This is just an update to keep all of you interested in attending
the ISR two day workshop posted on what is required of you. The
workshop is an introduction to the ISR Matrix and we will be training
its core tactics and fundamentals dealing with the most common
threats and scenarios encountered by officers on a daily basis.
All participants will be evaluated throughout the training and
if they graduate will be awarded a certificate of completion.
The training sessions will be held at SBG Portland Gym on Monday
and Tuesday, September 23rd and 24th, from 10AM to 5PM. It is
open to Peace and Law Enforcement Officers only. The only exceptions
being made are to SBG coaches and instructors and their guests
that have been cleared through Matt, Paul or myself. Bring your
duty belt. Also, please bring along an extra long sleeve shirt
or two (long sleeve t-shirt, jacket, flannel, etc.) that you don't
mind getting stretched or torn. Absolutely no ammo or live OC
will be permitted in the training area. The seminar fee is $300.00
In order to secure your slot in advance, a deposit of $100.00
must be made payable and sent to:
ODMA
9117 Taft Street
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33024
Matt started off on the tour with Andy Norman's
'Keysi Fighting Systems' group. In addition, Keysi founder Justo
Dieguez flew in from Spain to attend the seminars. Both Justo
and Andy where great people, and everyone from the Keysi training
group was fantastic to work with.
Kavanaugh in action.
After teaching for a week in Denmark Matt was
off again, this time to Dublin Ireland. The Ireland workshops
went great. BIG thanks to John Kavanaugh, and all the crew at
www.irishbjj.com for a truly great time. John has perhaps the
best crew I have seen so far in terms of performance, within
Europe. A big head start on the competition.
While there Matt promoted three of John's people
to blue belt, and John himself to a well deserved purple belt!
We are also please to announce that John will
be the official representative for SBGI BJJ Association for
all of Ireland.
Stay tuned for the new SBGI BJJ Association website
for a list of all the blues, purples, and reps.
Downtown Dublin, temple bar area
It's all just off-on, pulse-interval
Our ancestors 'got it', when it comes to off-on.
More stones from the Dublin Museam.
Just prior to leaving for Europe Matt made a stop
off in Hawaii for the purposes of teaching a seminar for Burton
Richardon's JKDU group, and shooting a new video series for
his 'High Performance video company'.
Hawaii was fantastic, everything you can imagine
as far as sun, sand, and surf. The seminar was well attended,
and much of it was filmed as well for use in the videos.
Special thanks to Sarah and Burt for being great
hosts!
A dolphin comes and checks out Matt.
Beautiful Hawaii
Here is the text and photo from the new video series:
Matt Thornton is the President and Head Coach for Straight
Blast Gym International.
Over the Years the SBG has become known for producing some
of the top Coaches and fighters in the world. All athletes trained
at SBG learn to be well rounded, as defined by being able to
PERFORM well standing, in the clinch, on the ground, or with
weapons. Matt has personally coached hundreds of Mixed Martial
Arts athletes, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athletes, Submission
wrestling athletes, as well as police and military departments
all over the world. His Instructional series have become some
of the top selling Martial Arts videos of all time. They were
voted as one of the top five self defense videos of all time
by Black Belt magazine.In this series, Matt shares the latest
training methods and development that his continuing training
and research have led too. This series is a must for those who
want to become high performance athletes!
Also, Matt was asked for a bio to go with the video box. Here
is the bio Matt submitted:
Name: Matt(Mono Loco)Thornton
(AKA: World's sexiest Martial Arts Instructor)
Lives in: Center of the Earth, but comes out occasionally
to bring truth to the world, and chase brilliant, beautiful
women.
Training background: (what schools, main teachers, what
disciplines, etc)
Was originally trained by a pack of wild monkeys. Eventually
finding fault with the Monkey tribes paradigm of existence,
Matt moved to Portland Oregon where he was taught the ways of
the Pikey, and Martial Arts by a blind Celtic Princess.
Current training :
Running in concentric circles, and sparring with circus Lions.
