Greg Jackson: 2015 Instructor of the Year Launches Online Mixed Martial Arts Course!
December 15 | 2015
Perhaps the best way to get to know Greg Jackson is to review the names of the MMA fighters he's coached: Holly Holm, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, etc. Now you can learn mixed martial arts from this Black Belt Hall of Famer on your tablet or smartphone!
Part 1: If you read the cover story of the June/July 2015 issue of Black Belt, you know who Greg Jackson is. Of course, if you’re a follower of the biggest names in MMA, you probably already knew. The reason you’re reading about him here is he’s much more than a successful MMA coach, as you can see from the comments he’s made in past interviews.
“We, as mixed martial artists, can’t be saying traditional martial arts doesn’t give us anything. In true mixed-martial-arts fashion, we need to take the best of all, and we especially need to grab the social value of traditional martial arts. It has a lot of techniques that we’re using all the time, but the social thing is a big deal. When you learn traditional martial arts, what do you think of? Respect, bowing, discipline — things that are important to the world. We need to absorb that into our culture.”
Those sentences indicate that although Greg Jackson spends much of his work week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, coaching MMA fighters like Holly Holm, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, Andrei Arlovski, Diego Sanchez, Tim Kennedy, Clay Guida and Sarah Kaufman, his involvement in the martial arts is much more profound than cage fighting. Perhaps that’s why he’s investing so much time to promote his concept of MMA as a martial art. It entails taking octagon-tested techniques and tempering them with the traditional components he mentioned — respect, discipline and so on — to yield what he believes is a superior system of self-defense, one that develops the qualities the arts have pushed for centuries. The reason Jackson sees his system as superior is the dynamic nature of self-defense. “It’s context driven, meaning that there are times when you need to be precise and accurate and there are times when you need to sacrifice some of those things to claim the initiative,” he said. “Our system of mixed martial arts, in addition to teaching techniques, also teaches you to think tactically so you can make decisions like that in real time.”
Greg Jackson on the cover of the June/July 2015 Black Belt
Those sentences indicate that although Greg Jackson spends much of his work week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, coaching MMA fighters like Holly Holm, Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, Andrei Arlovski, Diego Sanchez, Tim Kennedy, Clay Guida and Sarah Kaufman, his involvement in the martial arts is much more profound than cage fighting. Perhaps that’s why he’s investing so much time to promote his concept of MMA as a martial art. It entails taking octagon-tested techniques and tempering them with the traditional components he mentioned — respect, discipline and so on — to yield what he believes is a superior system of self-defense, one that develops the qualities the arts have pushed for centuries. The reason Jackson sees his system as superior is the dynamic nature of self-defense. “It’s context driven, meaning that there are times when you need to be precise and accurate and there are times when you need to sacrifice some of those things to claim the initiative,” he said. “Our system of mixed martial arts, in addition to teaching techniques, also teaches you to think tactically so you can make decisions like that in real time.”
Greg Jackson signing autographs at the 2015 Martial Arts SuperShow
Greg Jackson enters the Black Belt Hall of Fame
— J. Torres
Part 2: Greg Jackson Featured in New Online Course From Black Belt! As you know from reading the first half of this post, Greg Jackson has developed a systematic approach to teaching mixed martial arts that parallels the one that’s often used in the traditional martial arts. In other words, it’s not a random sampling of techniques. It’s a progression that lays a foundation of exercises, drills and basic techniques, then adds more challenging moves. It’s all about taking time to build a skill base that makes sense within the confines of competition and self-defense.Greg Jackson (top) and Joe Stevenson in a Black Belt photo shoot
Greg Jackson tying up the arms of Joe Stevenson before executing an elbow strike
— Robert W. Young
(Studio Photos by Ian Spanier)
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