Story by SGT Ryan Matson

372^nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – A small Dominican boy sat atop a milk crate, watching as a field full of Soldiers and police officers threw punches in unison through the air at the Pedro Brant Dominican Army Base. It was much like a scene from a movie where a group of children sneak a free peek through a hole in the fence to watch their baseball heroes playing.

And though these Soldiers and police officers may have been heroes to the little boy, they were not playing a game. They were learning self-defense and martial arts skills that may be life-saving when applied in a real-world situation.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Kendall R. Mathurin, a martial arts instructor trainer with Martial Arts Center of Excellence (MACE), was one of 20 U.S. Marine Corps instructors leading the training. He explained their mission in the Dominican Republic.

“We have a combination of Soldiers and police officers here from the Caribbean Islands,” Mathurin said. “Each of the Islands sent about three of their Soldiers or military personnel and brought them all to the Dominican Republic where we’re going to teach them Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP).”

The Marines were training Soldiers and police officers from 14 different Caribbean nations – Bahamas, Belize, Surnam, Antigua, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Saint Kitts, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica - on a mixture of standing fighting and takedowns over 12 days at the Pedro Brant Dominican Army Base in Santo Domingo.

Mathurin said the training started March 26 with the basics.

“We started with the fundamentals – things like angles of movement, and we taught them how to make a fist,” Mathurin said.

“A lot of people have never been in a fight before, so it was very important training.”

By the end of the training 12 days later, Mathurin said the Soldiers and police officers will be certified as grey belts, the second-level of belt in the MCMAP system (tan, grey, green, brown and black.) He said that MCMAP is not a single style of martial arts fighting, but a hybrid of fighting forms.

“It’s a mixture,” Mathurin said. “We start with standing fighting, then work in weapons, arm manipulations, takedowns and ground fighting.”

Though the system is a mixture of martial arts styles, Staff Sgt. Jarrad Demster, another MCMAP instructor trainer with the MACE, said all the styles have one thing in common.

“All Marine Corps Martial Arts are based around weapons,” he said.

Sgt. Ben Aba, a Soldier with the Belize Defense Force, Logistics Company, has attended Operation Tradewinds in the past, and said he has used the training provided there in real-world situations.

“This training will help us in Belize because we assist the police with handling external aggression and riot control,” Aba said.

“Within the last two years there were riots in Belize, but that is under control now.”

Aba said that the most important thing he got from the training was to learn techniques, and improve on those techniques. He said that since he is one of two Soldiers from the Belize Defense Force attending the training, when he returns to his home country, he will be responsible for passing what he has learned on to his fellow Soldiers.

“We will concentrate especially on the new recruits,” he said.

Being a MCMAP instructor or instructor trainer with MACE is a prestigious job in the Marine Corps. Demster said there are 20 instructors at MACE, which is based in Quantico, Virginia.

Demster said the instructors travel the world teaching martial arts.

“We’ve been to Columbia, Chile, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Spain, France. All of the instructors are at least black belts in MCMAP who undergo an additional seven-week instructor course,” he said.

Aba said he enjoyed training under top-notch instructors.

“They are good instructors, and they are dedicated,” he said.