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Media Relations
Kansas State University
9 Anderson Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506
785-532-6415
media@k-state.edu

Information provided by K-State Media Relations, K-State's news service, may be reproduced without permission. The marks and names of Kansas State University are protected trademarks and may not be used in any commercial or private endeavor without the approval of the university.

Source: Art DeGroat, 785-532-0369, degroata@k-state.edu

Friday, Oct. 17, 2008

K-STATE MODERN COMBATIVES EDUCATION PROGRAM HELPS FORT RILEY TEAM WIN ARMY COMBATIVES NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

MANHATTAN -- Three modern combatives education program instructors from Kansas State University have been recognized by Fort Riley for their role in helping a team from the fort's First Infantry Division capture the U.S. Army's national combatives championship.

Dave Durnil, Joe Wilk and Jon Menke were honored at an awards ceremony Oct. 16 at Fort Riley, hosted by Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, commanding general of the First Infantry Division. Durnil is a senior instructor and Wilk and Menke are assistant instructors in K-State's modern combatives education program. Menke also is a senior in mathematics, Manhattan.

The three combatives instructors helped prepare the 12-member Fort Riley team that came out on top at the Army's combatives championship tournament, Oct. 3-4, at Fort Benning, Ga. The team was the first with non-Special Operations members to win the competition.

To help prepare the team for the competition, K-State modified its 16-week advanced combatives curriculum into a specialized six-week format, with 21 Fort Riley soldiers participating in the course, said Art DeGroat, K-State's director of military affairs. The specialized curriculum focused on martial arts knowledge and skill development, self-regulation and management techniques, and ethical dimensions of combative competition.

"K-State's modern combatives education program is the first of its kind in the nation, teaching a wide variety of mixed martial arts techniques to undergraduate and graduate students, ROTC cadets, and soldiers from Fort Riley," said DeGroat, who helped create and manages the innovative K-State program.

"I'm proud of what our students and faculty have accomplished by winning a prestigious national-level competition," DeGroat said. "What is most notable to me is that our faculty of experts created a specialized program for these Fort Riley students as only a university-based institution could do."

Assisting the K-State combatives instructors with the specialized curriculum was a K-State doctoral student in sports nutrition. She advised and monitored the student fighters as part of her work in sports nutrition in mixed martial arts, DeGroat said.

"The Fort Riley team lived up to its potential," Durnil said.

The Army's combatives tournament is held over two days and includes various rules sets such as grappling and striking.

"The graduated set of rules really produces competency in different styles of fighting, said Wilk, who also coaches the team. "It makes us train our students for the realities of various situations."

"While there is certainly a behavioral training element to this course, the central outcomes I witness every day with modern combatives are the knowledge-based learning that our students acquire: the ability to assess, decide and act effectively and ethically in a contest of wills," DeGroat said. "This great accomplishment by our military students validates, for me, that we are making a positive difference in our students' development."

In addition to training and certifying Army soldiers in modern combatives, DeGroat said K-State combatives faculty have been instrumental in assisting the U.S. Air Force in adopting a service-wide fighting system of Air Force combatives. K-State and the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colo., are the only two educational institutions training Air Force combatives to date, DeGroat said.