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Old 03-31-2020, 02:26 PM   #382
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: There's Knifework That Needs Doing

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
So, if a lot of men with military hand-to-hand training and combat experience put their heads together trying to figure out what kind of people to hire to teach special operators to use knives and machetes in the 1980s and 1990s, what kind of people might they hire?

They're working for a billionaire who just realized that the supernatural exists and poses a serious danger. Said billionaire has a lot of security contracts, because he's been making his money in dangerous areas of the world, i.e. mining in conflict areas, exclusive contracts from repressive governments, etc.

I think that one option is definitely agricultural workers from Caribbean islands who use machetes as part of their daily labors. What else would be practical?
Like I said, the list will include FMA and Japanese martial arts, but I don't know what is local to the Caribbean and no more than two steps away from the social network of the Night Riders. In the 1980s, Japanese and Filippino martial arts were the fashionable, reasonably widely available, reasonably combat effective weapon arts in the United States so folks as different as Marc MacYoung and 1st Lt. Elizabeth Moon, USMC (Ret.) picked them up, but in the Caribbean in the 1980s most of the instructors who have used a blade in anger are probably locals trained in local traditions (which include dancing and field work as well as fencing).

But most of those won't speak English or be able to visit the United States or be used to teaching foreigners.

On the gripping hand, if all you have to teach is some cuts, some thrusts, and some steps, its really hard to mess up! These guys don't need to condition a three-level decision tree of what to do when weapons cross, they need to learn to deliver powerful cuts and thrusts while moving.
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Last edited by Polydamas; 03-31-2020 at 02:34 PM.
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