Achievements (various competitions, personal, etc):
Once ate an entire case of Cadbury cream eggs without throwing
up. Also, is well known as one of the worlds greatest "looking"
surfers.
Training advice:
Never take yourself seriously. Never define WHO you are based
on something as trivial as Martial Arts, fighting, or worse
yet. . JKD.
Special thanks?:
Krishnamurti, he knows why. Special thanks also to Elvis, Timothy
Leary, Alan Watts, Fairuza Balk, Aldous Huxley, Dean Martin,
and Drew Barrymore. Also, to Angelina Jolie. . .if you are reading
this. . .sorry about the whole "lobster" incident. Promise I
will return your calls this time!
Matt's new video series!
Spring Camp a HUGE success!
Spring Camp '02....
Sharp explains the reason Pabst is his favorite brew. Connely
defends Guinness.
This was my first SBG Camp and I am definitely
hooked on the experience. To have that many athletes in one
room, training and exchanging ideas is an opportunity that should
not be missed. As a result of multiple head injuries, I can't
remember what was covered on which day so I will give an overview
of what was covered by each Coach present.
Adam and Rory Singer shared their unique twist
on the Crazy Monkey as well as the Fundamental Forgotten Five.
The Singer brothers also shared with us
some of the material from the Street Clinch video and material
they had filmed on Thursday for an upcoming SBG productions
release. Adam and Rory showed key elements of the Plum that
will help anyone fight effectively from this position. The brothers
really stressed the importance of proper mechanics, developing
a technically sound standup game. As Rory said, what's the point
of basing your standup around an eye jab when you can't even
through a decent 1-2? Also covered was controlling plum position.
Strikes from this position were covered in detail. Adam and
Rory had everyone drilling their boxing offense and defense
with Aliveness, showing us all that there is no excuse not to
train our standup realistically, against a resisting opponent
without fear of injury. Its all about proper coaching and methodology.
I left the camp with a definite plan in place to improve my
standup and a renewed appreciation for the art and science of
boxing. The insights shared by the Singer's regarding body punching
safely was well worth the price of the camp and immediately
improved my game.
Steve shows off his new half shirt/rash guard, and Rory threatens
to break his foot unless he promises now to NEVER wear that
again.
Wassom discovers why you don't wrestle with Forest unless he
is handcuffed. Congrats to Forest on his recent NHB victory
over the very talented Jeff Munson!
Liam gave us all a chance to pick his brain on
issues of strength and conditioning as it relates to combat
sports. This portion of the camp was a first and judging by
the response I doubt it will be the last. Liam patiently answered
questions for over an hour. This was the equivalent of a personal
training consultation. I really appreciated Liam's understanding
of this point, sometimes the science of the matter does not
reflect our experience. Liam was open to training methods that
I have often heard other trainers scoff at and write off in
the face of an athletes success with those methods. Liam really
stressed to us that the S&C work needs to support and "fit"
around our combative training. It does us no good as athletes
to be workout warriors or weight room heroes if we can't perform
in the ring, on the mat or worst case scenario, to defend ourselves
from a criminal attack. Another important point Liam emphasized
was to look at nutrition as injury prevention and not just as
fuel. The food we eat and supplements used can help prevent
injury to our joints and soft tissue so we can all keep doing
what we really love. Understanding and applying the principle
of using S&C work to support my martial arts training rather
than making my S&C work the focus of my training was a valuable
lesson.
Matt came in to start us towards developing a
game plan to deal with the Ground and Pound attack. We drilled
aspects of this game such as, using our hips to make space,
controlling our opponents wrist/hands, standing up, sweeps,
and chaining submissions effectively. Everyone had a chance
to experience the frustration of trying to throw punches at
your partner while they countered your attack with little visible
effort. This will definitely change the way our gym trains the
ground. Matt shared with us his approach to the half-guard game
and the many benefits of learning and implementing this tactic
into our ground game. The triple threat of reversals, subs and
taking the back presented by playing the half-guard really opened
some eyes to a world of possibilities. Matt took a block of
instruction to answer one recurring question, How does the SBG
train a new athlete, first day in the gym? Matt showed the progression
used in the standup game to prepare an SBG athlete for the unique
demands faced in NHB/Combat sports. Not only must he or she
learn how to fight on their feet but also how to counter the
attempts of our opponents to take us off our feet. Learning
to sprawl the same day they learn to throw a jab is a crucial
aspect of fighting on your feet. Starting with the Crazy Monkey
and sprawling, progressing up to the point of boxing blast,
shooting for takedowns, sprawling to counter and Clinching safely.
