Frank Cucci

[Brad Souders]

Is someone who claims to have taught Navy Seals some of there hand-to-hand combat. He fought in VA once in a vale tudo and ;ost a desicion to a 17 yr old kid with 8 months of training. How does this represent the combat that are elites are being taught?

[Chris McKinley]

It doesn't. First of all, operators aren't taught extensively in ANY unarmed combat methods, despite what current marketing trends might imply. Secondly, that particular match only showed how prepared Cucci was for rules-based match fighting. It might have spoiled the fun if Frank had knifed his opponent or double-tapped him in the eye.

[LEGEND]

If u have a problem with Mr. Cucci u can go train with him in VA BEACH as I have. I can tell u this guy is an excellent instructor and he is very good trainer. His guys reg. do well in MMA competition. If u want to challenge him then prepare to defend your eyes and nutz sack cause that's what he goes for! And try playing him with in knifefighting.

[apoweyn]

agreed. besides, as i understand it, frank cucci's current curriculum draws more heavily from kali and muay thai than from bjj.

i say hats off to the guy for putting his money where his mouth is. at least he's testing himself.


stuart b.

[GinSueDog]

Brad Souders,
Frank has done pretty good in several grappling tournments, I haven't heard anything about Vale Tudo matches. I know that while he was in the SEALs he was one of those trained by Paul Vunak and is a PFS Full Instructor. I believe Frank is currently a purple belt in BJJ but my information maybe a little dated.-ED

P.S.-I wouldn't be too hard on him, a couple of the guys where I train have only been doing BJJ for about a year and they regularly clean house in MMA matches against guys that have several years on them.

[Ryu]

Poor Frank.

Ryu

[Brad Souders]

LOL @ asking a question and all of a sudden challenging him to a fight. What you guys didn't hear was the kid he fought who lives in VA beach also trained with him some after there fight. You guys are too busy acting tough to answer a question. There was never any trash talking here just a question. But i guess sometimes when your used to trolling you forget how to have a good conversation.

[Ryu]

I didn't say anything.

If it went to a decision, he's gotta be doing something right. Remember the immortal Ranger Stott?

Ryu

[Brad Souders]

Ryu why don't you say that to Stott's face you punk :D

[Ryu]

LOL

Does he still have a face to say it to?

[apoweyn]

brad,

personally, i didn't take offense. but the question could have been read as a shot at cucci's reputation. you're quite right, though, that it didn't HAVE to be read that way. i think you're right that we get so used to the trolling that our first impulse is always to assume the worst these days.

anyway, assuming that your question was just that (a question), i think it reflects well on what the elites are being taught (assuming that this is what they're being taught).

he experiments, he learns, he adapts, and so on. that's just the sort of thing i'd hope the elites would be learning from a hand-to-hand curriculum.


stuart b.

[Brad Souders]

This is a good point Thanks for the thought. I reread the post and saw where it could have been misleading. MY BAD :(

[myosimka]

Confused here. you post a deliberately inflammatory post. Then complain when someone suggests that you back it up against Cucci. And dude, that post is belligerent no doubt about it.


Lost a decision. May not have won but he obviously defended himself at least moderately well. Same point I had noticed, Ryu.

Also unless he's changed Cucci does alot of kali esp. stuff similar to Sayoc style. Heavy on knives. Dude I love MMA events. But personally you give me a choice between a Gracie training the Seals or Remy Presas, I am going to go with the one that teaches them to kill quickly, quietly and armed(OK maybe Presas isn't a good choice any more but you get the gist). That's what tax dollars are paying them for.

And as to that point, it's part of why I don't really care about the whole PFS/SCARS sales pitch of 'Seal training'. Someone's ability to train soldiers how to kill people with weapons doesn't do much for me. Not going to sneak about and kill people. Not to dis PFS or SCARS, just don't see how training military personnel is an endorsement of your civilian training.

[apoweyn]

no harm, no foul.

whaddya say everyone takes a deep breath and starts over.

whenever an instructor puts themselves on the line, they run the risk of ruining the facade, smashing the illusion that they're more than human.

in truth, i think that illusion should be shattered. we'd all be better off for it.

for my money, i want the real person.


stuart b.

[Brad Souders]

Should the armed forces teach BJJ to their soldiers ?

