# OK test Push-Ups?  How do they want them ?



## Dogboy (11 Aug 2004)

After going over the forums a few times (its really helpfull thanks  )
I'm confused ???.
When your doing your P.T. do they want you to do your push-ups with elbows at your side or elbows at 90' to you body?
Iv always done them at 90'. 
And iv herd that some testers will not accept those push-ups   done like that. 
So to clear as much cloud up as possible please help a further grunt

How do you do a proper military push up in your PT test?


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## jarko (11 Aug 2004)

Depends on the tester, mine told me to have my elbows touching my sides all the time and if they didn't he wouldn't count them.


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## Marine837M (11 Aug 2004)

Hey feller....dont get all het up on who wants what.... they will tell you on the day of your test.

Just make sure you keep your back staright... and your arse down...head facing front.... and when you press... chest to the floor.

Elbows is irrelevant they will tell you on the day..just get pushing fit guy.

A real press up is a Marine Press up.

I mean the above in a nice way mate...good luck.


Marine 837M


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## Freight_Train (11 Aug 2004)

So I am looking for a Marine Press up on the 'net because "A real press up is a Marine Press up", and I come across this article, "Walking the Walk, Talking the Talk, in the Royal Marines" and I thought I would post it so that we can understand some of what Marine837M's is talking about.   I still would appreciate some illumination about what constitutes a Marine Press Up though.
http://www.sharpecopy.com/tips/walkingthewalk.html
Walking the Walk,
Talking the Talk,
in the Royal Marines.
by Alan Sharpe.
The newspaper advertisement was dramatic. Several heavily armed soldiers were crouching in a cramped assault boat, manfully pounding over the waves towards an assuredly nasty landing on some distant enemy beach. "NO PLEASURE CRUISES IN THE MARINES," warned the headline. And then, beneath the photo: "Some of the toughest training in the world. That's what makes Royal Marines Commandos ready for anything. If you think you've got the determination and you're over 17, here's your chance. Find out more by sending off the coupon."
I was slouching at the back of mathematics class, catching up on the comic-strip misadventures of Andy Cap and Hagar the Horrible. The year was 1976. I had just turned 16. My Oxford and Cambridge 'O' Level exams -- and certain defeat -- waited less than a week away. I read the advertisement again. I studied the photograph. I mailed off the coupon that night.

The information package arrived within the week. Nine months later I was Junior Marine PO35440S, bayonetting dummies with gusto and throwing up my lunch during nine-mile speed marches. Eighteen months later I was dodging bullets and bombs in Northern Ireland. Five years later I was photographing penguins in Antarctica. Ten years later -- and thirteen countries, four promotions, numerous fights, a number of drunken one-night-stands beyond recall and a Falklands war later -- I was a civilian again.

The task of turning me from a civilian into an elite commando who gladly night-skied with a 120-lb pack, stormed enemy beaches, and spent four weeks fighting in the Falklands war without removing my boots, was no easy task. Commando training took over nine months. Seventy percent of those who joined up with me never finished. In previous years, a number of recruits had died in training.

The mission of getting me and my troop to radically and permanently change our old ways of thinking began the moment we stepped off the train at the Commando Training Centre, in Lympstone, Devon:

"Listen in, nods! [recruits]" yelled an instructor meeting our batch of trainees. "Put your [deleted expletive] kit [equipment] on the [deleted expletive] deck [floor]." "Stop acting like a bunch of brown-hatters [homosexuals] and start switching on [thinking]," shouted another. Then a menacing sergeant assured the bewildered arrivals that he was a reasonable and fair man. "I'm Sergeant Madsen, your TL [team leader]," he announced. "Welcome to THE CORP. I'm the one who's going to turn you into bootnecks [Royal Marines]. I'm a wazzer egg [great bloke] and a good run-ashore [night on the town]. You play ball with me, and I'll hit you over the head with a cricket bat."

