Gorilla Press Issue #12 Winter 2003-2004
New Belt Promotions: Christian Montes Purple Belt
New ATG: The Spartan Gym in West Virginia
The Spartan Gym
3760 Sleepy Hollow Drive,Hurricane, WV. 25526
304.757.4529
email:Scot18dep@cs.com
Instructor - Scott A. Lowther
Schedule: Tues/Thur 6:30-7:30 Boxing/Kick Boxing
7:30-8:30 BJJ
8:30-9:30 SBG 101
Sat 8:00-9:00 LEO Tactics
9:00-10:00 BJJ
10:00-11:00 SBG 101
11:00-12:00 Boxing/Kick Boxing
New Belt Promotions: Scott A. Lowther Blue Belt
Personal Bio
Name: Scott A. Lowther
Email: Scot18dep@cs.com
Age: 28
Experience: 15 years in martial arts (Traditional and Functional)
Personal: Married with three sons
Profession: Deputy Sheriff (Road Patrol, SRT, Tactics Instructor)
Goals: To improve my overall game and run a full time gym
New Coach: Steve Whittier
SBGI - Iceland ATG
Bjadni Baldursson
Phone: +354 698 96582
e-mail: bjadni@mma.is
e-mail: bjadni@mma.is Name: Jon Gunnar Thorarinsson (My actual
Icelandic name with Icelandic letters: Jón Gunnar <THORN>órarinsson)
Telephone: 892 0411
Email addresses: jongunnar@mma.is, j_g_thorarinsson@hotmail.com
Web site: www.mma.is
Location: Faxafen 8, Reykjavik, Iceland
Training experience: Started training BJJ off tapes in spring
2003, joined SBG in august 2004
Rodney
King Standup and Clinch seminars DVD
Matt Thornton's Functional Jeet Kune Do Series 2 Review
Review by Chris "Twinkletoes" Drechsler-Martell
This series is excellent. It is chock full of great material,
and is a terrific blend of information, training and fight footage,
and entertainment. Everything in this series is high percentage,
fully functional, and both street and ring applicable.
While the first series was an excellent way of showing "dead"
or non-functional martial artists WHAT they should be training,
this second series shows the newly converted HOW they should be
training it. I love lending out my copy of series 1 to other (still
dead) Martial Artists, but this series would be over their heads.
If you're not dealing with reality in your training, then what
Matt offers in this series will mean nothing to you.
However, if you are training with aliveness and you have functionality
in mind, then you will drool all over this series. It is full
of great boxing, jiu-jitsu, and wrestling material, along with
plenty of original ideas from the pioneers of the SBG. From start
to finish, it is a groundbreaking product without equal. For those
of you with giant video libraries, you may be wondering how many
new moves are on this series. Stop wondering, and buy this series.
If you don't start training like the SBG, you'll never be able
to apply any of the things you've learned from ANY of your videos
effectively.
Tape 1: The Top Game
This was one of my favorite tapes in the series. It's full of
great stuff, starting off with the fundamental 5 principles for
holding down from the top. There is a great balance in the series
between giving you theory to play with and showing you examples
of the theory applied, and never is it more apparent then right
at the beginning of this tape. A word about editing: Though people
sometimes complain about long intros, I find that the tapes are
so tightly edited (even though they run over 2 hours each) that
you can't fault them for eating tape, and the intros are really
fun and entertaining. They really give you a feel for the flavor
of SBG-style training.
This tape is one of my favorites, especially with all of the
material on quarter position (turtle top to us BJJ guys). The
material in that section alone is worth the price of the whole
series. The blend of wrestling, BJJ, and pure innovation is staggering.
Tape 2: The Bottom Game
This tape is also really well rounded, and goes through a lot
of information on escapes from all positions. A good amount of
training footage is shown, from in class to in the ring. There
is really a good effort to keep the escapes thematically similar,
and it works-you don't feel like you're being bounced around from
one set of escapes to another, but applying principles again and
again.
On a personal note, the examples of escapes shown in this tape
are not always the types of escapes that I personally would use.
