Training Now and Over the Years

"...our mission is for you to learn to fight well for real. Someone with this training should be able to handle himself proficiently in real time with sticks, clubs, knives, staff, improvised weapons and empty hand in all ranges. He should have skills and intelligence for multiple player situations. He should have a clear sense of what he can and cannot do, and be able to assess situations and people well. He should be seasoned in handling his adrenaline and know for what he fights and for what he does not. He should be fit and healthy. This is whether he is a younger man, a middle aged man, or an older man.

"And for each of these there is short, middle and long term training, which should be done together in an ever changing blend. One should not try to live permanently in the testosterone frenzy of getting-ready-for-a-fight training, but one should always be of a level of fitness able to apply maximal effort without notice. One needs to train for now and for over the years. This promotes physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual health as well as fighting skill.

"To last over the years, one needs to be intelligent-- the secret of life is to get smart faster than you get old. If we try to always operate in that young male testosterone frenzy, just like Bruce Lee we're not going to last very long. In training, there must be the "three Fs"...Fun, Fit, and Functional. To be functional, we must be fit and healthy, and what we do to be fit and healthy must be fun to do or we will not do it."

Mark Denny

New SEALS Recruiting and Training Program

CORONADO, Calif., April 10 (UPI) -- A U.S. Navy program to boost the elite SEALs force is starting to pay off, the Navy Times reported Monday.

The newspaper said that the Naval Special Warfare Command had overhauled both its recruiting and training techniques in the past year in a bid to boost volunteers to the under-strength force and also to boost recruits in their efforts to pass the unit's demanding training program.

The NSWC and the Navy had even set up a mentorship program to ease the transition of recruits in their training process, the newspaper said.

The paper said a new recruiting division at Recruit Training Command had been established to strengthen teamwork concepts among recruits, boost physical training levels and capabilities and boost their overall general performance.

The Navy Times said the program was already showing some improvements in recruitment figures and in the percentage of recruits who made the grade.

It said that SEALs class 263, which completed a six-month basic course on March 30, produced 46 men SEALs out of 144 class members who started the program, giving a success rate of 32 percent. This was a significant improvement on the old average completion rate of 26 percent, the Navy Times said.

U.S. security concerns have created a growing demand for the skill sets of the SEALS. However the current force level of 2,270 SEALS is below the officially required level by 12 percent. The Pentagon wants the force to grow to 3,038 SEALs by 2011, the report said.