Truth About Street Based Martial Arts • Ft. Matt Thornton and Adam Singer 

My school is a "so-called self defense school" I allow and encourage my students to compete and I love it when new ppl come to my school from other schools. We also roll the last 30 mins of each class and for about 2 hours on open mat nights. The differences are: I don't teach "sporty" 10 step gi chokes, anything inverted, and generally shy away from teaching anything that would obviously get you punched in the face or stomped in a real fight. We work in the gi and without and there is a lot of focus on closed guard, takedowns and getting to the top. We also use gloves. Being "good" is relative. What are you "good" at? Rolling against another guys that are trying to use BJJ against you under IBJJF rules or good at using your Jiu-jitsu against a guy trying to take your head off who might be 50 pounds bigger than you and 20 years younger. They aren't always the same thing. I'm 45 and I'll roll with anyone who walks in my school. By the way Rickson does "self defense" Jiu-jitsu So does Chris, so does Pedro, so does Royce. So when someone shits on the "self-defense" schools those are the guys they are shitting on.

So much love and respect. I’m a long time follower . I’m an owner of a self defense system, “street based system” as people would say, but... my background is combat sports - and we roll, we do live drills , sparring , we just pull our groin shots , and we pull our hard hammerfists , but our bjj is - be on top, ( keep standing , if you go down pop back up, be on top, if you can’t , have a bad ass guard, submit or get to a better position ) ( I learned the word as Ummmmmmpa , not that it matters. )all live drills / I call them - micro games.... is a small slice - like first person to unerhooks wins, first over hooks wins ,or one is a striker , the other grappler. Etc. the guys that do this are Ryan Hoover fit to fight, ( if I may be so bold, myself) and guys like hard to hurt - mixing sparring , Krav Maga , MMA style BJj ( slightly different outline- just some pre rules to the ChrisH rules ....ie , pop up I’d taken down....). The hybrid system s do exist we are not many....but we exist. We also compete !

Lesson 1) First of all. I'm a colligate wrestler and never met a BJJ wrestler that could dominate me, they just can't put me in a position that I don't already feel their intentions and I counter them, my attribute development of sensitivity from my years of training is just at too high of a level to allow them to put me in any kind of compromising position. Don't get me wrong, you need to learn BJJ, because I can dominate a colligate wrestler because I have also trained in BJJ. Lesson 2) Don't buy into the so called fact that learning street fighting from JKDC is not viable as compared to Matt Thornton's BJJ, unless your just looking to be an MMA fighter. I am a JKDC instructor from PFS/Vu and I'm here to tell you that when you get into a street fight, if you go to the ground, you better get 1 or 2 shots in and get back up on your feet or face the consequences of getting kicked in your mouth with a steel toed boot coming out of nowhere. Lesson 3) Matt Thornton was a student of Vu but probably never grasped JKD Concepts. I have looked at his other videos about leaving the JKDC community, and I get it, he talks about the void with pressure testing and that JKDC does not do that, giving out fake certificates and blah blah blah yada yada yada. There are people that have never been in a street fight in their life, yet they are looking to better themselves and they seek out JKDC to feel empowered, does not make JKDC/Vu/Inosanto anything less, you either get it or you don't. Learn how to Fish or expect someone to always feed you a fish is what seems rampant in the JKDC community but It does not take away from actual functionality of JKDC. Lesson 4) I highly doubt that Matt Thornton himself has actually been in any kind of actual fights in his life if he try's to promote BJJ as the end all/be all because any seasoned street fighter will tell you not to tie up on the ground for reasons that I said above. Since that last bar fight I mentioned above, it took me 2 more bar fights to realize not to tie up on the ground, the second was being kicked in the side of the head while mounting a dude I got into a fight with and the 3rd was I got into a fight with a bouncer and ended up being kicked by 4 of his friends, barely escaped with my life.

Guys.. include striking on the ground if u want realism.. really

Any self defence system should be just an extension of regular mma. Gotta have a real mma base. After that, you can start thinking about other things like headbutts, multiple attackers, knife attacks etc

I wonder though, is there a point of diminished returns? I'd say " street" focus would mean getting back to your feet, not staying in the bottom, and being able to handle weapons. If these guys are taking a year of BJJ and then continue to drill what they know under pressure plus more stand up and clinch work, is that so bad? For the average guy on the street, you aren't going to run into a BJJ black belt. You are going to run into someone who has strength and / or aggression. Competition wise though, you probably get smashed. You have to choose what the goal is.

