Take-downs and neck cranks

[thedrifter]

September 26, 2005
Take-downs and neck cranks
Ultimate Fighting champ supplements Marines’ martial-arts skills
By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer

It’s a good thing that Ultimate Fighting champion Ken Shamrock likes Marines, because dozens of leathernecks just put their lives in his hands at Quantico, Va.

Those bold enough stepped into the ring with the self-billed “World’s Most Dangerous Man” at the Martial Arts Center of Excellence, where Shamrock showed Marines how to brawl UFC-style.

Take-downs, neck cranks and other crippling hand-to-hand combat moves were on the menu Aug. 17 when the center opened a Shamrock training session to the Marines on base.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship legend offered several sessions during his three-day stay, which focused largely on teaching martial-arts trainers new moves ranging from ground escapes to grappling. During the sessions, Marines from black belt on down put their necks on the line to experience some of the fighter’s moves.

“I felt it for sure. But I wasn’t nervous because I knew he wasn’t going to go all the way with it,” said Lance Cpl. Joshua Clemens, 19, who was on the receiving end of a Shamrock neck crank.

Shamrock flipped Clemens over his shoulder, pounced on him and poised himself to snap the corporal’s neck between his monstrous arms. One small step further would have ended Clemens. But for demonstration purposes, Shamrock stopped short and the Marine walked away, pleased to have been attacked by a man with twice his muscle mass.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime. I learned a bunch of stuff and it was cool to grapple around with a celebrity,” said the small-arms repairman, who has followed Shamrock’s career for years. The best part, Clemens said, is that he now knows what it feels like to be one of Shamrock’s opponents in the ring.

With lightning-swift moves unusual for a man his size, the hulking Shamrock showed off several other potentially lethal moves, using Marines as his demonstration dummies.

“The idea when you throw someone is to be able to finish them in three to five seconds. You need to be able to take them down and put them away,” Shamrock said before showing the group of 70 a crushing elbow smash capable of shattering a nose.

Shamrock also shared one stunningly violent move that solicited a collective gasp from the group. The 15-year veteran fighter threw an instructor, thundered down upon him, and with lightning speed maneuvered his thighs around the Marine’s head and prepared to twist. He stopped just short of the snap.

The trick, he said, is to move fast to get the head between your legs.

“They will not know what you’re doing,” he explained. “They may think you’re gay but you don’t care — you just want to take him out.”

Topping off with what he called a “fun one,” Shamrock showed a move designed to disarm an opponent by breaking his arm. As an add-on to a take-down, the disarming move requires quickly positioning your legs across your prone opponent’s shoulders, pulling his arm between your legs and “squeezing it like an orange.”

One squeeze and “bang, it’s gone,” he said. “He will not use that arm again.”

Added moves

Not every move in the UFC octagon is good for combat, he said, but some can be adapted to fit the Corps’ needs.

“The most important thing for me is to develop a style that works for you,” he said. “Everyone wants to do leg chokes, but take what works for your body. If you’re short and stocky, leg chokes aren’t going to work for you.”

The point of this and other Marine training sessions Shamrock has conducted is to give leathernecks — mainly martial-arts instructors — a chance to learn some supplemental techniques to add to their inventory, rather than to the required, testable techniques, said Lt. Col. Joseph C. Shusko, director of the martial-arts center.

“We always use his stuff, but that’s as an addition,” he said. “Anytime a subject-matter expert comes here, we can all learn from them.”

Shusko said any of Shamrock’s moves that really stand out, such as ground escapes or throws, could be considered at the martial-arts course content review board, which meets early next year. But for now, it’s just good additional knowledge.

Despite his violent stage persona, Shamrock understands the concepts of control and restraint that the Marine Corps martial-arts program embodies, said Master Gunnery Sgt. Shane T. Franklin, the martial-arts center’s top enlisted man.

“There are a lot of really good fighters out there, but they’re just thugs,” Franklin said. “Ken has a really good character and understanding of what we need to do. He understands being a complete responsible adult, not just a brawler or a thug.”

The Quantico visit was the fourth time Shamrock has shared with Marines knowledge from the brutal fighting world of UFC-style mixed martial-arts competition.

Almost a Marine

Training Marines is a natural fit for the 41-year-old Shamrock, who had his dreams of being a Marine stymied by an old wrestling injury. About 20 years ago, Shamrock had just two weeks left in Marine Corps boot camp when that injury led to his medical separation.

Shamrock runs a mixed martial-arts training camp in Susanville, Calif., called The Lion’s Den, which is auditioning members for a planned reality show set to begin taping in January.