I did little at this point except boggle over what these men were saying, while wondering what planet I had just landed on.

For the next nine months I might just as well have been living on another planet, because this baffling welcome was merely my first exposure to the exclusive, elitist and seductive linguistic world of the Royal Marines. This foreign language was soon to be one of the most pervasive and effective tools that the training team used to mold me into an aggressive, self-disciplined, goal-oriented and motivated fighting man (there are no women in the Royal Marines). By the end of commando training I had mastered this formidable language. And the language -- to an even greater extent -- had mastered me.

In the early stages of training, the dazzling array of new words and phrases that I had to acquire served constantly to separate me from all things civilian and familiar. Almost every object around me had a new name. Later on, this new language re-fashioned many of my old values and ways of looking at the world by forcing me to talk -- and thus to eventually think -- like a professional soldier. And still later, and particularly once I was in a fighting unit, this language affirmed my notion of having superior status, of being a member of an elite fighting group. The men I associated with from then on had passed the same tests, undergone the same harsh commando training. They were the only people who spoke the same language that I did.

The training team encouraged us recruits to forget our past and grasp the uncomfortable realities of commando training by having us talk from day one as though we had already taken our place in a fighting unit. Each one of us, we were told, was now one of the Royal Navy's soldiers, and nautical terminology, even on dry land, was mandatory. We learned to sweep the deck, not the floor. We ran to the galley (dining hall) at scran time (meal time) with our yaffling spanners/troughing irons/gobbling rods (knife, fork, spoon) in order to get Harry toppers (very full). We crashed (slept) in a pit (bed) and urinated in the heads (toilets). In the morning we no longer put on clothes -- we got rigged.

Adopting this new terminology as my own had a profound and intended effect on me. The more I used the language, the more I lost -- consciously or otherwise -- my former sense of autonomy and individuality. In the Corps everyone speaks this way. If I wanted to walk the walk, I first had to show that I was complying with the requirements of Royal Marines training by talking the talk:

"What's this in the gash can, recruit Sharpe?," asked an instructor. (A gash can is a shallow chrome rubbish can used in barrack rooms.)
"It's rubbish, Sergeant," I replied.
"Adopt the position and give me 50 good ones [press-ups], Sharpe. Now then, what's this in the gash can?"
"Oh, it's gash, Sergeant," I answered, counting, grunting.
"And what's it doing in the gash can, Sharpe?"
This is the puzzling part.
"Well," I said, my mind racing, "it's gash . . . so I put it in . . . the gash can, Sergeant."
"We don't put gash in the gash can, Sharpe. This thing has to be Harry-spankers [very clean] every time I walk into your grot [room]. Have you hoisted that in [understood]?"
"Yes, Sergeant," I said, lying.

I had to accept Royal Marine idiosyncrasies such as this one as givens. To do otherwise was folly. Eventually I realized that my life was not my own anymore, and, every time I admitted as much in my actions and language, I thought less like a civilian and more like the soldier I was trying to become.

Paradoxically, the very language that took away my sense of personal identity also gave a new one back to me. After 12 weeks of basic training I entered the final, and most difficult, six-month commando training phase. I left behind my last chance for voluntarily "opting out" of training and returning home to my former civilian existence. Having made the decision to stay, I now identified more with THE CORPS than with Civvy Street, and my actions reflected this. I now disparagingly called those out of uniform "dumb civvies," called a night on the town "a run-ashore," and when going out with my mates (now called "oppos") to meet women (now called "parties") I talked not of picking up birds, but of "going trapping." I no longer just dressed and spoke like a Royal Marine, I now felt like one as well.

This new identity was elitist and often patronizing in nature and was evident not just in my sweeping dismissal of civilians but also in the way I regarded the other armed services. I called the Royal Air Force "crabfats" and "Brylcream boys." The Royal Navy were just a bunch of "bone matelots [stupid sailors]." And I now dubbed all Army-types "pongos," verbal shorthand for "wherever the Army goes, the pong goes." In my view I was the best of the best. All others were inferior. 

