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Top Ten of the Craziest Military Training Exercises

1.Playing a game of “hot potato” with a real grenade (People’s Liberation Army of China)

Military training is an intense business, involving discipline, precision, and courage that can be called upon in the midst of battle. Soldiers undergoing training in the People’s Liberation Army of China take those ideals to a whole different level, as one of their exercises involves a life-and-death game of “hot potato” with a live grenade.

This incredible video footage shows Chinese troops stationed in Hong Kong passing a live explosive from one soldier to another until the last one finally throws it in the hole. The soldiers then leap out of the way before it explodes, covering their heads for protection.

2.Taking a shot to the chest (Russian Special Forces)

Larry Vickers, a retired U.S. Army 1st Special Forces operator and a Delta combat veteran, filmed the video below for a series called TAC-TV. These exercises are part of a specialized Russian confidence training course, and one of their training techniques includes shooting each other in the chest.

3.Jumping through rings of fire (People’s Liberation Army of China)

This incredible picture shows a daredevil soldier jumping through rings of fire. He is clad in his uniform and holding an assault rifle during this scary training exercise in China. His superior said the dangerous task would give him the same feelings and adrenaline rush he would experience in real combat.

The idea behind the exercise is to prepare the troops for the moment when they might be shot. Some end up wounded while others just take hits to the vest. Whatever the outcome, the soldier must be able to return fire quickly and accurately. Trainees then push people away while firing at the ground, shooting at targets just inches from the volunteers playing innocent bystanders to show how stress affects one’s concentration. Despite these stressful surroundings, the trainee must be able to stay calm and carry out his task.
(Source)

4.Drownproofing Training (U.S. Navy SEALs)

Practically every part of Navy SEAL training is crazy, but some drills are particularly out there. Trainees endure surf torture, also called “cold water conditioning,” while covered in mud. They then have their arms and legs bound as a part of “drownproofing.” They must bob up and down twenty times, float for five minutes, swim to the shallow end of the pool, turn around without touching the bottom, swim back to the deep end, do a forward and backward somersault underwater, and retrieve a face mask from the bottom of the pool.

The craziness doesn’t end there either – a BUD/S instructor attacks a trainee in the pool to simulate a combative drowning victim.

5.Breaking slabs of concrete with their heads (South Korean and Chinese soldiers)

Many fighting forces have marching bands, singers, and performing groups to rally the troops. But China’s military is known for soldiers who can break bamboo poles on their backs and smash bricks on their heads.

If combat were simply a matter of showmanship, then the People’s Liberation Army of China would be near invincible. But military officials have acknowledged that such displays have few practical applications and are reconsidering the amount of time that troops spend on such training.

(Source)

6.Drinking cobra blood (U.S. Marines)

Gone are the days when a few push-ups and an assault course proved a soldier’s worth. U.S. Marines now drink cobra blood and rip the heads off chickens with their bare teeth as part of their training. After being taught how to kill venomous cobras by Thai naval instructors, Marines are encouraged to experience the local customs of drinking the animal’s blood. Many of the soldiers happily oblige, tipping their heads back while the blood is squeezed out of the snake’s body and into their mouths. Other rituals included killing a chicken by biting off its head and eating a cobra’s tail. The 11-day exercise, called Cobra Gold 2014, involved around 13,000 soldiers from Thailand, the U.S., Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. It takes place in Thailand’s Chon Buri province and covers amphibious assault, humanitarian relief and the evacuation of friendly forces, as well as jungle survival techniques.
(Source)

7.Testing balance by walking over fires (Belarus Red Berets)

Servicemen from the Belarus Interior Ministry’s Special Unit are undoubtedly tough guys. To prove exactly how tough they are, and to be accepted into the ministry’s elite Red Berets, they have to go through a battery of tests on an extreme course. The test includes a 10k quick march, followed by an extreme assault course, hand-to-hand fighting, storming a high-rise building and acrobatics. Their superiors throw in extra challenges to make things even harder – they try to knock new recruits off the balance beam with car tires and gunfire. On average, it takes five to six attempts to earn a spot in the coveted Red Berets – only the fittest manage to do so.
(Source)

8.Jumping from skyscrapers and rappelling down the side (Israeli Defense Forces)

If terrorists ever tried to take hostages in a Tel Aviv skyscraper, the last thing they’d expect is an anti-terror commando leaping in through the window. But that’s exactly what the Israel Defense Force anti-terror unit has been doing – jumping from the top of one of Tel Aviv’s tallest buildings and rappelling down the side. Trainees must block out everything that’s around them, focus only on the window and wait for the command to move. Israel’s Channel 2 cameras captured the moment recruits took turns jumping off the roof of the 49-story Azrieli Center. The exercise is aptly named “baptism by height.”

9.Crawling along a path with jagged corals and rocks (Taiwan Marines)

The “Road to Heaven” test is the final stage of a nine-week intensive Amphibious Training Program in Zuoying, Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. It requires trainees to execute various exercises and crawl along a 50-meter long path littered with jagged corals and rocks.
(Source)

10.Riding horses through thick plumes of smoke (Dutch Royal Guard of Honour)

Soldiers are often asked to train with animals. The picture above shows members of the Dutch Royal Guard of Honour riding their horses through smoke bombs during a rehearsal ahead of the Dutch 2014 budget presentation in September 2013.

