Unarmed Combat Training

Article written by Sergeant Dimayuga, B Coy, RMR

Westmount, Quebec – 19 November 2019: On the weekend of the 16-17 of November, Bravo Company of The Royal Montreal Regiment (RMR) carried out a UAC (Unarmed Combat) seminar led by Sambo instructor Oleg Staheev.

Sambo is a Russian martial art that resembles Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and includes various forms of striking and grappling. It was developed in the 1920s for the Soviet military and merged the most effective techniques found in other martial arts.

The training started with simple exercises and dynamic stretches to get the soldiers warmed up for the lessons and practice. On the first day, the lessons began with grappling lessons. Simple wrist locks and wrist lock defences and then built up to more complex techniques such as takedowns and chokeholds to neutralize or control a threat. In the afternoon, Instructor Staheev began teaching the basics of hand striking. One of the ways the Sambo instructor trained the soldiers with sparring. The final lessons was followed up with PT to finish the day.

On the second day of training, the instructor started with a warm-up like the last day. Once the participants warmed up, they began with more complicated techniques such as defending against strikes and transitioning to hip tosses. A hip toss is a common throw that you see done by judo practitioners. The soldiers were also taught how to defend yourself if someone were to hip toss them as well. The last lessons were how to defend against stick-like weapons and how to control and neutralize an attacker that was using one. Finally, the day was finished off with some teamwork based PT to work on team cohesion.