History of the SBGi
BJJ Association:
The
SBGi BJJ Association was created in 2001 by SBGi President Matt
Thornton, and Machado BJJ black belt Chris Haueter. It was formed
due to the fact that the Art of BJJ had become a major focus of
the SBG Gyms worldwide. SBG athletes all over the world were competing
in no-gi, gi/bjj, vale-tudo, and various MMA events, with great
success. As the Gym grew, and more and more people began receiving
there training through the SBG, it became obvious that an Association
was needed in order to organize the training, teaching, and awarding
of belt rank within the Art of BJJ.
The SBG has a unique take on BJJ. Each BJJ class taught at an
SBGi Gym is 100% Alive. That means the Coaches use the "I"
method of teaching, and allow each individual athlete the freedom
needed to develop his, or her own game to it's highest levels
of performance.
Classes are taught with the gi, no-gi, and also
in the vale tudo format (with strikes added). In addition all
the SBG/JKD classes included large amounts of BJJ training for
the groundfighting portion of the curriculum. When combined with
the other aspects of stand up striking, clinch fighting, weapons,
and self defense training, it composes the totality of the SBGi
curriculum. The emphasis is always placed completely on Alive
training, and the performance of the individual athlete. All taught,
and learned within a safe, friendly, and fun environment.
About Chris Haueter:
Chris
Haueter has pursued the "way" of the Martial Arts literally
all of his life. By the age of sixteen, Chris had achieved his
first black belt in the classical arts. Only two Years later he
could be found competing at the state and national level in American
and freestyle wrestling. Chris discovered competitive boxing and
closed quarter combat while serving in the US Marine Corp. In
1983-84, Chris's sponge like ability to learn found a home at
the Inosanto Academy in Los Angles, California. When Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu found Chris in 1989 he had already earned a level of
"Instructor" at the Inosanto Academy in Muay Thai kickboxing,
Jeet Kune Do, Kali, and western boxing. The hook of Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu sank deep into Chris after his very first experience
of "rolling" on the mat with the great BJJ Coach Rigan
Machado.
In the eleven Years that have past, Chris' involvement
in the art of BJJ has been total. An assistant Instructor 1993,
promoted to black belt in 1996, Chris became one of only a handful
of Americans 
to
hold a black belt in this highly technical and complex Art. As
a black belt Chris served as Machado competition team captain,
a coach, and competitor. In addition to numerous colored belt
victories, Chris was the first American black belt to compete
in the Mundial De Jiu-Jitsu (world championships) held each Year
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Chris makes no claim at being the fastest, one of
the most technical, or one of the toughest competitors (all of
which would be arguably true if he made them). Instead, he can
be heard telling students about the "boxes inside boxes"
nature of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; that in their lifetimes, no matter
how good they get, there will always be more to discover about
the "art without limits". Chris Haueter is humble. It
is precisely this quality that has been molded by the legend Rigan
Machado, and the other master grapplers if the Machado family
that has created one of the best Coaches of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
in the world.
About Matt Thornton:
Matt
began his Martial Arts career with boxing. After serving in the
US Army Matt returned to the USA and began training in JKD in
1988. In 1990 Matt moved to Portland where he managed, and taught
at a Gym for a little over a Year where the focus was JKDC, alongside
one of Mr. Inosanto's Instructors. During that time Matt was exposed
to a multitude of JKD Instructors including Burton Richardson,
who would go on to become a close friend, Dan Inosanto, and many
others.
In 1991 he had the privilege of meeting and training
with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend Rickson Gracie. It was the meeting,
where Matt reports "I watched Rickson wrestle a room of Judo
black belts. He taped them all out within seconds, without using
his hands, and I knew this is for me!" It was from that meeting
that Matt discovered the need to place the emphasis on self-discovery
through Aliveness. It was more from his boxing and initial introduction
to BJJ (Rickson) which physically challenged all the mental constructs
and concepts that were being shown to him as physical possibilities
for fighting, then his involvement with JKD that shaped the ideology
of Aliveness. From there it just continued to flourish through
personal experiences field testing everything others had taken
for granted would work.
His
training methods, focus, and philosophy were headed in a completely
different direction from where that school was, so he eventually
opened the first Gym in which he had complete control in Salem
Oregon around 1993. At that time he was a blue belt with Rickson,
and focused a lot on his ground game for the next several Years.