Those in attendance had a chance to see a compressed version
of the SBG intro course.
Sharp says "bring it on mojo-jojo!"
There were many things demonstrated at this
camp and I'm sure I have left out a number of things others
might think should be mentioned. I know I left with quite a
few things to work on and improve over the next few months.
More important than the training aspects was the opportunity
to hang out with a great group of like minded people. It is
really cool to see so many people from very different walks
of life training in this manner. The concept of Aliveness and
the principles dictated by a commitment to such a training method
ensure that there will always be a great crowd at the SBG camps.
- Paul Sharp
Team ODMA/SBG Florida kicks butt again!
Congratulations to Team One Dragon! The Straight
Blast Gym of Florida took first place Team awards in Shootfighting
and second in submission wrestling at the Florida Grappling
Association's Freestyle Meet this past Saturday.
Instructor Candidate Louis "Lou" Pilato and Instructor
Mike "Doc" Sasoni both won their matches through TKOs (referee
stoppage) of their scheduled three five minute round bouts.
Both fighters entered with solid Thai kicks and set the pace
of the fight by quickly taking control of the clinch and taking
their opponents down via punishing knee strikes. Both matches
went text book in that both athletes took mount and overwhelmed
their opponents with strikes. Instructor Candidate Leo Kirby
won his match on points by dominating top position and striking
between transitions for his entire match.
Lou went on to win his submission wrestling match
on sweep and reversal points. Another member of this year's
ICC, Jonathan Wright won both his debut submission wrestling
matches via rear naked choke and Chad Angelocci won a clear
decision by aggressively linking one submission attempt after
another against a much stronger opponent. Both Doc and Leo lost
their hard tought matches (mostly all clinch work) by takedowns
scored seconds before the bell.
Overall a great day for ODMA and solid motivation
for the entire gym to ready themselves for the NAGA event August
third when the gym well represent the newly formed SBG International
BJJ Association!"
SBG ICC athlete Corey Reeves wins his NHB match
with style!
Congratulations are due for a big win in Vegas
for Nevadas source for SBG training, Mr Corey Reeves. Corey
has worked very hard over the last Year, coming off a serious
neck injury, and other set backs. But Corey kept training, kept
working hard, and his performance in this recent event is proof
of his dedication. Great job Corey!
Matt completes seminars in New York and New Jersey
The
Straight Blast Gym’s Matt Thornton opened his two-day New York/New
Jersey seminar on June 22nd 2002 at the Hamilton, New Jersey
gym of Jeet Kune Do instructor and Straight Blast Gym affiliate
Paul Myatovich and his training group. The participants included
martial arts instructors/coaches, mixed-martial artists, submission
fighting competitors, no holds barred fighters, law-enforcement
agents, and curious friends and family. Hardcore Gym/Straight
Blast Gym instructor, and fighter, Rory Singer assisted Matt
with his presentation and Rory offered his own thoughts and
ideas on training methodology, fundamental principles, and techniques.
Matt began the seminar by explaining the Straight
Blast Gym training philosophy and methodology. He explained
"aliveness" and the goal of training with energy, timing, and
motion every time one trains. He explained the differences between
drilling patterned techniques and the more functional benefits
of isolation sparring. He emphasized the inherent weaknesses
of training for a "street fight", in contradistinction to the
concept of training like an athlete where achieving peak physical
performance should be the goal. He challenged everyone to consider
the conditioned athlete far more dangerous than the "street
fighter".
