Civilian teaches troops close-quarters combat

Instilling 'the Warrior Spirit'

When the U.S. Army decided it could use some help teaching its soldiers hand-to-hand combat, it turned to a Lawrence man – a civilian.

David Durnil, 27, is an expert at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He founded and was head coach of the Kansas University Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Club. He has trained in the martial art for more than a decade. Before he began training soldiers, he also had helped train officers at the police academy in Kansas City, Mo.

“About 85 percent of the base elements of Modern Army Combatives, or MAC, are Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,” Durnil said.

Since securing his job training soldiers at Fort Riley, Durnil has moved to Manhattan to be closer to the base.

Fort Riley has built its Modern Army Combatives training from scratch and is one of only nine posts to use civilian instructors to train troops.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was selected as the base for combatives because it can be taught quickly to large numbers of people without causing many injuries.

“You can teach people grappling, and they can go almost 100 percent with each other,” Durnil said. “(The soldier) feels like, ‘Yeah, I can get this on someone. I don’t have to have faith in this system. I know what it’s going to do to them.'”

Sgt. Don Dosch, left, spars with Sgt. Michael Rosenberger as instructor Dave Durnil observes at Fort Riley. Durnil, who was the founder and head coach of the Kansas University Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Club, teaches a hand-to-hand combat class for U.S. soldiers at Fort Riley. The class prepares soldiers for modern urban combat where close-quarters fighting is commonplace.

The Jiu-Jitsu helps address the new nature of military combat. Small infantry tactics and close-quarters combat have now become commonplace in Iraq and Afghanistan. The modern battlefield is urban, and fighting takes place in the streets, buildings or even in the homes of the enemy, he said.

“When patrolling, everyone is performing infantry tasks, everyone is going door-to-door,” Durnil said. “The training that (combatives) offers instills the warrior spirit within somebody, whether they see hand-to-hand combat or not.”

Before the trainees begin what will be a grueling experience, Durnil gives them his version of a pep talk.

“If you get knocked down, get up, get your base and get back in the fight. Don’t lie there on your butt, because it’s only going to get worse,” he says. “If the worst thing that happens in your life is you get popped a couple times in the nose, then you lived a pretty nice life.”

A U.S. Army soldier stepped forward and walked toward the instructor. Behind him, a single-file row of troops shuffled against the far wall of the gymnasium at Fort Riley.

The soldiers were in camouflage battle dress uniforms except for the tennis shoes that squeaked across the hardwood floor. The scene was otherwise reminiscent of a high school gym class, right down to the large red wrestling mat stretched out before them. The soldier raised his bare fists. The moment he touched the instructor’s gloves, his assumptions ended and Punch Day began.

The soldier rushed forth, only to be repeatedly struck by the instructor as he frantically attempted to secure a dominant position.

“The object is for them to get confidence and gain the skills they need to engage the enemy in close-quarters combat,” said Keith Daniels, instructor and staff sergeant.

To stop the instructor from hitting them, the trainee must establish a dominant clinch position by getting both arms under the instructor’s to achieve a body lock from the front, side or back, a total of four times with increasing intensity. It is assumed for training purposes that the ability to achieve the clinch will enable the soldier to successfully take an enemy to the ground.

“The first time through is kind of a confidence builder so they can get over the fear of doing it, but the last one is for real,” Daniels said.

Soldiers watch as one of the last of their classmates spars with an instructor during a hand-to-hand combat class at Fort Riley. The students had to achieve a dominant position while being attacked by the instructors.

Though the combatives program has been around more than a decade, the program at Fort Riley is the only one of its kind in the world.

Barton County Community College offers the class though its Fort Riley campus. Soldiers receive three to five credit hours in military science for participating.

Courses are open to any active duty soldier at Fort Riley, and the soldiers in any given class may never have met, Durnil said. There could be special forces soldiers training alongside medics.

“This is something that the Army and Fort Riley have really embraced. It’s growing steadily and fast,” said John Truitt, military training coordinator at Barton County Community College.

Fort Riley is producing platoons in which there is at least one combatives instructor per platoon who has undergone 40 hours of training to train other platoon members weekly.

In the higher levels of combatives training, the goal is the seamless integration of weapons into the training so that the techniques will be effective not only in hand-to-hand situations, but also when the enemy is armed, Durnil said.

“We are expecting to get hit pretty hard, but that’s part of it,” said Manuel Baza, a trainee from Dallas. “I mean, if you’ve been in a fight, you know you’re never going to leave unbruised or unhurt.”

Sgt. Garrett Girardin tries to establish a dominant clinch against an instructor during hand-to-hand training at Fort Riley as instructor Dave Durnil observes.

Many of the soldiers were nervous, but seemed upbeat about the challenge ahead of them.

“I’d be stupid to say that I wasn’t nervous,” Baza said. “Any time you go into a situation knowing you’ve got the risk of getting hit, it’s natural to be nervous.”

As the soldiers endured the sparring sessions one by one, some were injured or momentarily knocked out. Some chose to quit and fail the course. Though trainees have been forced to quit from injuries received during the training, there has never been anyone seriously injured in the combatives program at Fort Riley, Durnil said.

At the end of the exercise, 16 of the 19 trainees made it through Punch Day and graduated to the next level of training.

“It was a blast; it was fun,” Baza said. “It was a great time, and if I had to do it all over again, I would. I really would.”

– Staff writer Robert Riley is a former student of Durnil and currently trains with the Brazilian Top Team in Kansas City, Mo.

What is jiu-jitsu?

Jiu-Jitsu differs from other martial arts in that it is primarily a system of fighting that uses superior leverage to choke or damage an opponent’s joints in order to disable or render him unconscious. It is called the gentle art because a practitioner can defeat an enemy without harming him.
Count Koma, a Japanese Judo and Jiu-Jitsu master, traveled to Brazil in the early 1900s and taught the arts to Carlos Gracie. Gracie proceeded to teach the art to his brothers, including the legendary Helio Gracie who, because of his frail physique, revolutionized the techniques of Jiu-Jitsu, making it possible to defeat much larger opponents.
Helio Gracie’s improvements were so effective that the style became known as Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, the basis for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Helio Gracie is now 92 and continues to teach and train.