[apoweyn]

hmm... disclaimer: as a near-sighted asthmatic with a desk job, i'm about as far from a soldier as i possibly could be. so take this with a grain of salt.

i certainly think that concepts from bjj would serve any hand-to-hand component the military comes up with. as merryprankster has mentioned on various occassions, being on the ground may be a disadvantaged position in many circumstances, but it isn't a choice. it's an occurrence. and the more comfortable you are with dealing with the occurrence, the more readily you can adapt.

in this case, even if the ONLY thing bjj contributed to a military curriculum was how to defend yourself from your back long enough to regain your feet, it would be worth it. it would be interesting to see if a curriculum could be adapted to account for things like the knapsack, etc.

but the point has been made again and again that melee combat isn't that prevalent in the modern arena, so perhaps actual technique is less relevant than the oft-discussed attributes. and if bjj could imbue soldiers with some increased agility when they've fallen, then i think that, in and of itself, would warrant some study.


stuart b.

[Brad Souders]

The reason i ask this is i saw a TLC special on MA and they had the Air Force i believe doing BJJ. They had all there soldiers competing in BJJ type matches. The reasoning the guy said they did BJJ was because the Gracies had used it in real life. I personally love BJJ and yeah i believe mixing it in their training is cool BUT i don't believe that should be their main training.

[Brad Souders]

I got in a fight outside this club here in Dallas. These four guys were beating up this on guy. I ran over to break it up and all of the people left but one of the group beating up that one guy. The guy was lifting up his shirt showing off his USMC tat. He tried to make me flinch like a kid would do. I waited a couple of seconds and pretended to flinch and was telling him."Oh, was I supposed to flinch" Then he threw this slow ass punch at me that I ducked, came back and knocked him on his ass. He got up and ran away, and while he was running away he was yelling "I'm going to kick your Ass" it was pretty funny.
Makes me wonder about the hand to hand fighting ability of our Special forces though.

[apoweyn]

it was the rangers, i believe. and the instructor's point was twofold. the first point, you nailed. he liked the self-evidence of bjj. there's less theory and more application.

his second point, i'll grant you, was a bit contradictory. he said that bjj wouldn't be used on the battlefield, but that the qualities required to excel in bjj mirror those required to excel in combat. you're getting pretty conceptual at that point.

that's why i think cucci is probably on the right track (if he does currently teach the military). the soldiers need concepts and movements that are relatively quickly learned and widely applicable. striking with body parts that would be readily available in CQB (elbows and knees, so as not to jeopardize the hands by breaking them or the balance by kicking), retaining some level of bodily control in situations out of the norm (being on two feet), and recognizing the possibilities in weapons attacks, including knives, rifle butts, etc. (the angles, zoning, etc. of kali).

i think that's as much as you could realistically ask of a military hand-to-hand program.

but as i said, i'm WAY on the outside looking WAY in.


stuart b.

[Merryprankster]

To anybody who cares :)

H2H is a very small component of today's armed forces training. Why? Because I can take any idiot, hand him a rifle, train him a little bit, and he can lay down fire like a maniac. Even if he sucks, that's one more round at the enemy, and all it takes is one round to wound or kill.

I don't mean to disparage the armed forces (heck, I'm in one myself). What I'm trying to say is that a "citizen soldier," is useful in a combat situation thanks to the rifle. This is a drastic change from farmers armed with makeshift weapons, who really WERE laughable compared to professional soldiers. Don't even get me started on the constant drilling it took to properly engage the enemy with muskets.

Hand to hand is simply not as valuable a tool as it once was.

Bottom line--military personnel are better served by combat scenarios and firing rounds than working on hand to hand skills... Even the special forces. Small unit infiltration and extraction tactics are more analogous to swat team actions than personal combat.

Completely different animal--totally apples and oranges.

[apoweyn]

yeah, merryprankster. whatever.

and what happens the first time your aircraft carrier is hijacked and there ISN'T a sagely cook trained in aikido onboard? what happens then, huh?!

er, sorry. the line blurred again. i'm okay now.

:)


stuart b.

[Merryprankster]

I believe at that point, you don't get to make a VERY bad film with a master chief cook dressed in Admiral's Whites on the promos :)

[LEGEND]

Brad...I don't think it really matters...I think BJJ is more of a REC. tool for these guys. They do tons of hours training on the weapon scenarios more than they do any hand to hand.

[apoweyn]

merryprankster,

i'm pretty sure the hairdo wasn't 'standard issue' either. but i'm not calling him on it. that dude's a 'tulku.' or something.

...


stuart b.

