History TrainingFromHell / RealLife

It should be noted that some of the items on this page should be taken with large quantities of salt, as this is an area that notoriously tempts people to exaggerate for propaganda reasons. ("Look how tough we are!" or "Look how psychopathic our enemies are!")

* The Royal Navy's Submarine Command School is also known as "Perisher" for its 30% dropout rate. The mental strain is incredibly demanding as students are placed in actual command of a submarine and must complete drills involving multiple surface vessels and complex mental calculations while making sure they don't accidentally kill everyone on board the boat. And this is all done under the intense gaze of the instructor, who can and will end a career at his discretion. Those who fail are booted off the boat as soon as possible and never allowed to serve on another submarine, ever[[note]]those who choose to stay in the navy are allowed to continue to wear their dolphin badges and [[{Irony} many become anti-submarine warfare officers]][[/note]].

* The Royal Navy's Submarine Command School is also known as "Perisher" for its 30% dropout rate. The mental strain is incredibly demanding as students are placed in actual command of a submarine and must complete drills involving multiple surface vessels and complex mental calculations while making sure they don't accidentally kill everyone on board the boat. And this is all done under the intense gaze of the instructor, who can and will end a career at his discretion. Those who fail are booted off the boat as soon as possible and never allowed to serve on another submarine, ever[[note]]those who choose to stay in the navy are allowed to continue to wear their dolphin badges and many become anti-submarine warfare officers[[/note]].

* The Royal Navy's Submarine Command School is also known as "Perisher" for its 30% dropout rate. The mental strain is incredibly demanding as students are placed in actual command of a submarine and must complete drills involving multiple surface vessels while making sure they don't accidentally kill everyone on board the boat. And this is all done under the intense gaze of the instructor, who can and will end a career at his discretion. Those who fail are booted off the boat as soon as possible and never allowed to serve on another submarine, ever[[note]]those who choose to stay in the navy are allowed to continue to wear their dolphin badges and many become anti-submarine warfare officers[[/note]].

* The Royal Navy's Submarine Command School is also known as "Perisher" for its 30% dropout rate. If you fail, the submarine immediately surfaces and a helicopter takes you back to shore and you are never allowed to serve on another submarine, ever.

* The Royal Navy's Submarine Command School is also known as "Perisher" for its 30% dropout rate [[note]] By comparison, the dropout rate of a civil engineering course at Ghent University is said to be 33%. [[/note]]. If you fail, the submarine immediately surfaces and a helicopter takes you back to shore and you are never allowed to serve on another submarine, ever.

* Somewhat subverted on skydiving training. Since jumping off an airplane mid-air undeniably asks a slight amount of gutsiness, a student's first jump is usually a downright scary experience, and for approximately half of the would-be skydivers their first jump will also be their last. Of those who continue, the usual estimate is that only one in ten finish as a licensed skydiver. The curriculum is not physically demanding and the instructors usually are very friendly and nice people, but the mental stress is enormous and skydiving requires good muscle coordination. It is more like a "curriculum from Hell" rather than "training from Hell".

** Though it is an important fact that a trained modern bowman can use longbows of 80lb very easily. Longbows are not (and were never) bows that were typically drawn to the shoulder like a recurve bow. They were artillery weapons fired en masse on a battlefield and as such were fired upwards at an angle with minimal drawback. The main difference between then and now is the poundage of the bows used, which required training from a young age to develop the sheer pull strength to hold a medieval longbow at full draw for more than a second.

** Actually, the Lion's Den is not more than a reflect of what Shamrock saw and passed in the Pancrase dojo in Japan. The Japanese training style for pro wrestling and MMA is the toughest of both worlds. An average dojo will have his trainees doing all kinds of grueling routines with little time to eat and sleep and ''no time'' to rest, while their teachers usually will beat them full-force while drilling moves until they reach the perfect performance and will actively try to psychologically destroy them to make the unfit quit. Not less brutal are the hazing regimes done by the ''sempai'' or senior trainees to the newer boys: if you are an apprentice, you will be the lucky if your only hazing is a savage beatdown (and yes, those implications include sexual humiliations). At the end, the result is a class of guys who will not flinch to a cervical-smashing German suplex or a soccer kick to the head. Whenever you see a man on a Japanese ring, you can be sure you are seeing a certifiedly tough guy.