By this stage of training I had grasped the basic concepts of what was required of me in a commando unit. These concepts were straightforward and free from the abstraction and euphemism so often found in the language of defence intellectuals and nuclear war strategists. Defense intellectuals tend to deliberately distance themselves from the horrific realities of the endless nuclear war scenarios they create. They speak in domestic terms of nuclear missiles being kept in "silos," of missiles "taking out targets." They don't talk of dropping nuclear bombs, but of "delivering," by way of "a bus," groups of "multiple, independently targeted, re-entry vehicles." 

The pattern in which these bombs fall on enemy ground is called a "footprint," and civilian casualties are referred to obliquely as "collateral damage." Making their language abstract and full of euphemism helps defense intellectuals and strategists to "think rationally" about nuclear war. Harmless-sounding phrases, acronyms and buzzwords that slip effortlessly from the tongue help to cloud the real consequences of their war plans.

I was taught to describe my work in a different manner. I talked of going on "fighting," "ambush," and "aggressive" foot patrols in which I was required to "destroy enemy positions," "dominate the ground," and "kill the enemy." I referred to enemy gun positions as having been "destroyed by friendly fire." When my artillery shells fell on enemy emplacements, I described the size and shape of "the killing area." Innocent civilians killed in battle were "civilian casualties." Unlike the nuclear war strategist, I was required to physically attack and kill a breathing enemy. As such, I needed to be aggressive, ruthlessly thorough, and fearless. Speaking the way I did left me with no doubts as to what was required of me.

The nearest that I and other bootnecks came to using euphemism in our language was in our use of black humour. Our rough and often self-effacing jokes allowed us to laugh at ourselves, and also to laugh, without much pause for introspection, at what we did for a living. We joked, for example, that the grenade we used against enemy personnel was shaped just like a pineapple, "so that everyone would get a chunk." Irish Republican Army terrorists who accidently blew themselves up were called "home goals," after the soccer phrase for goals scored by players who inadvertently kick the ball into their own net. 

By way of my accomplishments in training and through my use of goal-oriented language, I developed an elitist, winning attitude that served an important function in my line of work. My job as a fighting man was to win. Winning meant making sure that the other guy quit, lost or died. All through my indoctrination I was told repeatedly that being number-one was everything. In my battle tactics lessons I was taught: "When we have engaged the enemy and won the fire-fight, we will sweep through the enemy position and reorganize." No mention was ever made of, nor consideration ever given to, losing a fire-fight with the enemy.

Pushed to the limit of my endurance during a punishing physical test, I pleaded that I couldn't go on any further. I was pounced upon and admonished by my instructors: "There's no such word as can't," they said, "what you're saying is won't." Those of us who heeded this advice, and surprised ourselves by doing the last 10 press-ups, or running the extra 100 metres, realized that our instructors were right. The only way to win was by convincing ourselves that if we didn't complete a given task, this was because we would not, and not because we could not, finish it. Friends of mine who passed commando tests they thought impossible were positively reinforced on each occasion. We gradually developed a win-at-any-cost attitude. The word "fail" disappeared from our vocabulary.

This win-at-any-cost attitude was evident during the Falklands War of 1982, when Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines delivered an illuminating and now famous answer to a British journalist. "Royal Marines don't surrender," he said, "it's not part of our training."

This mind-set was also shaped during my troop's time off. Out on the town, our training team encouraged us recruits to be competitive in two pastimes greatly admired by the Royal Marines -- procuring women and drinking large quantities of alcohol. Those of us who frequently slept with different women were envied as being "stacks ratings." (A rating is a rank in the Royal Navy.) To spend the night meant to boast next morning of having got "all-nighters." To have slept with a woman was to have "trapped." Those who could not trap were mocked as being "plums ratings," a phrase coined after a popular fruit machine notorious for coming up all plums but never paying out any winnings. The machine is still located in a Plymouth-area pub where marines find that they can both drink and trap parties at the same time.

