Female fights male under US Army MMA rules

Most martial arts is bullshit. And there is generally a flavor of the decade that unfortunates are drawn to like flies to, well, bullshit. Today, the era of the ninja is over; the center of bullshit now falls under the term “combatives.” While there is legitimate combatives training, the usual class falls back on the most ancient of bullshit excuses – the techniques are too deadly to actually spar with. Instead, students do endless drills, walk around looking very serious, yell loudly, fulfill intricate requirements to “progress” in the system, and otherwise waste their time and money in pantomime.

However, there are exceptions.

Under the direction of then Sergeant First Class Matt Larsen, in 2001 the United States Army Combatives School was established at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2007, Larsen’s Modern Army Combatives (MAC) training became required in every Army unit by Army regulation 350-1. In 2008 MAC was adopted as the basis for the Air Force Combatives Program.

MAC uses competitions as a tool to motivate soldiers to higher levels of training, and offers increasingly challenging rules sets, appropriate to the participant’s skill level. Larsen’s system has, graduated rules combined with scenario based training so that soldiers train on all aspects of fighting.

There are four levels of competition:
•BASIC: Grappling starts from the knees and no leg locks are allowed.
•STANDARD: Competitors start from their feet. Straight leg and foot locks are allowed (no heel hooks or twisting knees). Points are awarded in a scoring system based on collegiate wrestling takedowns and position from BJJ (mount, back, knee on belly, etc).
•INTERMEDIATE: Closed fist strikes to the body are allowed and open hand to the face. Kicks are allowed anywhere except to the groin while standing. Knee strikes are allowed to the body while standing and to the legs while on the ground (not to the head). Slamming from closed guard is allowed. Matches are 10-minute rounds.
ADVANCED: Unified MMA rules.

You don’t get to choose who you go hand to hand with on the battlefield, so it is not unheard of to find women competing with men, as seen in this recent video.

What you see is a step in the acquisition of real martial arts skils. If you are told during your combatives training that sparring is counter productive, that’s bullshit, and this woman could probably beat you up.

H/T BJJEE