We began the physical portion of our training
in the closed guard. Matt demonstrated the most functional ways
of opening the guard, establishing a combat base, and passing
over, under, and around the opponent’s legs. He emphasized base
and posture, maintaining good structure with elbows in tight
and safe throughout the movements, and stressed that each portion
of the guard pass should be sparred in isolation and tested
by training partners to feel the strengths and weaknesses of
one’s respective position.
Next, having passed the guard, Matt demonstrated
the cross-side top position. He pointed out the subtleties of
knee positioning to trap the opponents hips, arm placement –
using the elbow to further trap the opponent’s hip, cross-facing,
and different setups for submissions – employing the shoulder
to pressure the face, and moving the hips into/over the opponent’s
arm in order to "barbwire" the arms and setup submissions. From
the top cross side position Matt worked the bent arm bar and
straight-arm bar illustrating the best ways to move into these
submissions while limiting the opponent’s ability to counter.
When the opponent did counter, by grabbing the arm for example,
Matt showed ways to separate the arms and transition to other
submissions like the triangle choke. The segment ended with
functional counters to the arm bar; the "hitchhiker" escape
and pushing the leg off the head were two examples.
Here Matt took some time to explain his "I" method
of coaching. That is 1) Introduce the concept, principal, or
technique. 2) Isolate spar to learn the concept, principle,
or technique. And 3) Integrate the concept, principal, or technique
into the overall game. This is fundamental Straight Blast Gym
philosophy and it reinforced the idea of training with energy,
timing, and motion from the first lesson. Matt encouraged everyone
to exercise some applied knowledge from the morning section
by starting in the closed guard position and sparring to submission
from there.
The morning section of the seminar ended with
Rory grappling to submission with five volunteers in a row as
a warm-up for his upcoming no holds barred fight. This "Ironman"
exercise tested Rory’s grappling abilities, his physical conditioning,
and his mental will. He did not disappoint, tapping out all
of his opponents with a combination of arm bars, shoulder locks,
and foot locks. Rory represents what is best in an instructor;
he has the ability to coach intelligently, the athleticism to
perform unconditionally, and the courage to train ever harder
to improve his game. Ending the morning session with his performance
was an inspiration to all and an exclamation point on what sets
the Straight Blast Gym training methodology apart from other
martial arts schools and academies.
After lunch Matt introduced his game from the
bottom of the cross-side position and pointed out how often
this is the weakest position for fighters/competitors. Keeping
the elbows in tight with the arms across both stomach and chest
were key points to the position. Using the hips and not the
arms to move, setting oneself on a shoulder, and "shrimping"
both into and away from the opponent, while working to establish
the guard or get to the quarter position were further examples
of how to work the bottom game.
Following a question and answer session on the
ground game, Matt evaluated several of the participants for
their blue belts in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. The host gym’s Michael
Pandolfini performed extremely well in the grueling test, which
included an "Ironman" match to complete exhaustion and muscle
failure, and he was promoted to blue belt. Matt used the evaluation
to illustrate how instructors, coaches, and fighters/competitors
of the Straight Blast Gym measure the veracity of a school’s
or a gym’s instructors and students by their ability to perform
at an athletic, conditioned, level with energy, timing, and
motion. That is the standard.
The final hours were devoted to the clinch game.
After learning the basic pummel, Matt demonstrated the body
lock and counters for the body lock such as stuffing the head,
and using the "whizzer" to break the opponent down. Explaining
the under hook in detail, Matt showed several ways to set the
under hook including the "bump and run" and the simplest ways
of swimming inside the opponent’s arms to establish position.
He also followed up the under hook control with some takedowns,
like the high single leg. Rory offered his techniques on both
sides of the Muay Thai plum, or tie up position, pointing details
like using one’s elbows to drive into the opponent’s chest,
scissoring the forearms along the jaw and swinging the opponent
around. This set up hand and leg strikes. Counters included
pushing up into the face and pummeling back inside, trapping
the elbow and pulling the head in the opposite direction, and
defenses for the elbow and knee attacks.
Matt’s seminar was illustrative of what sets the
Straight Blast Gym apart from most martial art’s schools and
most seminars. There is an emphasis on performance in real time,
with real energy and real motion from resisting training partners.