He kept the politics and nonsense out of the Gym, and just trained
hard, and as the Months went by the place began to fill up. It
was at this time that SBG Coaches Tom Oberhue, Dan Robinson, and
Steve Boyd began training with the SBG.
Matt met up again with Burton shortly after that,
and his focus in Kali was really shifting thanks to the Dog Brothers.
Thanks to Burt, and the DB influence, Matt completely changed
the weapons curriculum at that time.
Matt had this to say about this time period: "In
the past I had been told over and over again by all the Instructors
I had known that you could not run a Gym the
way I was running it. . .with no titles, no ritual, and lots of
Alive drilling and sparring. . . 'people won't stay, they want
the b*llsh*t drills, so teach them to keep them in the door, or
you wont 
make
any money!'. Long story short, they where ALL wrong. So many people
where making the 40 minute commute from Portland to work out in
the tiny Salem Gym that I needed to open a Portland location to
respond to the market. Within 12 Months we had moved to a large
Salem location, a fair sized warehouse, which was the first Portland
Gym, and was able to quit my job. I had assumed that those that
had spoken about the need for those drills to me in the past,
knew what they where talking about when it came to running schools.
But I could not bring myself to teach people what I knew was nonsense,
just to make money. So I figured I would also always have to work
a 40 hour a week job. The thing that I am happiest about is that
all those people where completely wrong, and it turned out to
be just the opposite. People loved the way we trained, and I have
been able to make a living without ever teaching anything I found
questionable, or 'watered down'."
A few Years later Matt met Randy Couture, and that
completely changed the way the SBG trained "trapping",
or more aptly put clinch range. The SBG had always taught a strong
boxing base at their facilities, and in addition BJJ had become
a huge part of the curriculum from the start,
now they had the full package.
Rickson
Gracie awarded Matt his blue belt in 1993. As a blue belt Matt
competed in Rickson's first tournament, where he swept his division,
making it to the finals by winning all his matches via submission.
His only loss occurred against the former UFC Champion Rico Rodriguez,
in a tough match that saw Rico narrowly escape a triangle by Matt
and take cross sides. In 1995 Matt was awarded a purple belt through
the Machado brothers, and Chris Haueter. As a purple belt he competed
in JJ Machado tournament in Vegas, winning heavyweight gi purple
belt by submission, and winning a no-gi match versus the agile
fighter 'Amed', who had just come off a victory by submission
(heel hook) versus Rico Rodriquez in the tournament before. "Matt
won the match by escaping a heel hook attempt, and applying a
triangle submission. In 2000 he was awarded his brown belt through
the Machados, and in 2002 was awarded his Black Belt. Matt continues
his BJJ training through his current BJJ Coaches Rigan Machado,
and Chris Haueter.
Matt began doing seminars in 1995 at the request
of the USA's first Savate Instructor, Daniel Duby, who asked if
he would fly to his Island of Reunion to teach a series of seminars.
Daniel provided the Savate influence they have at the Gym, and
also became a great friend of the SBG. Since that time Matt has
given over one hundred seminars and traveled all over the world
to spread the message of Aliveness, the curriculum of the SBG,
and the beauty and Art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Matt has taught
in Africa, France, the UK, Denmark, Ireland, Reunion Island, the
Seychelles, and all across the USA.
It has been this travel, teaching, training, and
process of self-discovery that has shaped Matt's philosophy on
what training 'healthy' in the Martial Arts is all about.
About John Frankl:
John
Frankl is the founder of NorCal Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and a proud
representative of the Straight Blast Gym in Chico, CA . Although
John began with and gained high rank in traditional martial arts,
he considers his exposure to alive training as beginning in 1989,
the year he began training in Muay Thai and Eskrima in Berkeley,
CA. By 1993 John was ready to take his martial arts to the next
level. He secured a position as an English and Korean language
teacher at a private bilingual high school and moved to Los Angeles.
John had two goals: to study with Dan Inosanto and Rickson Gracie.