Shamrock, who began his career in wrestling before becoming a UFC pioneer, said the Marine martial-arts program has come a long way since his first training session with them, in 2001 on Okinawa, Japan.

“Most had some knowledge of boxing, but their actual grappling skills were very low,” he said.

When he came to Quantico last October to see how the program was doing, he said he was pleased with the progress.

“I was amazed at how far these guys were moving forward,” he said. “I was just impressed at how the program has jumped.”

And in his August session, Shamrock found Marines eager to learn more.

“We’re learning things that we don’t get to learn every day,” said Lance Cpl. Dana Orvis, 20, an ammo technician. “The MCMAP program is pretty set, but here we’re learning things we wouldn’t learn there.”

Sgt. Xavier Martinez, 24, with Weapons Training Battalion, said grappling with Shamrock — who is about 6-feet tall and weighing just over 200 pounds — reinforced the idea that, to a large extent, martial-arts moves are about technique, not strength.

“With someone like Ken, you can’t rely on strength. Shamrock is a real strong man,” he said. “I pretty much learned just from rolling with him a little bit of position work. You just can’t put muscle into it alone.”

The best part, Martinez said, was that Shamrock offers his sessions for free.

“He keeps talking about being an outsider, but if he’s helping out the Marine Corps, hey, you’re one of us now. He’s good to go.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

September 26, 2005
Fighting his way back
He lost both hands in an ambush, but Sgt. James ‘Eddie’ Wright found a new calling — martial arts
By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer

A year ago, Sgt. James “Eddie” Wright’s body was a broken version of its old, sturdy self. A rocket-propelled grenade had blown off both of his hands and cracked open his leg during an ambush in Iraq in April 2004. His skin was faded and his once-bulky muscles had withered after months of hospital rest. Picking up a pencil, brushing his teeth, tying his shoe — every motion he instinctively knew — had to be relearned.

The odds of getting a medical board to let him stay in the Corps were slim, but Wright, who had dreamed of being a reconnaissance Marine since boyhood, wasn’t willing to walk away.

Now, not only is Wright still in uniform, but he’s also a martial-arts instructor at Quantico, Va., and well on his way to earning his black belt.

Wright, who already is qualified as a green belt instructor, will begin teaching instructor courses at the Martial Arts Center of Excellence this month.

An inspired move

Wright, 29, was a corporal on his second tour in Iraq when the attack came that cost him his hands. It was April 7, 2004, and the Marines of Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, were called to escort a 15-vehicle convoy to a supply point, where they would hunt for enemy mortar teams.

The noncommissioned officer and his team were in the lead Humvee rolling down an empty street when the road erupted in a hail of fire, with as many as 60 insurgents attacking with machine-gun fire and mortar and RPG rounds.

Manning a door-mounted M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, Wright opened fire. As the Marines responded to the attack, an RPG slammed into Wright’s weapon. The explosion ruptured his left eardrum, ripped open his thigh and blew off both his hands.

His actions in the moments that followed earned him a Bronze Star with combat “V.”

While his junior Marines were stunned at the extent of his injuries, Wright was calm and directed his troops on how to treat his wounds and call for support on the radio.

He received the Bronze Star in a ceremony held June 1, 2004, at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., where then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz presented the medal.

In the months that followed the ceremony, Wright won the hearts of Marines while he recovered at Washington, D.C.’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the military’s specialty hospital for amputee care.

High-ranking Marines, including Maj. Gen. Thomas Jones, commander of Training and Education Command at Quantico, took notice during visits to the wounded ward of Wright’s can-do attitude toward his recovery.

“He’s one of the most inspirational guys to come out of Iraq,” Jones said. “His own ability to embrace his tragedy has inspired so many in Walter Reed.”

It was Jones who came up with the idea of giving Wright a chance at becoming a martial-arts trainer, according to Lt. Col. Joseph C. Shusko, director of the martial-arts center.

After Jones called Shusko over to his Quantico office to show him an inspirational documentary of a civilian amputee who excelled at martial arts, Shusko got the hint and together they decided to invite Wright to the center.

“I said I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot. I had been there so long, I was raring to do anything,” Wright said.

Since he began training there in July, the sergeant has learned the green-belt-level moves with and without his prosthetics. Some of the moves he’ll teach require modifications.

“If I can’t really do the move, I can still show how them how to do it,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean I can’t [eventually] learn how to do it myself.”

This month, he starts teaching the martial-arts instructor course, and before the end of the year Shusko wants to put him through the seven-week black belt course to qualify him to teach the Corps’ instructor-trainers.

Natural fit

Martial-arts instructors say placing Wright in the martial-arts program is more natural than one might think.