In another video Thornton is speaking with Burton and they both are talking about how they way they "used" to teach and train was just too rough. It caused needless injuries, from both striking and grappling, and it just was not a good way to train. But in this video he seems to be making the opposite argument. The is the schizophrenia that develops among these people. You just keep bouncing between sport and street, and rather than getting any clarity you just become more confused. And the assumption gets made that because someone is tapping you in class you're not prepared to defend yourself in the street, etc. It's tough to take the ego out of it.

Once while in New Orleans, I contacted a school whose instructor claimed to be a BB under Rigan Machado in an attempt to find somewhere to train. I went by to observe but the instructor was not there and had a purple belt teaching. I noticed during rolling that the blue belts didn’t know basic moves. I called the next day and spoke with a female who asked my credentials and said she would talk to the instructor about me coming to train. They didn’t call me back and stopped answering my call. Weird!!!

There are amateur boxers who can hit a BJJ guy faster than he can close the distance to take them to the ground. If you’re not sure how good your opponent is at striking, don’t be too confident that you can take him to the ground. If you noticed in the Mark Hunt vs. Brock Lesnar fight, Lesnar was being “extremely cautious” not to get within punching range of Hunt - who could have “cleaned his clock” with even his weakest punch. I’ve also seen grapplers do everything they could to “avoid” getting within punching range of Roy Nelson.

I prefer catch style wrestling and Greco Roman style because they are much more applicable to real fighting. Brazilian Jujitsu guys are only interested in finding super secret holds and rolling around in the guard. The Guard has no application outside of the ring. As far as quote/unquote pressure testing they claim they do but they don’t, everyone I’ve seen teach or train in BJJ starts all of their practice from the guard. In reality it would be difficult or nearly impossible to force the guard on an opponent especially if he’s skilled at grappling and has watched enough UFC that he can anticipate the takedown attempts. The Guard is a chess match that you have to agree to get into and agree to stay in. Outside the ring or Gym it’s highly impractical.

And maybe you are overlooking the rule changes in MMA and UFC that favor the showiness of standing up VS the boring 90 minute ground defence. People sadly want to do what they see on the TV.

If you wanna keep student that wants to learn self-defense then you gotta go back to self-defense drills like the Gracies did in the old days. Punch defense, standing grab defenses. Rolling is good, but that’s not what self-defense people are interested in.

Any BJJ dojo recommendation for NYC/NJ area?

"90% of street fights go to the ground. If you're fighting more than one person then 100% of street fights go to the ground." Rorian Gracie

I see in many grappling arts a huge problem with overcomplience. They punch and leave the arm outstretched for you to work with, whereas, if you even manage to grab the arm in real life, you'll likely get punched in the face before you get your technique working! Sure, maybe you can eat the punch and make him land head first on concrete and thus win the fight, but that's not a solid battle-strategy very unlike getting him stunned first, force him to overcommit, or get him out of balance so that he can't effectively hit you.

Why would anyone ever consider rolling on the ground with anyone on the street? Especially with weapons, multiple attackers etc. it's suicide, You need to get back onto your feet asap.

I can’t agree , and I’m not downing the art , but several things have to be considered , first problem with this art is multiple attackers , I have been attacked by 5 guys at same time and was lucky to survive that , but with this art it would be impossible to survive the scenario I just described , on the other hand , if I was to have an encounter with a highly skilled jujitsu person , I don’t think I would have a chance , the whole subject is extremely difficult , jujitsu came from judo , judo has a ground game , but it also has a lot of striking involved , basically , jujitsu focused on the ground game part of judo , and focused and modified that , into an art , but didn’t focus on the striking part , it’s more complicated than that , but I’m trying to make this brief and concise , I come from a combat background , and a judo background , and I find that in general , the combination of striking and grappling , locks , etc , of judo , have worked very well for me , and I have been involved in countless attacks , and been successful every time , also I have come across a few jujitsu guys as well , maybe they were not very good ? Or not trained at a high level ? So I have great respect for jujitsu ( and many other arts ) but I guess it all has to do with your opponent , what he knows , his abilities , and how good he is , one of my toughest fights was with a high level hapkido guy from Korea , so that’s another example ( I barely got by that one ) one last thing , I would not like to have to fight someone like mike Tyson in any case ! I wonder how that would go in the street ? Mike against a jujitsu master ? I really don’t know , thank you

A couple comments... one, at our Gracie jiu jitsu , as a white belt, I roll with guys that can make me tap as many times as they want to. I’m older but I am a good size guy and fairly strong. The only way I could beat these guys in a street fight would be a lucky KO punch before they could get me to the ground. If I missed, I’m going to the hospital with something broken. 2- Jocko Willink is one of the toughest guys on the planet, as a retired navy seal with combat experience. These guys are no joke. Jocko and most navy seals seem to all train Jiu Jitsu. You think it is just for the exercise ?