Drawing lessons from boxing, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu, and their
training methods, Straight Blast Gym coaches/instructors final
test all the principals and techniques in the ring or on the
mat. It’s that simple. Further, the atmosphere that naturally
grows around these fundamental ideals is not conducive to egos,
attitudes, or fakes. Everyone trained hard, no one injured him/her
self, or anyone else, and everyone learned something. Feedback
from the seminar was genuinely and overwhelmingly positive from
all the practitioners. Matt was approachable, accessible and
emphasized that forming friendships was more important to him
than teaching a lot of seminars and making money. That feeling
is obvious in his teaching method and his willingness to share
his knowledge and experience.
Berkeley Training Group gets new location!
Here is a note from Jude, who will be teaching
alongside Alan and Lily. We wish them all the best!
Most
of you know that over the last few years I've been training
myself differently than I taught class. I sensed something lacking
in the way I trained. I was inspired by friends (thanks John
M. and Tatsu), and various articles by Burton Richardson and
Matt Thornton. I decided to train functionally and athletically.
I began to share the lessons I learned by incorporating functional
training against resisting opponents. I began integrating more
and more functional Boxing and Kickboxing skills, as well as
rudimentary clinch work within the confines of the old curriculum
(Burton Richardson covered clinch work during a seminar the
weekend after last year's San Shou tournament. For me, it was
an epiphany. I think the broken nose helped me think). Eventually,
I chose to exclusively train those functional aspects. The Wednesday
regulars enjoyed themselves immensely. They improved rapidly
over a relatively short period of time and continued to improve
with each training session * then Tommy cancelled the class.
Personally, I'm training mainly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, though
my overall focus is Mixed Martial Arts from a functional/athletic
approach. A few months ago I started training with Alan and
Lily Pagle, SBG affiliates out in the East Bay. I haven't had
more productive training in a long time.
Beginning in July,
we're going to be running classes together: Wednesday nights
in Menlo Park, back at Riekes, and Friday and Sunday evenings,
in El Cerrito. The first sessions will be Sunday, June 7 in
El Cerrito followed by Wednesday, June 10 back "home" at Riekes.
All of you are welcome. (I've attached a copy of the flyer and
put a "text only" version at the bottom of this e-mail for the
attachment challenged. The monthly fee is good for as many sessions
you can cram in during the month * at either of the gyms.)
It won't be a JKD
class, not in the sense of JFJKD or JKD Concepts. It'll be more
like a MMA class with a street emphasis: kickboxing, clinch,
ground and putting all together. The class focus is "aliveness".
The "tribe" link
outlines the training/coaching philosophy. I discovered this
was the way I wanted to train and that it was the only way,
in good conscience, that I could teach. >Some of you are already
aware of the new format and raised a couple of issues:
What about the Kickboxing?
-- Don't worry. I'm very proud of progress many of you have
made and I take pride in the fact that my coaching contributed.
The "standup" game
won't be ignored. That will be my primary coaching responsibility.
The emphasis will just shift to a well-rounded approach: standing
"and" clinch "and" ground.
What's up with these
SBG people? * Again, check the SBG site and the "tribe" link.
The "Instructors/Coaches Guidelines" are a wonderful standard.
Alan and Lily hold themselves to this and so do I.
Overall it's a "healthier"
way to train.
--No politics.
--No egos (these get smashed fairly quickly when you train alive)
.
--No hard sell.
--The gym members are individuals, not resources, and are treated
as such.
Even if you choose
not to check out the Gyms, I encourage you check out the SBG
site. And, if you get a chance, incorporate "aliveness" into
your training. Don't take Matt's, Burton's, Alan's, Lily's,
or even my word for it. Test it yourself. That's what I did.
You don't need an academy to see what works.
Anyway, if you have
any further questions, please drop me an e-line.
Thanks again,
Jude
BTW, If any of the Wednesday people want to comment on how we've
been training, please "reply to all". Ditto please, for those
who've trained at the Berkeley gym.
More 'lost' pics
Matt, Chico, and Forest in Africa.
The African crew!
Matt plays chess with Leon at an Afican resort.
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