Related Topics:Top Ten of the Craziest Military Training Exercises

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Top Ten popular Genres Of Music

Music is something which brings together different kinds of people from all over the world. It doesn’t matter where you are or who you are, music has the power to bring down these walls and contributes in creating what can be aptly called a “melting pot” of cultures. It’s something that complete strangers become friends over and friends spend time discussing. The kind of music you listen to also becomes a part of your identity and the many sub cultures too have associated themselves with music as they often do with literature as well. But music too has undergone a huge transformation through the ages. It’s now possible for people to know about different cultures through the kind of music these cultures produce. It also has created a lot of questions over labels and independent music has now come into its own, courtesy of the internet and the other communication channels which make it possible for someone in one continent to listen to music being produced off the mainstream in another. In such an environment it’s really hard to pick the genres which have struck a chord with the contemporary generation but here’s a list of Top 10 genres that might give you an idea as to what people are listening to these days.

10.Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated at the beginning of the 20th century. Its roots lie in the adoption by Africa-Americans of European harmony and form, taking on those European elements and combinging them into their existing African-based music. Its African musical basiis is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythm, syncopation and the swung note

9.Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the “Deep South” of the United States around the end of the 19th century.

8.Latin

This category includes music from Latin America and other Caribbean countries, and shares the cultural elements of Africa, native America and Europe. The percussion instruments included in this type of genre music are Clave, maracas, cowbells, congas, bongos, timbales, tambora, bombo, guiro, cajones, cascara, shekere, tres, marimbula. Latin music is influenced from the Spanish, who introduced the string instruments. It is vocal as well as instrumental music, which earlier was played for religious purposes, but now is considered as dance music. With strong beats, it is naturally syncopated dance music and is highly rhythmic.

Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Selena, Belinda are some of the highlighted Latin artists.

7.Emd

Electronic Dance Music also known as club music is centered on dancing and club settings. It all started with the advent of the disco or the popcorn as it was known back then. This brought in many forms of synthetic electrical instruments and the purpose of producing music for orchestration in a club shifted to producing music with the intent of it being played by the DJs though drums etc. Eventually the DJs started experimenting with songs of other artists and extending these songs into Dance remixes. The emergence of popular festivals around the EDM genre too led its popular appeal amongst the masses.

6.Sufi

sufi music is the devotional music of Sufis, inspired by the works of sufi poets, like Rumi Hafiz, Bulleh Shah and Khawaja Ghulam Farid. Qawwali is the most well known form of sufi music and is mostly common in parts of Paskistan an India.Sufi love song are often performed as Ghazals and Kafi, a solo genre accompai\nied by percussion and harmonium, using a repertoire of song by sufi poets.

5.Country

Country music is a genre of American popular music that originated in the rural regions of the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the south-eastern of American folk music and Western music.Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instrument such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas.

4.Hip-hop

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music, or hip-hop music is a music, is a music genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted.

3.Pop

Pop music (a term that originally derives form an abbreviation of “popular”) is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving form rock and roll. The terms popular musics and pop musics are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of musics which is popular. It borrows elements from other styles including urban, dance, rock, latin and country.

2.Heavy Metal

Heavy metal is a genre of rock musics that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, originally in the United Kingdom and later in the United States. The bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are often associated with aggression.

1.Rock

Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as “Rock and Roll” in the United States in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s’ and 1950s’ rock and roll. itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of rock group with bass guitar and drums.

Entertainment

Top 10 Most Powerful Womens of 2015

1. Angela Merkel

The most influential female politician in the world, Merkel earned a doctorate in physics in East Germany before turning her eye to politics. She won a seat in the Bundestag during the first post-reunification general election, in December 1990, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl appointed her as a Cabinet minister just one year later. Childless and twice married, the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union often comes off as reserved and self-effacing. But as she told TIME in a 2010 interview, she has plenty of confidence: “You could certainly say that I’ve never underestimated myself. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious.”

She has held this spot for 10 years – having landed a historic third term in December 2014. She is the longest serving elected EU head of state.

2.Hillary Clinton

Hilary Clinton, former secretary of State and US presidential candidate. She is the first and only lady to become a US Senator. As part of her campaign she is putting women’s equality at the heart – including equal pay and pay transparency.

3.Melinda Gates

she co-founded the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation with her husband back in 2000. In 2010 the foundation teamed up with Warren Buffett and launched the Giving Pledge. This is a campaign to encourage billionaires to give away at least half of their fortune.

4.Janet Yellen

the Chair of the Federal Reserve in Washington. Similar to Christine, Janet made the headlines back in 2014 when she became the first woman to hold the role. Interestingly she is very experienced – aged 68 – and despite her role, there are 113 other employees paid more than her!

5. Mary Barra

CEO of General Motors. She is the first female CEO of a major global car maker. She began her career with GM back in 1980 and has earned a MBA from Stanford. What an amazing achievement to have worked her way up to the top over all those years and to be the first female. She is also recognised as the second most powerful business woman in the world.

6. Christine Lagarde

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She has held this role since March 2011 and was the first female to hold this role. Prior to this role she served as an antitrust and labour lawyer and was elected Chair of the international law firm – Baker and McKenzie.

7. Dilma Rousseff

The President of Brazil. She is the first woman to serve as President and was previously chief of staff. She has been nicknamed The Iron Lady and has a very interesting history, including being tortured back in the 1970s.

8. Sheryl Sandberg

COO of Facebook. We all know of Sheryl Sandberg – having written the excellent book Lean In. Sheryl is a huge advocate of women in the boardroom and how we need to change attitudes. We also heard recently about the sad passing of her husband.

9.Susan Wojcicki

The CEO of YouTube – Susan Wojcicki. YouTube is the world’s largest video platform. Susan took on her new role (having previously worked as a consigiliere for Google) in February 2014.

10.Michelle Obama

The first lady of America – Michelle Obama.Michelle has travelled to South East Asia to push an initiative for improving the wellbeing and financial stability of younger women. She also hit the headlines for not covering her head on a recent trip to Saudi Arabia.