** In more recent examples, several USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]][[note]]and of this group, all but Haney had been coaching at the elite level for ''decades'' before the abuse was revealed[[/note]], and even some well-meaning and supportive coaches have [[https://thegymter.net/2020/05/14/how-do-we-stop-abuse-in-our-sport/ struggled with the larger environment]] surrounding the sport. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment[[labelnote:*]]The treatment in question is a kind of pelvic floor manipulation wherein a nerve cluster near the tailbone is massaged or pressed to relieve pressure. It is an uncommon treatment, but can be used for pain relief on patients with certain kinds of lower spinal repetitive stress injuries. The catch is that it is most often used on much much ''older'' patients that would be expected to have these kinds of injuries, and while long-term gymnasts could develop this disorder, they tend to be more minor in severity and much younger and fitter patients would have a long list of more conventional, not to mention effective, treatments available. The main crux of the issues comes when you know that the treatment involves inserting fingers or a similar instrument into the vagina and pressing the tissue in a particular place fairly deeply inside. The doctor, one Larry Nassar, kept on retainer by the USA Gymnastics, prescribed the procedure to literally hundreds of teenage female gymnasts across nearly two decades without consulting with other doctors for second opinions or other alternatives and then performing said procedure himself without nurses or staff, nor the girls' parents or coaches, in the room, and often even without wearing gloves, and often for injuries other than the very specific and narrow category that this treatment is actually indicated for. This does not even get into many other examples of molestation disguised as treatment done under the guise of "physical therapy" or "medical examinations"[[/labelnote]].

** In more recent examples, several USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]][[note]]and all but Haney had been coaching at the elite level for ''decades'' before the abuse was revealed[[/note]]. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment[[labelnote:*]]The treatment in question is a kind of pelvic floor manipulation wherein a nerve cluster near the tailbone is massaged or pressed to relieve pressure. It is an uncommon treatment, but can be used for pain relief on patients with certain kinds of lower spinal repetitive stress injuries. The catch is that it is most often used on much much ''older'' patients that would be expected to have these kinds of injuries, and while long-term gymnasts could develop this disorder, they tend to be more minor in severity and much younger and fitter patients would have a long list of more conventional, not to mention effective, treatments available. The main crux of the issues comes when you know that the treatment involves inserting fingers or a similar instrument into the vagina and pressing the tissue in a particular place fairly deeply inside. The doctor, one Larry Nassar, kept on retainer by the USA Gymnastics, prescribed the procedure to literally hundreds of teenage female gymnasts across nearly two decades without consulting with other doctors for second opinions or other alternatives and then performing said procedure himself without nurses or staff, nor the girls' parents or coaches, in the room, and often even without wearing gloves, and often for injuries other than the very specific and narrow category that this treatment is actually indicated for. This does not even get into many other examples of molestation disguised as treatment done under the guise of "physical therapy" or "medical examinations"[[/labelnote]].

** In more recent examples, several long-time USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]]. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment[[labelnote:*]]The treatment in question is a kind of pelvic floor manipulation wherein a nerve cluster near the tailbone is massaged or pressed to relieve pressure. It is an uncommon treatment, but can be used for pain relief on patients with certain kinds of lower spinal repetitive stress injuries. The catch is that it is most often used on much much ''older'' patients that would be expected to have these kinds of injuries, and while long-term gymnasts could develop this disorder, they tend to be more minor in severity and much younger and fitter patients would have a long list of more conventional, not to mention effective, treatments available. The main crux of the issues comes when you know that the treatment involves inserting fingers or a similar instrument into the vagina and pressing the tissue in a particular place fairly deeply inside. The doctor, one Larry Nassar, kept on retainer by the USA Gymnastics, prescribed the procedure to literally hundreds of teenage female gymnasts across nearly two decades without consulting with other doctors for second opinions or other alternatives and then performing said procedure himself without nurses or staff, nor the girls' parents or coaches, in the room, and often even without wearing gloves, and often for injuries other than the very specific and narrow category that this treatment is actually indicated for. This does not even get into many other examples of molestation disguised as treatment done under the guise of "physical therapy" or "medical examinations"[[/labelnote]].