The fundamentals of martial arts revolve not around the hands but in using precise body movements to outsmart your opponent. Wright can use the force of his muscles in conjunction with his prosthetics.

Moves that require him to grip either a weapon or an opponent present the largest problems, so those moves he modifies. To gain a steady grip on his wooden trainer rifle, for example, he clamps the butt stock in his armpit while gripping the weapon with his hooks.

Another move requires thrusting an open hand into the opponent’s throat. Wright uses his hook instead.

While Wright is limited in some ways, having no hands probably enhances his ability to learn some of the biomechanical principles of martial arts, said Hunter “Chip” Armstrong, a world-renowned expert of hoplology, the study of human combative behavior and techniques.

“Sgt. Wright, without sounding too morbid about it, is actually the perfect person to train in that way because he’s not obstructed by his hands,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong helped create the Corps’ martial-arts program and continues to train its top instructor-trainers in a four-day training course in Arizona.

Wright completed Armstrong’s training course Aug. 24 and won high praise.

“Wright did amazingly well,” Armstrong said. “I had no idea how it was going to work out, but it ended up I only altered 3 to 5 percent of the overall training course. When it came down to it, it wasn’t that much.”

Most people, Armstrong said, are hand-oriented, which takes their focus away from using their full body mass to win in hand-to-hand combat. Wright, he said, was quicker than most to learn the principles of proper body movements and mental control.

“He’s got one of the best mind-sets I’ve ever encountered in working with that,” he said. “He’s not wishing he had his hands back. He’s not depressed about it. He’s far more concerned with doing as good as he can with what he’s got.”

Together, the two worked on various sparring moves, as well as how to shoot and move effectively. Firing a weapon was the one thing therapists predicted Wright would not be able to do, but he says he can once again put rounds on target.

Challenges and advantages

Shortly after his return from Arizona, Wright demonstrated some moves at the martial-arts center using the school’s top enlisted man, Master Gunnery Sgt. Shane T. Franklin, as a partner.

The sergeant grappling with Franklin on the grass outside the center stands in stark contrast to the wounded corporal who was recovering at Walter Reed a year earlier. Wright was thin and pale then, down 35 pounds to a lean 185, his arms still in bandages. Now, the muscle shows on his 6-foot-2-inch frame, and the black prosthetic arms give him the look of a futuristic cyberwarrior.

Franklin is impressed with a disarming technique Wright learned from Armstrong. But when the two try sparring with a rubber knife, it’s clear some areas still need modifications. Although Wright is able to grasp the knife with his prosthetics, the weapon sometimes slips under the pressure of contact with Franklin’s flesh.

In another scenario, Franklin thinks Wright is holding back from hitting him, afraid of doing any damage with his hooks.

“If you don’t hit me, I’m going to take it as a sign you’re being too nice to me, and I’m going to smack you,” Franklin warns him in a ribbing voice.

Wright knows that the hooks can be dangerous, which is why he takes them off during other exercises, such as grappling on the floor. In a real-life situation, the prosthetics can become a weapon of opportunity: The hooks can be used to jab and the arms can deliver a hard strike.

“He has the advantage when he has his prosthetic because of the hooks, but you take them off and we’re even,” Shusko said. Wright also has a knife that attaches to one of his prosthetic arms, though attaching it can take several minutes, making it impractical if it’s not already attached when a fight starts.

One of the guys

Wright is doing the unexpected with martial arts, but still struggles still with some everyday tasks, such as writing a note or tying a shoe. The amount of time required is frustrating, and he said his biggest challenge is becoming more efficient at getting such physical tasks done quickly.

But Wright doesn’t like to mope around about the challenges, and for the most part, he has gotten used to life without hands.

“I really don’t think about it that much,” he said. “I realize this body isn’t really what I’m made out of. They can take my hands, but they didn’t take my mind or my heart.”

At the martial-arts center, Wright is held to the same standards as other instructors.

“The Marines all treat him as an equal here,” Shusko said. “He’s one of the guys. Nobody babies him.”

With a job at the martial-arts center, Wright has the option to stay in the Corps, but he’s struggling with the idea of not being in the operating forces.

His re-enlistment window recently passed, but the Corps is allowing him a few more months to decide his next move. Right now, he’s torn between staying at the center and getting out to pursue a civilian job in homeland security.

“I know I can still do things in the Marine Corps that will benefit the Corps, but I joined to do a specific job,” he said. “I hate to see my buddies deploy over and over without me again.”

For their part, his fellow Marines at the martial-arts center are giving him the hard sell on staying.

“He’s everybody’s hero and we want him to stay in,” Shusko said. “We’re trying to convince him to stay. It’s just up to if we’re going to win or not.”

Ellie