He is talking about sincerely training or not - that is a different matter - ONLY clinch training is important- isolating it that way …. Very important. Anyone agree .

Watching the Human Weapon: MCMAP/Krav episode: I watched Jason & Bill go right to instinct/training response; which was clinch/hug w attempted take down as they were being fatally "stabbed" multiple times by an Israeli Kravist. They weren't used to a surprise, fast, random violent attack w/o rules & with a weapon. Their MMA "stylings" got them killed in a realistic simulation. "Ur a real good ring fighter, but you have no skill whatsoever in self-defense" Itay Gil. & " If I got into the ring w Randy Couture, he'd probably kick my butt; but if he were to step into my world, I'd probably kill him" MSgt. MCMAP instructor.

Mr. Billie Bob Thornton talks about pressure testing in the training environment, but I know for a fact that if he has ever pressure tested fighting in the real world, he would never promote tying up on the ground.

I believe rickson wants to preserve what his father developed. What better way then through kata. The same thing is in judo and no one complains about losing its effectiveness.

I took a lot of good stuff from Thornton’s early stuff, the pummel, aliveness, resistance, delivery system, etc. But, I never could get around his disdain for people that train for self defense. (That’s what the MAs were made for.) He says that if you don’t compete you “can’t fight.” I thoroughly believe Thornton “can fight.” He’s a 6’8 BJJ blackbelt. He better be able to. He’s probably handling most people. But, he has no competitive record as far as I know. When he was in the Army he boxed in smokers. Well, so did Bruce Lee in high school. And everyone knows “Bruce Lee couldn’t fight.” So his background is as credible as BL. According to Thornton’s own rules, he can’t fight. Does that sound right?

No-gi grappling too.

You need foam mats to practice on might as well get your bed out

gravity only exists outside of the gym.... apparently lol

What works in a prison works on the street.

Or are you simply worried about losing money when they leave BJJ in order to learn a far better self defense system as a foundation. IN addition they do it with less time and expense and more on point to what they want to learn. It logically fits their needs better and faster. You two are just trying to pat each other on the back. Life is not about tapping someone out in a sport. Be happy with the ones that want sport BJJ and encourage those that only want self defense which ground fighting is not the wises first choice. Be honest with them. Not everyone wants to learn a sport or be a MMA fighter. Nor do they want to spend years reaching a belt and the skills that will mean little to them in real life outside the gym. They don't want a BJJ lifestyle they want a self defense tool to go along with the life they already have. They just want self defense that is more practical, simple and easier learned quicker and with less time and cost. Get over it. A good self defense system will NOT make you an MMA fighter but you will be able to protect yourself in almost all cases. Not all cases but most. But is that not true for all systems including the one you teach? If you fight on the street you want to stay always on your feet. The best way to stay on your feet is to learn to fight on your feet. I know you need to remain on your feet from personal experience in more than one occasion so stop giving b/s. So it makes sense to strive to be good at some type of boxing or kickboxing - clenching and counter moves to takedowns. Yeah you can learn some grappling incase it goes to the ground but you don't need a black belt in BJJ in almost every fight. A good self defense system teaches you to be aggressive when needed and gives you moves to start the defense process. It teaches you basic skills in several areas of stand up and ground fighting. No I don't teach self defense. Look I don't have a problem with BJJ and in fact I think it is worth knowing at least some part of it for self defense. You need BJJ or some form of Grappling just in case you are unable to stay on your feet or can't get back on them . If one is looking at self defense start with boxing or maybe kickboxing and some form of wrestling that will help you stay on your feet. You can branch from there.

Street based martial art? The answer is simple. It is the shortest cut to thr jail.

Hmm, " I have seen people occasionally move away from jiu-jitsu or de-emphasize jiu-jitsu and emphasize more Street quote unquote training and I'm not talking about Burton I don't I don't want anybody to draw that assumption because I like Burton I think he's on a good path" JUST because you like Burton, aren't you really implying that he's doing something to protect his ego and protect his 'rice bowl', but you won't because he has to make a living and let's face it, he's had injuries or illness and he is a good guy. But in the end, just call it truthfully. Burton has gone back to delusional martial arts, nice as he is and he IS nice. He is a dog brother and we respect him. So why can't he take constructive criticism?

Is there a bjj designed for concrete and hardwood floors? There should be.

What about just focusing on BJJ basics, as in blue belt and under? Things that are high percentage

its based on da streets. have you tried to berimbolo on gravel? lol it sucks