* William James Sidis is known as possibly being the smartest man in recorded history. He could read the NewYorkTimes when most children can barely walk and [[{{Polyglot}} spoke eight languages]] by the age of ''six'' (he also invented his own a few years later). He entered Harvard at age eleven, was able to lecture the math club at the level of a grad student, and compared positively to Carl Gauss - called the greatest mathematician since antiquity. All this was strongly due to the strenuous pushing of his parents (a medical doctor and a psychologist) who believed that you could "make a genius". It was generally all for naught, though. He had a breakdown after being treated poorly by fellow students and those he taught (he hated teaching despite being a professor). He wanted a simple life that his intelligence did not afford him. He eventually attempted to settle into obscurity, occasionally writing articles and books under pseudonyms and amassing the world's largest collection of streetcar transfers. He was also jailed for sedition during World War I for speaking out about pacifism and was an avowed Socialist.

* The sport of gymnastics is infamous for this. Perhaps the most heartbreaking story is that of 1970s-era Soviet gymnast [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErTP5-1K9x4 Elena Mukhina,]] who came out of nowhere at the relatively advanced age of seventeen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJ4DdfBc8A completely dominate the 1978 World Championships]]. Mukhina pioneered skills so far ahead of her time that, over four decades later, her eponymous skill on floor (a full-twisting double tuck) remains a staple of women's floor exercises to this day -- and this in a sport where five years can render a routine obsolete on the world stage. In 1979, the Soviets were still reeling from Romanian phenom Nadia Comaneci's dominance in Montreal, and with the 1980 Olympic Games scheduled for Moscow, it was paramount to them that they regain their supremacy in the world of gymnastics. As a result, Mukhina, who had suffered a broken leg, was pressured back into training long before she had healed, put on a brutal diet to lose the weight she'd gained during her convalescence, and pushed to her breaking point. With the Soviets desperate to win at any cost and Mukhina hailed as their best hope for victory, she was forced to include ever more dangerous skills in her routines -- including the Thomas salto, a complicated floor skill that ends in a 3/4 forward flip into a forward roll. It was almost never performed by women, who often simply don't have the power to attain the height needed to complete the skill safely; even the smallest over- or under-rotation could mean catastrophic injury or death.[[note]]This skill and others like it would later be banned for women altogether, and eventually were banned even from men's routines due to the risk of injury.[[/note]] Mukhina pleaded with her coaches to remove the skill from her routine, saying that she would surely break her neck attempting it, but they would not be swayed, declaring that she needed the astronomical difficulty to challenge for all-around gold. Just two weeks before the Games, however, Mukhina's prediction came true. Weak and exhausted, she under-rotated the salto. Her spine snapped, and she was rendered instantly quadriplegic less than a month after her twentieth birthday. She later said that her first thought as she lay on the floor was, "Thank God, I won't have to go to the Olympics."[[note]]In the end, Mukhina's best friend and training partner, Elena Davydova, ultimately won all-around gold in Moscow. They remained close until Mukhina's death in 2006, with Mukhina describing her as "a real friend".[[/note]]

