Feature: Navy SEALs, MMA, and Controversy

For twenty years the United States Navy’s Sea Air and Land Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, had used a combatives system known as Close Quarter Defense (CQD) to train and prepare themselves for hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. This all changed in 2011, when CQD was dropped by the Navy Special Warfare Command (NSW) in favor of allowing Navy SEALs to train in mixed-martial-arts, both in-house and at MMA gyms across the country. The move was not without controversy, and today that decision is at the forefront of a political battle to determine who the next leader of the NSW will be and who is responsible for overseeing and conducting all Navy SEAL missions.

Well before the NSW’s decision to end their affiliation with CQD, the SEAL community was split on whether CQD or MMA was most effective – and deadly – in the field. CQD was invented in the early 1980s by Duane Dieter, a former law enforcement officer. According to CQD’s website, Dieter (who did not respond to Bloody Elbow’s request for an interview) developed his system after he ‘traveled to the Orient’ in order to find a ‘master’ who could teach him the skills that were needed in a ‘high-risk- fight’. After visiting Hong Kong, Okinawa, and Taiwan, Dieter was allegedly told by an ‘elder master’ that, “What you’re looking for does not exist. You must develop it yourself. It must be your purpose.” CQD is split into six disciplines, which include Weapon & Zone Control, Suspect/Prisoner Control, and the trademarked terms Direct Defense Skills, CQD Shooting, Operation Physical Training, and Internal Warrior. CQD was officially adopted by the NSW in 1989. Since 2008, Dieter’s Close Quarters Defense Inc. has been awarded $1,724,296 in US Department of Defense contracts.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune a number of former Navy SEALs consider CQD the ‘bedrock’ of SEAL training. However, detractors within the SEAL community have claimed that CQD was proved obsolete in the field during combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. One SEAL who was against CQD was Timothy G. Szymanski, who – as a Captain – helped author a report examining whether CQD should be dropped in favor of training similar to that of UFC fighters. In 2011 Szymanski’s report contributed to the NSW ending their affiliation with CQD. The Navy then handed out a number of contracts to various MMA providers.

Timothy Szymanski was a member of the vaunted SEAL Team Six and today he holds the rank of Rear Admiral. He currently serves as assistant commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. In April 2016, Rear Adm. Szymanski was ‘tapped’, according to The Washington Times, to become the new commander of NSW. Incumbent NSW leader Rear Adm. Brian Losey is to retire after complaints he had engaged in acts of whistle-blower retaliation (per Military.com).

With Szymanski primed to take over all actions regarding the Navy SEALs, questions have been raised about his reasons for championing the switch from CQD to MMA. On April 5th, Congressman Duncan Hunter, a Republican and former US Marine who represents California’s San Diego County, sent a letter to US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to request that Szymanski’s promotion be put on hold until an investigation is held into the switch from CQB to MMA.

In his letter, Hunter stated that he had, “concerns with the process for considering and awarding the contracts that have led to the removal of CQD from SEAL training.” Hunter’s letter continued to state that he was of the belief, thanks to ‘consistent reports’, “that MMA training is not conductive to SEAL operations.” Hunter also expressed that CQD was far more cost effective than MMA, costing only $345 per SEAL whereas MMA cost as much as $2,900 per SEAL. Hunter’s most serious claim was that the NSW made the shift to MMA because both active-duty and retired Navy SEALs had business interests …

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