| To say that the military self defense program | | | | retain your own firearms. |
| called MCMAP - the Marine Core Martial Arts | | | | Black Belts delve deeper into unarmed vs. |
| Program - has been a success would be a dire | | | | firearms scenarios, pressure point strikes, |
| understatement. The Marines who undertook this | | | | advance upper-body crippling strikes, and |
| program refer to themselves as "Semper Fu" | | | | "master-level weapons of opportunity" training as |
| practitioners, and consider themselves | | | | well as learning to fight with an empty rifle, short |
| knowledgeable about the most effective self | | | | weapon, and unarmed versus an opponent armed |
| defense tactics on the planet. | | | | with a ready-to-fire rifle. |
| Eight years after it's inception, it's 2010, and the | | | | To say that the MCMAP is a military self defense |
| Corps is looking at how the program is maturing. | | | | school or a martial art is to fail to do justice to |
| The military self defense syllabus is currently | | | | the syllabus the Marine Corps has put together. |
| broken into five 'belts'. | | | | As it moves into it's second decade, the Marine |
| Tan Belts, which recruits must achieve to pass | | | | Corps is entertaining notions to make Grey Belt a |
| Basic Training, include several hand strikes including | | | | necessity for recruits to pass Basic Training, as |
| hammer fist, straight punches, uppercuts, hooks, | | | | well as adding hundreds of new instructors, |
| and elbow strike; a few foot strikes including | | | | facilities, and on-call field doctors to address |
| stomps, front kicks, knee strikes, and side kicks; | | | | injuries sustained during MCMAP practice. |
| basic bayonet usage; basic grappling and | | | | The Corps is also looking at modifying or doing |
| counter-grappling; knife fighting; and something | | | | away with a restriction that currently prevents a |
| called "basic weapons of opportunity" training. | | | | soldier from wearing a particular belt if he has not |
| Grey Belts expand on the Tan Belt syllabus | | | | been promoted to a sufficiently high rank - a |
| without adding new categories of combat except | | | | restriction that is currently keeping thousands of |
| a profound emphasis on ground fighting and and a | | | | skilled combatants from applying for a higher belt. |
| single entirely new element: baton fighting. | | | | The most fascinating element of the MCMAP that |
| Green Belts continue to develop the techniques of | | | | has made it so popular and effective is not it's |
| the lesser belts, but begin to expand into areas | | | | lethality - rather, it's the option for lethality that |
| previously unique to the martial arts, including | | | | separates it from the Marines' previous unarmed |
| muscle gouging, unarmed manipulation techniques, | | | | combat style. In the '80s and '90s, Marines were |
| and complex counterstrikes. | | | | trained in extraordinarily lethal techniques...and that |
| Brown Belts add some complex throwing | | | | was all. Today, military self defense doesn't mean |
| techniques to the previous belts' self defense | | | | killing your foe, which makes studying the MCMAP |
| tactics and begin to develop unarmed vs. armed | | | | style an option with much broader appeal to the |
| techniques including disarming firearms and how to | | | | American populace as a whole. |