I try to play a very slow, technical game, and some of these escapes
are a little faster and looser than ones I would use. However,
the message of the tape, just like the rest of the series, is
not just to take Matt's (or Tom's, or Robert's) word for it, but
to put in the time, do the drills, experiment, and draw conclusions
for yourself. And with that message behind all the examples, how
can one fault them?
Tape 3: The Guard Game
This tape is also really strong. I really enjoyed the principles
of the Active Guard in the beginning. The theory and drills shown
make it easy to transition from "OK, I have a guard and I
wish I knew how to be more active" to actually having an
aggressive guard game. I've been using the drills in my classes,
and even the guys who hate the guard are having a pretty good
time with it. I also like the breakdown of striking from the guard
later in the tape.
Tape 4: Intermediate Stand-up
I've heard Matt state on the forum that he wasn't completely
satisfied with this tape. Having watched it with that in mind,
I can understand that he might not feel it was as strong as the
other tapes. However, it's definitely not to be overlooked.
This tape probably had the least "instruction" time
out of the 2nd series, but it also had the most training and drill
footage. The drills shown were easy to follow and well fleshed
out, and any principles discussed were illustrated in detail with
lots of fight footage. While there is less groundbreaking material
in this one, it's still a really solid tape that shows you how
to effectively train your standup striking. Also, the speech at
the beginning of the tape is so funny that my girlfriend (who
was busy doing work in the same room) couldn't stop laughing.
That alone makes the tape a must-have.
Tape 5: Intermediate Clinch
This tape just barely beats out the first two tapes as my absolute
favorite in the series. This tape is pure gold, from start to
finish. I took so many notes that I think I wore out the pause
button on my VCR. This tape is nonstop good stuff from start to
finish. The tape is laid out into a clear, easy to follow progression.
It's simple to follow and is laid out awesomely in that it breaks
down WHO needs to learn each piece of the clinch puzzle, from
beginners that want self-defense to sport grappling competitors.
The organization is EXCELLENT, and even though it's well over
2 hours long, the editing is tight and it leaves you hungering
for much, much more. This tape is awesome, from showing counters
to all the major clinch positions, to demonstrating how to use
them to set up takedowns, strikes, "street" tactics,
submissions, and more. I would watch this tape every day if I
had time.
Conclusions:
Overall, this series is truly excellent. The overall SBG messages
are still loud and clear: alive training leads to truth, and personal
experience is the best teacher. These videos are a must have for
anyone making the switch to alive training, or anyone in an alive
discipline (boxing, BJJ, wrestling) who is trying to branch out
into all ranges, be it for MMA or self-defense purposes. I would
score it a 98 out of 100, if only for the feeling that it would
have been perfect if the standup tape had felt a little stronger.
But as a series, it is the best comprehensive view of functional
training that I have ever seen. No other series comes close to
tackling this much information, including how to train it. Throw
out whatever else is on your top shelf in order to make room for
this set.
John
Frankl's Jits DVD
SBGi
- Fall Camp 04 Review:
Camp Theme: What does it take to have world-class
training for people with varying objectives in all ranges with
emphasis on Aliveness.
Camp Instructors included:
- Matt Thornton
- Luis Gutierrez
- Tom Oberhue
- Michael Chapman
- Rodney "Chico” King
- Adam Singer
- Karl Tanswell
- Chris Haueter
- Steve Whittier + More!
group session topics for both days:
A - Standup
B - Clinch:
C - Vale Tudo Ground / No Gi:
D - Sport BJJ / Gi:
Wednesday Sept 15th
6-8 pm advanced crazy monkey stand up
with Rodney "Chico" King: held at the Beaverton OR Gym
8-9pm Q&A with Rodney.
Available all day Wed - Friday 15th - 17th
12-5 pm privates with Rodney, Adam, Luis, Michael, Tom and
anyone else we want to add to the list. And OPEN MAT TRAINING.
Thursday Sept 16th
6-8 pm BJJ with SBGi black belt Michael
8-9pm Q&A with Michael.
Friday Sept 17th
8:00 - 11:00 am Coaches Technique Exchange
12 noon - 5pm Open mat training at the Beaverton Gym
6-9pm SBGi Instructors and Gym owners business meeting
at the Portland Gym.