* The sport of gymnastics is infamous for this. Perhaps the most heartbreaking story is that of 1970s-era Soviet gymnast [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErTP5-1K9x4 Elena Mukhina,]] who came out of nowhere at the relatively advanced age of seventeen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJ4DdfBc8A completely dominate the 1978 World Championships]]. Mukhina pioneered skills so far ahead of her time that, over four decades later, her eponymous skill on floor (a full-twisting double tuck) remains a staple of women's floor exercises to this day -- and this in a sport where five years can render a routine obsolete on the world stage. In 1979, the Soviets were still reeling from Romanian phenom Nadia Comaneci's dominance in Montreal, and with the 1980 Olympic Games scheduled for Moscow, it was paramount to them that they regain their supremacy in the world of gymnastics. As a result, Mukhina, who had suffered a broken leg, was pressured back into training long before she had healed, put on a brutal diet to lose the weight she'd gained during her convalescence, and pushed to her breaking point. With the Soviets desperate to win at any cost and Mukhina hailed as their best hope for victory, she was forced to include ever more dangerous skills in her routines -- including the Thomas salto, a complicated floor skill that ends in a 3/4 forward flip into a forward roll. It was almost never performed by women, who often simply don't have the power to attain the height needed to complete the skill safely; even the smallest over- or under-rotation could mean catastrophic injury or death.[[note]]This skill would later be banned for women altogether.[[/note]] Mukhina pleaded with her coaches to remove the skill from her routine, saying that she would surely break her neck attempting it, but they would not be swayed, declaring that she needed the astronomical difficulty to challenge for all-around gold. Just two weeks before the Games, however, Mukhina's prediction came true. Weak and exhausted, she under-rotated the salto. Her spine snapped, and she was rendered instantly quadriplegic less than a month after her twentieth birthday. She later said that her first thought as she lay on the floor was, "Thank God, I won't have to go to the Olympics."[[note]]In the end, Mukhina's best friend and training partner, Elena Davydova, ultimately won all-around gold in Moscow. They remained close until Mukhina's death in 2006, with Mukhina describing her as "a real friend".[[/note]]

* The sport of gymnastics is infamous for this. Perhaps the most heartbreaking story is that of 1970s-era Soviet gymnast [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErTP5-1K9x4 Elena Mukhina,]] who came out of nowhere at the relatively advanced age of seventeen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJ4DdfBc8A completely dominate the 1978 World Championships]]. Mukhina pioneered skills so far ahead of her time that, over four decades later, her eponymous skill on floor (a full-twisting double tuck) remains a staple of women's floor exercises to this day -- and this in a sport where five years can render a routine obsolete on the world stage. In 1979, the Soviets were still reeling from Romanian phenom Nadia Comaneci's dominance in Montreal, and with the 1980 Olympic Games scheduled for Moscow, it was paramount to them that they regain their supremacy in the world of gymnastics. As a result, Mukhina, who had suffered a broken leg, was pressured back into training long before she had healed, put on a brutal diet, and pushed to her breaking point. With the Soviets desperate to win at any cost and Mukhina hailed as their best hope for victory, she was forced to include ever more dangerous skills in her routines -- including the Thomas salto, a complicated floor skill that ends in a 3/4 forward flip into a forward roll. It was almost never performed by women, who often simply don't have the power to attain the height needed to complete the skill safely; even the smallest over- or under-rotation could mean catastrophic injury or death.[[note]]This skill would later be banned for women altogether.[[/note]] Mukhina pleaded with her coaches to remove the skill from her routine, saying that she would surely break her neck attempting it, but they would not be swayed, declaring that she needed the astronomical difficulty to challenge for all-around gold. Just two weeks before the Games, however, Mukhina's prediction came true. Weak and exhausted, she under-rotated the salto. Her spine snapped, and she was rendered instantly quadriplegic less than a month after her twentieth birthday. She later said that her first thought as she lay on the floor was, "Thank God, I won't have to go to the Olympics."[[note]]In the end, Mukhina's best friend and training partner, Elena Davydova, ultimately won all-around gold in Moscow. They remained close until Mukhina's death in 2006, with Mukhina describing her as "a real friend".[[/note]]