[Jaguar Wong]

Apowyen,
LOL. I was wondering when you'd throw another b-movie reference around. I was just about to do the same, I was just looking for a thread to drop it into. :)

[apoweyn]

ever vigilant, jaguar. ever vigilant.

is there any thread that can't somehow be enriched by our absurd knowledge of b-movies?!

:)

[myosimka]

Same story line we have done with Jeff Speakman in an Israeli biological weapons compound with all non-Israeli characters-- Jeff Wincott at a chemical plant--Gary Daniels at his house--Don Wilson at a missile silo--uh wait Dolph Lundgren with Montel Williams at missile silo--Wesley Snipes on a plane, off a plane, on a plane...(need I go on??)

And you're calling the Seagal/Tommy Lee Jones B-grade??? You don't know from bad my friends.

[Jaguar Wong]

yeah, I figured myosimka, or someone (I was actually expecing my brother) to chime in and point out that Both Under Siege films were actual Theatrical releases. I say b grade, only because of the absurd plot. My definition of b-grade has far surpassed the budget, and has actually moved onto the quality of plot (only because we've seen so many cheesy movies :)).

I just want to say that I really liked the first Under Siege, because of the fact that he was the cook (well, sort of). I thought that was plain funny.

Also, not to taint this thread with our Oh-So-Useless knowledge of martial film excellence, but is there an actual "gem" with Dolf Lundgren and Montell Williams?!? :eek: I guess I'm so behind the times.

Tigerstyle, looks like we're rescheduling Friday Night for another round of "Bunk Fest" (It's really not as gay as it sounds ;))

[tnwingtsun]

Well said............

[apoweyn]

jaguar,

myosimka is referring to 'peacekeeper' or 'peacemaker' with dolph lundgren and montel williams. (i can't remember which one was clooney and kidman. this is obviously the OTHER one.)

if you get a chance to see that don wilson one too (can't remember the title), the one in which roddy piper plays a mercenary who's camoflague consists of being painted up like a racoon... DON'T!

:)

[myosimka]

That's actually true of pretty much all Wilson films.

Actually I recommend you steer clear of all of the above. Well maybe not the Speakman flick. That one cracked me up. Plus I just have this thing for watching Speakman fight. He just doesn't fo it enough. You can watch 4 or 5 Speakman flicks and see less than 10minutes of fight scenes.

There's the real tragedy of B-rated movies. Too much plot, not enough badassitude.

But briefly trying to remember the point of this thread.

I see no problem with BJJ being taught to professional soldiers. Esp. since we live in a time where we restrict their fire response options all the time. Example: marines guard embassies-capping a drunk ambassador entering a restricted area seems like a bad idea. Joint locks good. Fire bad.

In the big scheme of things though it should be way down on the list.

Now if Cucci got whipped at a Dog Brothers Gathering...actually it's still the same. Sport competition, as real as it gets, varies from military training dramatically.There is some knowledge that crosses over and translates but combat is different from selfdefense or fighting or competition.


And on Under Seige- number 1)passable. major theater release. ok plot with a number of holes. number 2) B grade. Don't care about the budget personally, that movie just sucks!! My favorite bit- Apparently not only is aikdio useful in helicopters but it's the ultimate MA as you can show it to a girl who can show the guy once and then he can execute it perfectly.

[apoweyn]

myosimka,

amen on the don wilson films. and i hear ya on speakman. i thought the wincott film was okay though. not really overly impressed with him, but he does go out of his way to work some double stick sequences into most of his films. he's not great at it, but it's there. and i'm entertained.

as for under siege, i didn't mind either one. but i do feel comfortable labeling them b-flicks too, just based on the spirit of the thing. :)

as for getting back on track, i have to agree with the idea that h2h combat is pretty low on the list for the military, unless (as you pointed out) their duties come to include situations in which nonlethal combat is preferred.

that said, if there is going to be a martial arts component to their training, i think it should provide them with a blanket understanding of several different modes of combat. some awareness of the possibilities with nonprojectile weapons (kali, in this case), with being off of your feet (BJJ) and with fighting when your hands aren't necessarily available (muay thai).

all said, i think cucci has a pretty good take.


stuart b.

[Kevin73]

1) I liked "Showdown in Little Tokyo" that had Dolph Lundgren and also Brandon Lee. Cheesy but pretty good

2) As the military does more peacekeeping missions I think it is good that they expand their non-lethal responses.

As far as Cucci losing in an MMA competition, it was just that....a sporting event. SEALS and such are trained to kill as quickly as possible, and usually with weapons. H2H tactics have very little play when your enemy isn't suppposed to know your there.