Marines go to the mat

QUANTICO, Va.

Lt. Col. Joseph C. Shusko tempers his fighting instruction with character-building lessons as he forges a new breed of warrior at the Marine Corps Martial Arts Center of Excellence here.

The 49-year-old native of Long Branch, N.J. — known as “Cyborg” — demonstrates the effectiveness of the Corps’ new fighting style as he throws a trainee to the grass, climbs over him and clamps a chokehold during a drill.

Three seconds pass. Four seconds. Five.

The black-belt trainee — a staff sergeant 14 years Cyborg’s junior — struggles, pulls, scrapes. His face turns red, then purple.

He sputters and spits and finally taps his opponent’s arm. The hold is released. The trainee coughs and sucks in a deep breath.

He and Cyborg smile and shake hands.

Then it’s someone else’s turn.

If Col. Shusko has his way, every Marine — and everyone near them — will benefit from the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP). Unlike men and women in the other branches of the armed forces, every Marine is taught how to fight hand-to-hand, up close and personal.

“Every Marine is a rifleman. Every Marine is a martial artist,” Col. Shusko says.

For the first time in the U.S. military, an effort has been made to combine the most effective techniques of martial-arts disciplines from around the world into a single course of study — MCMAP.

Among the fighting styles appropriated for MCMAP, Col. Shusko demonstrates the grappling techniques of Brazilian jujitsu, which mostly consists of ground-fighting submission holds and joint locks that he likes to call “wristy twisties.”

These techniques are designed to control the enemy, to break bones and, if necessary, to kill.

Col. Shusko also teaches throwing techniques according to the Japanese art of judo and kicking skills from the Korean style of self-defense known as tae kwon do.

In addition, Thai boxing — with its emphasis on elbow and knee strikes to inflict damage — figures into the MCMAP curriculum.

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