Drinking vast quantities of booze was so admired that our instructors -- and us too, eventually -- had an impressive lexicon for describing every aspect of the activity. A drink of any type was a "wet." Getting a sip of your oppo's wet was "sippers," getting a larger one was "gulpers," and finishing off the lot was "getting sandy bottoms." One who drank great quantities and often was a "piss artist," "beer Bo'sun," or "glophead," and many marines went ashore with the much-admired sole intention of drinking until they got "legless," "mingers," "screaming," "shyters," "honking," "crappers," or, if they got particularly sloshed, "Harry mingboat." Bootnecks who threw up their drink over the sidewalk (or worse) were applauded for having "laid a kit muster." Rather tellingly, the training team applauded any recruit who could "take his drink," but only if said glophead got up the next morning and continued his training.

On completion of my training I was posted, as were most of my troop, to a commando unit of 800 men, where I served as a rifleman in a section of nine men. My language was now as much a part of my character as my uniform and green beret were a part of my appearance. My distinctive jargon no longer served to shape me but simply buttressed my feeling of being apart from civilian life and the other services, and, in particular, in making me feel that I was one of the best fighting men in the world. In NATO parlance I was part of Britain's "spearhead" troops, ready to deploy anywhere around the globe at a moments notice. Royal Marines, I soon noted, were always the first to land on "enemy" beaches during NATO exercises.

I was now quick to point out to those who didn't know better that bootnecks fight where no one else can be trained to fight, such as in jungle, arctic and mountainous areas. I also joked that if the world were to have a high-tech, push-button war, Royal would have to yomp [march] 85 kilometres to press that button. Bootnecks like to boast that they get around today's computerized battlefields using sophisticated Leather Personnel Carriers, which is to say, boots.

Ashore in the Falklands conflict I ridiculed and dehumanized the Argentine enemy by bragging that my rifle section would "frag some Argies" with fragmentation grenades. I sang with my oppos in the ship's bar on the way south that "white phoss sticks to spics." ("White phoss" is the burning powder from the white phosphorous grenade that sticks to and burns the skin, much as napalm does.) 

Although I considered myself superior, I did respect other professional fighting men. I held little affection for the Irish Republican Army, but up against them in Northern Ireland I regarded them as ingenious and effective terrorists. As everyone did, I referred to the current operatives as "the players," and to the IRA in general as "the Boys." I was also rather blaséÂ Â¡bout the formidable training that I had completed to get where I was. I joked in quartermaster-style lingo about my world-famous headgear, calling it my "beret, green, coveted," and I described those completing training to join a unit as being "tick-tock Royal Machines, just out of the box."

While I was in the Corps, my language let me know that I was part of a small, tightly knit family of like-minded men. We all dressed, acted, spoke and thought the same way. I was part of the clique. I travelled the world, was paid well for doing exciting and dangerous work, and was admired by parents, respected by other armed services and feared by my enemies. As long as I remained in the Corps, walking the walk, and talking the talk, was fun.

A year before I "got outside," I was standing with my commando unit in Plymouth's crowded railway station, departing for a tour of duty in Northern Ireland. Over 700 of us, laden down with bulky, heavy equipment, were being herded through the crowd. Wily transport officials were steering, shepherding, barking orders. One of the blokes in the drove, "for a grin," as they say, began imitating a sheep. "Baaahhhh . . . Baaahhhhh," he protested loudly. The joke spread quickly along the line, growing louder, until eventually our voices filled the rafters with a joyous farmyard cacophony: "Baahhhhh," shuffle, shuffle, "moooOOO," shuffle, grin, shuffle, "baahhhHHH!"

