“Everything around you can be used as a weapon.”

That’s one of the first things the instructor told Yellowhammer’s Cliff Sims at a remote training facility in northern Virginia several weeks ago.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a knife or a bottle or a stick,” the instructor continued. “We’re going to use a lot of the same movements.

“Here, here and here,” the instructor continued as he made smooth striking motions at three different angles.

Sims and the Yellowhammer TV crew had come to the base to go through a series of training exercise with a small team of special ops veterans, including Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets. The goal was to get a first-hand look at some of the preparation they go through before deploying and give the Yellowhammer audience a peek behind the curtain.

After the hand-to-hand combat segment of the training, we asked Sims which aspect of it he found to be the most challenging.

“I’d say the knife,” Sims said. “In a lot of situations it can be helpful to create space between yourself and your attacker, but if they’re coming at you with a knife, the instructor explained that it may actually be better to close the gap and not give them room to operate. It made sense when he told us that, but when they start attacking, it’s hard to convince yourself that coming closer to the threat may actually help avoid the threat.”

A short highlight video of the training can be viewed above.