Matt Thornton

[bjjboulder]

One thing that I want to address here that keeps coming up in regard to Matt's curriculum is that he is only interested in what works in a streetfight, and he couldn't care less about anything else.....This could be both true and not...it goes deeper than this.

To people who don't really know what the SBG is all about, they may interpret Matt's philosophy to be one of hardcore streetfighting...maybe very similar to Paul Vunaks PFS organization. HOWEVER that is not the correct way to view it. Matt is not about learning to streetfight...He in fact doesn't believe that you can train to be a great streetfighter. To Matt the whole mystical martial arts idea of being a badass streetfighter is a philosophical dead end.

Therefore...listen to this carefully, He doesn't really advocate training to prepare you for streetfighting. Rather, he encourages his students to forget about all the mysticism, and romantic ideals of whoopin the bad guys in a streetbrawl due to your secret Kenpo whirling hands of death....or even your PFS hub of the wheel!-and instead just look upon yourselves as athletes.

Nothing more nothing less. Combat athletes.

He does offer that while the concept of streetfighting is a philosophical dead end.."The way we train at SBG will prepare you just as good as about anything ever could for a street situation."

Thats it...think of it as sport, and yourself an athlete.

I like what twisted up said in another post. "If you really want to learn to defend against guns and knives ....I have one question for you,......Can I have your stereo?"

[Twisted up]

Luis Gutierez (SBG Florida) says, "Self-defense is a by-product of one's training" --not something you pursue in and of itself (the "philosophical dead end").

Couldn't agree with him more.