** In more recent examples, several long-time USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]]. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment[[labelnote:*]]The treatment in question is a kind of pelvic floor manipulation wherein a nerve cluster near the tailbone is massaged or pressed to relieve pressure. It is an uncommon treatment, but can be used for pain relief on patients with certain kinds of lower spinal repetitive stress injuries. The catch is that it is most often used on much much ''older'' patients that would be expected to have these kinds of injuries, and while long-term gymnasts could develop this disorder, they tend to be more minor in severity and much younger and fitter patients would have a long list of more conventional, not to mention effective, treatments available. The main crux of the issues comes when you know that the treatment involves inserting fingers or a similar instrument into the vagina and pressing the tissue in a particular place fairly deeply inside. The doctor, one Larry Nassar, kept on retainer by the USA Gymnastics, prescribed the procedure to literally hundreds of teenage female gymnasts across nearly two decades without consulting with other doctors for second opinions or other alternatives and then performing said procedure himself without nurses or staff, nor the girls' parents or coaches, in the room, and often even without wearing gloves, and would sometimes perform this "treatment" even when the gymnast didn't have an injury for which that treatment was indicated. This does not even get into many other examples of molestation disguised as treatment done under the guise of "physical therapy" or "medical examinations".[[/labelnote]]

** In more recent examples, several long-time USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]]. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment[[labelnote:*]]The treatment in question is a kind of pelvic floor manipulation wherein a nerve cluster near the tailbone is massaged or pressed to relieve pressure. It is an uncommon treatment, but can be used for pain relief on patients with certain kinds of lower spinal repetitive stress injuries. The catch is that it is most often used on much much ''older'' patients that would be expected to have these kinds of injuries, and while long-term gymnasts could develop this disorder, they tend to be more minor in severity and much younger and fitter patients would have a long list of more conventional, not to mention effective, treatments available. The main crux of the issues comes when you know that the treatment involves inserting fingers or a similar instrument into the vagina and pressing the tissue in a particular place fairly deeply inside. The doctor, one Larry Nasser, kept on retainer by the USA Gymnastics, prescribed the procedure to literally hundreds of teenage female gymnasts across nearly two decades without consulting with other doctors for second opinions or other alternatives and then performing said procedure himself without nurses or staff, nor the girls' parents or coaches, in the room, and often even without wearing gloves. This does not even get into many other examples of molestation disguised as treatment done under the guise of 'physical therapy' or 'medical examinations'.[[/labelnote]]

** For an example, let us talk about [[http://ednewschina.com/?cat=451 Hengshui High School]], Hengshui, Hebei, who was became memetic in this regard:

* Training of World War II Japanese soldiers usually included ''very'' strong discipline, lots of beatings, lack of food, and the like. It has been stated this is one of the reasons behind their brutality toward their enemies or non-Japanese civilians.

* [[LegionOfLostSouls The French Foreign Legion]] has an extremely tough training regime with real life Legionnaires saying that while a lot of stories and rumors are exaggerrated, they aren't that too far from the actual truth. The need for tough training and harsh discipline is because the Legion recruits come from over a hundred different countries and the French discovered that the best way to encourage unit cohesion is to ensure that everyone goes through extreme hardship. Punishments for failing to meet training standards and other mistakes include having to dig a hole and then getting in it to be buried up to the neck as well as marching for hours on end carrying a rucksack full of rocks and the straps replaced with wires while wearing boots with no laces. The harshness extends to language lessons. While understanding at first (few join the Legion already knowing French), instructors will "kick your head in", in the words of one former Legionnaire, if they believe a recruit's language skills aren't advancing quickly enough.

** In more recent examples, several long-time USA Gymnastics coaches have been accused of physically and/or mentally abusing their gymnasts, most notably Olympic coaches [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/23/out-of-balance-a-look-inside-usa-gymnastics-culture-of-abuse/ Mary Lee Tracy]], [[https://www.wilx.com/content/news/Survivors-accuse-Geddert-of-abuse-470779703.html John Geddert]], [[https://www.ocregister.com/2018/11/05/all-olympia-former-training-center-for-mckalya-maroney-shutting-down-amid-gymnastics-scandals-lawsuits/ Artur Akopyan]], and [[https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/03/maggie-haney-suspended-by-usa-gymnastics/ Maggie Haney]]. Bela and Marta Karolyi, who managed the program from the late 1990s through 2016, have come under scrutiny as well for the environment they created at the Ranch (national team training center), which included encouraging the girls to eat less and shaming them for taking time off for injuries. And then there's the fact that the US national team doctor turned out to be a predator who operated unimpeded for over a decade, molesting dozens of gymnasts under the guise that it was a medical treatment.

** The SAS and, by extension, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta are a different application of this trope from the norm. From what is known about the Selection course, the entire thing is not only difficult, but also one prolonged mind game. The instructors will not say anything aside from what the candidates need to know, will not smile or frown, or give any indication of how well each individual is doing. They could go through the whole course not knowing whether they passed or failed until the end. On the other hand, they do go out of their way to give the failures constructive criticism at the end and will even write them a glowing recommendation saying that they are a credit to their original unit.

* The Knowledge of London, commonly known as "The Knowledge," is a comprehensive collection of oral exams that men and women must pass to drive a black cab in London. It can take years to pass (and you need to have a clean record to even be accepted) and the course has a 70% ''failure'' rate.

* A downplayed example. but fraternities/sororities have a reputation for making the newbies submit to ridiculous things for their amusement (such as [[NakedPeopleAreFunny "run through the school naked without getting caught"]]). Tragically, some of these weird "tasks" go wrong and [[DeadlyPrank hurt or kill people.]]

** It is said that at the beginning of his training a Spetsnaz recruit is given a small animal, such as a chicken or a puppy, that he has to care for when he is not on duty. He is encouraged to give the animal a name and bond with it. Then at some point during the training (usually the end) he is ordered to kill it with his bare hands. If he does it, he passes. If not, he washes out on the spot. The idea is that Spetsnaz soldiers may be asked to cross a moral line in service of country, and they need to be sure a recruit will not let his emotions get in the way of his duty before they can accept him.

*** Interestingly, something like the latter was once endorsed as a genuinely good idea by bona fide SAS veteran [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ratcliffe Peter Ratcliffe]]; recalling the aftermath of an IED attack on his unit during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles, he suggested that perhaps every soldier going through Basic should spend a couple of weeks working in an abattoir to prepare them for VisceraCleanupDetail.

** Knowledge Boys and Girls must memorize the Knowledge Area (25,000 streets and roads) and 320 routes within that area. To add to the difficulty, they must know all the points of interest contained within the Area. These include public buildings, hospitals, police stations, landmarks, theatres, and even interesting sights that aren't immediately visible from the street.

* The Knowledge of London, commonly known as "The Knowledge," is a comprehensive collection of oral exams that men and women must pass to drive a black cab in London. It can take years to pass (and you need to have a clean record to even be accepted) and the course has a 70% ''failure'' rate. Knowledge Boys and Girls must memorize the Knowledge Area (25,000 streets and roads) and 320 routes within that area. To add to the difficulty, they must know all the points of interest contained within the Area. These include public buildings, hospitals, police stations, landmarks, theatres, and even interesting sights that aren't immediately visible from the street. Plus, the examiners can be utterly terrifying (some describe the experience as being dragged in front of the headmaster times ten). The only indication that a Knowledge Boy or Girl has that they're progressing is if the number of days between their "appearances" (the exams) is reduced. If they're doing badly, they get stuck in a loop until they either get it right or drop out. And it's only when they've passed these exams that they're allowed to start practicing for the driving exam. The experience is so mentally demanding that scans on some students show that the memory centres of their brains actually enlarge during their studies.