Akshay Kumar in Marine Corps

MARINE CORPS MARTIAL ARTS

The Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, MCMAP, is a martial arts combat system developed by the United States Marine Corps in 2000. The motto of the MCMAP is “One Mind, Any Weapon.” It has several nicknames, including semper fu (a play on the Marine Corps motto semper fi and kung fu), MCSlap, MCNinja, and new Bushido.

The Corps had already utilized close quarter combat fighting techniques developed since the bayonet days of the Revolutionary War era. However, they wished to combine existing and new hand-to-hand and close quarters combat techniques with morale and team-building functions and instruction. The Marine Corps calls this way the "Warrior Ethos".

In the early 1990s, the U.S. military, specifically the Marine Corps and the Army, began to concentrate on training its special operations soldiers in techniques that could be used in international peacekeeping missions and other operations other than war where close combat would be necessary but force was not required to be lethal.

A study was order by General James L. Jones, commandant of the Marine Corps, in 2000. The purpose of the study was to find the possibility of having all Marines train in one system such as Aikido or Taekwondo. Jones had seen Korean Marines practicing Taekwondo during the Vietnam War. His idea was a martial arts system that that could be used in any environment, terrain, or situation. He also wanted this system to extend to rigorous physical conditioning, mental discipline, and character-building.

After the study, the MCMAP was then established and headquartered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. According to Marine Corps Order 1500.54, which established the MCMAP, the program was “a synergy of mental, character, and physical disciplines with application across the full spectrum of violence.” The first director was Lieutenant Colonel George Bristol who was an experienced fighter with black belts in Judo, Jujitsu, and Karate.

The program trains Marines (and U.S. Navy personnel attached to Marine Units) in unarmed combat, edged weapons, weapons of opportunity, and rifle and bayonet techniques.

Although the system combines aspects of many different martial arts, it focuses less on traditional movements and more on techniques designed to work in actual close-quarter-combat situations. The moves are adjusted necessarily to better suit the fighters depending upon the situation.

MCMAP fighters proceed through a belt system, beginning with tan and advancing through grey, green, brown, and on to six different levels of black.