you supple them with the means to train via pugil sticks on a regular basis, they'll be a bit more welcoming.

Headed to class now, I'll try to find the MCMAP manual online with the exact specs.

I'd also hint that a lot of our participants are of military age... rather you plan to help them recruit or not.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Soo Ma Tai » Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:24 pm

I would never say we "simulate combat". We are as close to real medieval combat as karate tournament fighting is to a real street fight. Full contact and full speed are totally different.

Isn't pugil stick fighting supposed to represent the use of your rifle as a hand to hand combat weapon? The bayonet training my father did in the military (granted many years ago) was eerily simular to a spear form I saw from an Okinawan karate school. The main difference I saw was a lack of long thrusts due to having no shaft. You could very easily build a couple of M16 shaped foam weapons to demonstrate with put stabbies on the fronts and all that. IDK if that would be worthwhile to do or not.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Dane » Wed Jan 12, 2011 1:53 pm

No matter the nature of the combat, if they're training to fight hand to hand, as we do with our foam stuff, they're going to get better at recognizing and responding to the offensive maneuvers an assailant with a weapon might use.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Mannajax » Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:39 pm

Rather what we do can directly translate into what they need isn't the key, it's how it can be adapted. If they come to play and play hard, it's darn good PT time. It's great training for reaction time and spacial awareness. If you're not alert to everything around you, you're going to be flanked and back-stabbed to no end. That's an important skill no matter what era you're fighting in.

It's team building and comradery (i probably slaughtered that spelling). Throw them a couple daggers and its good knife fight practice for the up close and personal situations. Put a red in their hand and tell them their gun just jammed and the only thing around what this big stick, now win. There are so many different ways this can benefit them, we could probably all list one and not exhaust the possibilities.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Big King Jimmy » Wed Jan 12, 2011 3:43 pm

So.... from the way he phrased things it sounds to me like he might have just been asking you to volunteer or something. Can you volunteer for the guard, or do they have you know... the guard... for that? Can't you fill sand bags or something and be useful, then fight in their gym?
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Kyrian » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:53 pm

When I was in the military, I put together a PT session using some of my Belegarth gear:

1) Maille crunches (doing crunches with with a balled-up maille suit on your chest)
2) Florentine wrist twists (where you hold the weapons and twist your wrists in front of you)
3) Shield-carrying sprints
4) I don't remember the name of the exercise but you hold your arms out so your body's in a T-shape and do small circles/medium circles/large circles.

Kind of building on that, you could do wind sprints with full gear, wind sprints with swinging weapons, agility drills, etc. The point is that you could present it as a different form of PT for working both cardio and muscle workouts.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Peanut of Loderia » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:34 pm

Take a completely different route. Tell them by letting civilians use the gym it allows for the Guard to have a better presence in the community therefore gaining access to a greater recruiting pool.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Teej » Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:50 pm

Trisseus wrote:Headed to class now, I'll try to find the MCMAP manual online with the exact specs.


Cross-posted, here's the post with the source: viewtopic.php?f=108&t=37061
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Sir Thurat » Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:49 pm

Thanks for all of the great replies guys! I definitely like the idea of presenting it as another form of PT, on top of all of the small things it helps with such as awareness. As well, offering to at least trade them the means to have safe, cheap, and readily available pugil sticks is another plus, and of course giving them an idea of what a full speed fight feels like. And hey, they're bonding with the community.

On the instructions for the pugil stick, what would be the purpose of having it overhang 3 inches and plug it, rather than wrapping it flush with the dowel and then capping it?
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Teej » Thu Jan 13, 2011 9:55 pm

Thurat wrote:Thanks for all of the great replies guys! I definitely like the idea of presenting it as another form of PT, on top of all of the small things it helps with such as awareness. As well, offering to at least trade them the means to have safe, cheap, and readily available pugil sticks is another plus, and of course giving them an idea of what a full speed fight feels like. And hey, they're bonding with the community.

On the instructions for the pugil stick, what would be the purpose of having it overhang 3 inches and plug it, rather than wrapping it flush with the dowel and then capping it?


Pugil stick combat is essentially "bayonet thrusts and butt strokes, with cross-checking" -- I imagine the plug serves as a stabby tip of sorts, considering all the significant damage comes from bayonets to various regions of the body and butt strokes to the head.

I'd think the plug would be more durable than 3" of cap, which would be 6ish layers of foam, maybe 7... considering military isomats (foam) are thinner if I recall correctly.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Bukor » Fri Jan 28, 2011 8:20 pm

just thought i would throw this out there but is there a Boys and Girls Club near you guys? Before my small band of 20ish people moved away/joined military/ect we would get to use there gym during the winter. When the person who cleans the club on saturdays would come we were allowed to use the gym for about 3 hours. It eventually led to us teaching belegarth there. (as a teen program) Just throwing that out there.
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Sir Thurat » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:47 am

Thanks for the idea Bukor. Right now my realm's kinda on hiatus. Everyone's either joined the service, gone to college, or just disappeared. Hopefully this Spring's recruiting will go well and I'll have a large enough group that it'll be worthwhile to fight for an indoor space.

Thanks again for all of the replies guys!
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Re: "What can you do for us?"

Postby Tails » Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:50 am

Rather late, but could you also suggest that it builds the "fighting spirit" and a sense of competition and confidence?
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