To raucous laughter we jammed ourselves and our equipment into the carriages of the special train. The station manager whistled us off. We waved to the few anonymous civilians standing on the platform. They, somewhat embarrassed, waved back. None could help noticing that beneath each window, for the entire length of the train, industrious British Rail employees had pasted large, fearless signs to assist that day's travelling public: THIS TRAIN IS NOT FOR NORMAL PASSENGERS.

Royal Marines tell this story in bars around the world because it, like most of their yarns, is really a parable: Royal Marines, you see, aren't like the rest of us.


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## Marine837M (12 Aug 2004)

Fantastic.......You are my little acorn mate.....I admire your style typing all that but to be honest life has slightly changed since 1976,but the core still prides itself on its history.It individual characters that make the core what it is,and that excert you have written is just one of the few...Commando Training is exactly the same...and the aggressive and arduous training still makes real men cry...even me mate.I was 17 when I joined and all my training team were ex-falklands,tough as nails...and we ran everywhere.

Thanks mate for typing that it bought back memorys and flashbacks of Lympstone...especially the endurance course and peters pool.

Keep mailing feller,

Go on Join the Royal Marines...make your mum proud.....

Marine837M


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## Spr.Earl (12 Aug 2004)

Even as a kid in the U.K. back in the late 50's early 60's if you were a Para or a Commando all respected you.

A little story for Marine837M ,know the pub "The Royal Marine" just out side of the gate of Chatham Dock Yard?

I was over in 77 with the R.E. and ended up having our end ex piss up in the lounge of said pup when a very cute head poked her head around the door.
It was a about 8 Wrens on their first night out during basic   ;D
Sad to say they had to back by 10 p.m,so I and a few others walked back to the gate and made dates.
The Gentelmen we Sappers are. 



To make a long story short we ended up in the Yard in the R.N. Mess for the Disco and boogie woogieing about and having a great time until it came too get the ale in again!
The F'n line up was unreal!

As I walked up and asked the line parted like Moses and the Red Sea next thing I know I'm at the bar and getting the ale in.

Got back too the table and asked the girl's ?

All of a sudden one of the girls who was Military wise clicked!!
Only pers. allowed to wear a tash in the R.N. are Royal Marines!!  ;D
We all had mustaches  ;D
The girls were made up!
Yup 77 the Silver Jubilee year was great.


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## Freight_Train (12 Aug 2004)

Hey Marine, I just cut and pasted the article, but I am glad that I am your little acorn??? I think so anyway ???   Anyway, what is a real Marine press up?   I understand it is a push up, but what makes it 'real'?
Thanks,
Greg
p.s.  Sorry Dogboy for hijacking your thread.  I had to keep my elbows by my sides during my test, which I did at the end of May.  The CF Physical Fitness Guide explains just about everything and it is found here - http://www.recruiting.forces.ca/media/pdf/physical_fitness_en.pdf  You will need adobe to open it.
Cheers


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## Marine837M (12 Aug 2004)

Spr earl,

I joined in Chatham at the Royal Navy Careers Office in Dock Road and the pub was just up the road,over the road in fact from the dockyard.The pub is still there but it has changed names.It is no longer the Royal Marine...but was so up until 1994.The Gurka regiment are still based at Kitchener Barracks,Chatham, and the R.E.M.E are still at the top of the hill in Chatham just round the corner from the back then Royal Marine Pub.
When you were here in 77 was you based at Chattendean Barracks, because thats were I did my search course with some lads from 59 commando.
All engineers did there search courses here.I was posted there for a short while with 59 Commando.Training   and preparing the lads for the All Arms Commando Course at Lympstone.....small world...amazing mate....amazing....


Marine837M


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## Marine837M (12 Aug 2004)

Freight-Train

The realness mate... is the pure fact that the press up is perfect..the type of press up you would be proud to show your mates how they are done....

Keep pushing em....

Marine837M


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## Freight_Train (12 Aug 2004)

That's PERFECT, ROTFLMAO! ;D
Greg


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## jarko (12 Aug 2004)

They dont want you chest to the floor, they make you look straight and touch the floor with your chin.


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