He spent a year in Los Angeles, at the end of which he had permission
from Dan Inosanto to begin teaching Jun Fan/JKD, Muay Thai, and
the Filipino martial arts, and a blue belt from Rickson. John
moved from Los Angeles to Boston in order to pursue his doctoral
studies at Harvard University. In Boston, John trained another
eight years with Roberto Maia, founder of Boston Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu, a black belt under Carlos Gracie, Jr., and the cousin of
Renzo Gracie and the Machado Brothers. Under Roberto, John received
his purple, brown, and black belts. John was also fortunate to
have the opportunity to train extensively with Claudio Franca
whenever he visited his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA. After more
than nine years of continuous and dedicated study, John is among
the elite group of American black belts.
John’s academic and martial arts careers have
long overlapped. His travels allowed him to train and fight not
only all over the U.S., but also in Brazil, Thailand, the Philippines,
and Japan. John also founded Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Korea, where
he has often lived for extended periods of study and research.
His academy, Seoul Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, has now grown into the
nationwide organization, Korea Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. John returns
to Korea twice a year to teach seminars and assure that training
remains true to his exacting standards.
John
represents a rare combination of fighter and teacher. Throughout
his stay in Boston, John studied and taught at Boston Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu. He served not only as a Jiu Jitsu instructor but also
as head instructor and coach of the Vale Tudo team. He also competed
in and won both Sport Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts contests.
When not on the mat or in the ring, John was studying and teaching
at Harvard University, where he received awards for excellence
in teaching and, most recently, a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages
and Civilizations.
Although over the last eight years John has devoted
most of his attention to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, he did stay active
in his stand-up game by training and teaching Vale Tudo, as well
as fighting in mixed martial arts and even an amateur Muay Thai
bout in Thailand. Through this combination, his Vale Tudo classes
naturally began to fit very well with what Matt Thornton and the
SBGi coaches were doing. During his last months in Boston, John
was fortunate enough to meet Matt at a seminar put on by Steve
Whittier.
Most recently, a Postdoctoral Fellowship at U.C.
Berkeley brought John back to his native Northern California.
Having kept in touch with Matt, and having very much appreciated
Matt’s intelligent and honest approach to martial arts,
John made plans to attend the SBGi training camp in October 2003.
It was at the camp that John got to meet—and train with—many
of the other SBGi coaches. And it was there, through their help
and encouragement, that he made his decision to ask to join the
SBGi team.
In
closing this is what the SBGi BJJ Association is about, to quote
Matt: "Many people tend to evaluate themselves, to 'measure'
themselves based on "association". They place a heavy
emphasis on 'who' they trained 'under', and as such they define
themselves through association to others. What I try
and steer people towards instead is to ONLY measure themselves
based solely on performance.
Those two attitudes are very different. Attract very different
personas, and create very different training environments.
Those that tend to define themselves through association,
also tend to be more inclined to politics, gossip, certificates,
and dead patterns. When asked a question related to performance
they will also answer with comments such as, "well Sifu so-and-so
does it this way". There also tends to be a movement towards
secret 'moves' and Martial Arts mythology with such people. As
a whole I feel that defining yourself based on your association
to another is destructive for a persons character. And I believe
that unhealthy attitude can be felt, and identified quickly when
one walks into Gyms that place a large emphasis on lineage, and
dead patterns.
People
that measure themselves solely through performance tend to steer
clear of politics and gossip. They don't care about those things.
They are concerned with who can help them perform
better, not who that can attach' themselves to for purposes of
ego. They would answer a technical question with a statement like,
"I do it this way because when you go against an opponent
I find that's what works best, or that's what all the athletes
I know do because that's what works under 'pressure" As opposed
to... "well Sifu-so-and-so teaches it this way." They
can answer based on direct first-hand experience on the
mat. All in all it's a very different
thing. It attracts a different type of individual. And it creates
a much healthier environment to train in.
Again, if you ever walk into an SBG Gym anywhere
in the world, you will notice that. Everyone is nice, friendly,
no ego, no politics, no weasels. That just happens
naturally when you shift the paradigm from association to performance.
It's a beautiful thing.
What we are doing with the Association is bringing
this mentality to others who share our common goal. The association
is not for people who want to 'belong' to it for purposes of ego,
and self image. The Association is a tool that allows us to spread
that message across the globe, along with others who share this
concept of a healthy, sane way to train. Together we can grow
and prosper"
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The
SBGi BJJ Association:
