combat-training

Real Martial Arts is Mathematics, Physics, Poetry; Meditation in Action

. . in Old Karate, you learned you Art through pain. You learned quickly that your techniques had to be fast or powerful or both. If you did not embrace pain and it's lessons adequately, you simply did not survive

Stripped to its essence, combat is a series of quick decisions and rather precise actions carried out in concert with ten or twelve other men. In that sense it__ much more like football than, say, like a gang fight. The unit that choreographs their actions best usually wins. They might take casualties, but they win. That choreography__ou lay down fire while I run forward, then I cover you while you move your team up__s so powerful that it can overcome enormous tactical deficits. There is choreography for storming Omaha Beach, for taking out a pillbox bunker, and for surviving an L-shaped ambush at night on the Gatigal. The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what__ best for him, but on what__ best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat.

In the midst of combat, we learned a great deal about mankind and its many different races, creeds and beliefs.