As part of their Boot Camp training, these U.S. Marine Corps recruits with Charlie Company are being subjected to a grueling ‘body sparring’ sessions that’s are not for the faint-hearted.

The video was taken at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina in December 2nd, 2016, a vast base surrounded by swampland infested with alligators and rattlesnakes.

It’s there that recruits east of the Mississippi River have been undergoing Marine Boot Camp training since 1915, with the current course lasting 70 days and believed to be among the toughest of it’s kind in the world.

’Body Sparring’ is one aspect of the Martial Arts Program, designed to allow Marine Corps recruits to utilize techniques they’ve learned in training, while also simulating a close encounter with an enemy.

Recruits are weighed 48 hours beforehand, with those weighing more than 165lbs being paired up with someone within 15lbs of their weight, while those below 165lbs fight someone within 10lbs of them.

On the day the participants are given mouthpieces, groin protection and a variety of other head, neck and body protection, and then after a series of physical exercises are invited to start punching their opponent as hard as they can, targeting only the body.

The theory behind it is that the hard-hitting activity will promote survivability and self-confidence among recruits by letting them experience what it’s like to be hit in different parts of their body, while at the same time being urged not to stop fighting.

Some come away from it worse off than others, with stray punches and heavy blows meaning that bloody noses and broken ribs are not uncommon.

“>

Other physical aspects of the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program include ground fighting, grappling, pugil bouts and bayonet dummies, taking influences from a wide variety of martial arts, though the course also focuses on building mental strength and character, for application across the full spectrum of violence.