Saturday Sept 18th
8:30 - 10:00 Registration
10:00 - 11:20 Opening Session: SBGI, Aliveness, All 3 Ranges,
Transitions - Essential Questions
11:30 - 12:50 Session 1
12:50 - 1:50 Lunch
2:00 - 3:20 Session 2
3:30 - 4:50 Session 3A
7:00 pm - Social Activities: Dinner, Clubs, Party, etc.
Sunday Sept 19th
10:00 - 11:20 Session 3
11:30 - 12:50 Session 4
12:50 - 1:50 Lunch
2:00 - 3:20 Closing / Transitions - Tying it
all together
3:30 - 4:50 Q & A - Overall: techniques +
training
Brand new Matt Thornton release!
Congratulations to new blue belt John Davis who
took first at the cup in his division all with submissions. A
big congrats to Connelly for his purple. His grappling game looked
awesome in the cup. Did I say this guy is a killer standing as
well? Excellent work SBGI South! Also congrats to Marcel Gonzalez
who received his purple alongside Connelly in one hell of a match.
Congrats to Mike Chapman on his well deserved promotion to Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu Black Belt!
Sorry for such a delay in new updates. Since the
last update I have visited Denmark, Africa, Kansas, Canada, Boston,
Thailand, Nevada, Chicago, CA, FLA, NY, PENN, Ireland, and the
UK, for teaching, seminars, and private lessons. In addition,
as a Gym our athletes have won well over three dozen MMA matches
and competitions, and competed and organized in a large number
of events.
On top of all that I have made my local athletes
and students a priority in my teaching, and have endeavored to
give each as much personal training time as I can.
Plus, there is my own training
So needless to say, 2003 and early 2004 has without
a doubt been our most successful and BUSY Year at a local, as
well as worldwide level.
Having said all that the fact remains the website
updates are easier to do if I keep up with them on a Monthly basis.
As such, look for far more frequent updates on this page, as well
as on the MEMBERS SECTION. Which has had some excellent topics
lately on business, training, and health.
2004 will exceed 2003 and there is no end to where
SBGi's growth or future.
Within the last 24 or so Months SBGi has:
- Created the ISR program which is being praised by nearly everyone
who has trained in it, or seen it, as the best Law Enforcement
training program out there. "ISR is absolutely the best
defensive tactics course I have ever taken. Thanks Luis and
Paul!"
- Developed and promoted the "crazy monkey" boxing
training method. Which is rapidly changing the way people all
over the world are training stand up. . .something which one
would have thought was beyond immediate evolution. "Kenny,
who is already on of the top bjj black belts in the country
and an excellent wrestler, put on a technical display in the
event's closing pro fight. We worked hours of CM, cutting off
the ring, and clinching in preparation. His opponent, a pro
boxer, only managed to skim a couple punches off Kenny's forearms
before they were on the ropes and Kenny was taking him down.
On the mat it was Kenny's world -- Win by kimura in under 3
minutes. Props again to Rodney King for developing such an efficient
standup method. It proved to be just the ticket for several
of these fighters' strategies."
- Developed the STAB program, which is a totally new and functional
paradigm in terms of saving lives against a blade. "The
STAB program is the best thing I have ever seen for defense
against knives" -Richard Bustillo
All this while leading an organized worldwide movement,
which is held together by common goals and friendship, rather
then simply money, or the never ending search for status, image,
and certificates.
Most remarkably, the same group of individuals did
all of this. It is truly amazing what Aliveness can bring to the
table in terms of creativity, and functional answers, training
methods, and delivery systems.
Truly amazing if you think about it, and 2004 will
be another incredible and enjoyable Year. Thanks to everyone within
the SBGi family. You are what this is all about" - Matt Thornton
Congrats to Jude and Alan in Berkeley on well deserved
blues and to new Oregon Blues Jesse Fairbanks and Armand Debruge
and Varqa Abyaneh - brand new purple .
Remember, for any questions on orders contact Molly.
She is there to help you. videos@straightblastgym.com
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