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Greg
Jackson MMA From the Big Chair
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Marc Wickert, When
you start talking with Jackson, you instantly wonder why G.J. ever needed
to take up a self-defense system when his friendly personality is so
disarming. It’s easy to see why such big names as Georges
St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, David Loiseau, Adam Lynn, Keith Jardine, Nathan
Marquardt… speak so highly of training at Jackson’s MMA gym. But
enough about Greg’s good nature; we’re here to pick his brain. Greg
says his grandfather was the first Jackson family member to take up
wrestling. “Bill didn’t do it on the level that my uncles, my
father and brother did, but he boxed and wrestled as a kid, so that’s
where we kinda got the start,” says G.J. “Bill
was just an athletic kid; he also played football… I think in that time
and place, my grandfather did what other kids did – the kids would box,
wrestle, play football and swim… It was just something that he did.
And my oldest uncle, Uncle John, he started wrestling, and I’m not
exactly sure why – he just loves fighting and wrestling. Then
Uncle Ed did it and my father followed after that. I think he was
the one who set the tone for it and my grandfather was very supportive, so
we kinda kept the spirit alive.” Greg’s
father was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but moved to Indiana when he was a
kid. He later relocated to Washington, D.C., which is where Greg
spent his early years before moving to New Mexico. Despite
having wrestling in his blood, Greg says it was his need for a self-defense
system whilst growing up in Albuquerque that motivated him to train.
“I’ve been wrestling with my dad and uncles and little brother since I
can remember, but what really got me started in the martial arts was just
a need to defend myself. When I was young my parents were pacifists,
so they tried to put me in aikido. It was like a non-violent martial
art, and that didn’t last too long. It’s not a terribly
effective martial art for today’s realities.” Greg,
you did judo as well. “Yeah,
I bounced around and did judo. I’ve never had a jiu jitsu lesson,
at least not Brazilian. It came down mostly to kickboxing and
wrestling with the submission grappling stuff, and I had to figure that
out for myself, except for the kickboxing where I had Mike Winkeljohn as
my instructor, and he is amazing, he’s great.” On
your site www.jacksonsmma.com
it says you originally combined judo locks with wrestling to create
Gaidojutsu. Were the takedowns and positioning the main things you
took from wrestling, and then the judo submissions to finish it? “Right,
exactly. And once the UFC came out I saw the Gracies had this great,
great style so I tried to emulate that. There was no one to teach
me, so I just tried to emulate it as much as I could, using physics and
geometry to figure out how to get the best leverage and how to finish
somebody there. But Gaidojutsu had its origin in the wrestling and
judo for sure.” Around
the time you saw Royce Gracie in the early UFCs, you commenced training in
kickboxing with Michael Winkeljohn. Did that then make Gaidojutsu a
true MMA style? “I
think so; I mean I think that a lot of it did. We were just trying
to figure out what works and what works best for each individual. I
had trained at other kickboxing places before, but they weren’t as good
as Mike Winkeljohn obviously, so he was the one to take me to that next
level. He was the one who sat me down and got my basics better, got
me hitting harder and that kinda stuff. It was a real pleasure and
honor when I started working with him.” Do
you do most of your own training with the fighters you coach, or do you do
some of your workouts aside from when you’re instructing? “A little bit of both: I do a little bit of working with them, and then I also have stuff that I do on my own, like a lot of conditioning stuff. But the sparring I do with the boys.”
In
Kelly Crigger’s book “Title Shot: Into the Shark Tank of Mixed Martial
Arts”, he visits Jackson’s Gym. Did you enjoy Kelly’s time
there? “Oh,
yeah. Kelly is great; he’s phenomenal and makes me laugh all the
time. He’s actually really smart, and what I like best about him
is when we got on the sand dunes he really wanted to get in there and see
what it was like, so I respect his intelligence and enthusiasm, but I also
respect that he likes to get in there and mix it up too. It was
pretty cool.” Kelly
said in “Title Shot” that there were rumors of your taking fighters on
runs in the Sandia Mountains. Do you take them on runs there? “Yeah,
we have a lot of different runs that we do: some in the Sandia Mountains,
some in the foothills of those mountains, and some in the sand dunes
around Albuquerque – different runs for different torture days.” You
have the Rashad Evans vs. Forrest Griffin bout coming up on December 27.
How do you see that going? “Well,
we never take a fight thinking we’re going to lose it. Forrest is
an incredibly tough opponent; he also presents a lot of problems that are
hard to get around. I think if we have a good performance that
night, and if we do what Rashad is capable of doing, then we’ll win, but
it’s not going to be an easy fight at all. Forrest is an amazing
fighter and if we make one mistake, that could be it. Hopefully
we’ll have a good night and come away with the victory.” How’s
Georges St-Pierre’s preparation going for his BJ Penn rematch? “He’s
been training well; he just left here last week and I’ll be going up to
Montreal next week or the week after to help him out after Rashad’s
fight, and we’ll be working closely together with Firas, Phil Nurse, and
his other coaches as well.” Michelle
Waterson was a pleasure to interview. Does she have any bouts coming
up? “We’re
setting something up for the end of February for both Michelle and for
Julie (Kedzie), probably in Washington, D.C., but we don’t have anything
solid yet although Michelle has been training hard and improving a lot.
Each time I think she’ll get better and better, so it will be a good
thing if we can get her showcased on a big stage and she can really
display her improvement.” Is
Jackson’s Gym one of the biggest gyms for female fighters? “We
really are. We only have two or three female fighters: Julie Kedzie
is kinda the leader and she’s just phenomenal, and then we have Michelle
Waterson and Holly Holm. We’re trying to get some more, but
outside of that we only have three or four female fighters at the
moment.” So
Julie Kedzie’s doing well. “Oh,
she is amazing. I feel that she has improved that much in the last
eighteen months, and she’s the one I’m most excited about: She gets
stronger with every fight and it’s a pleasure to work with her.
She has such a great work ethic and she is so talented. She has that
combination that you don’t see all the time. It makes my job real
easy.” “Yeah,
she’s all smiles and giggles one minute and then she’s fighting, and
she just won’t quit. At the core, that’s what makes her a great
fighter: She has talent and a good attitude, but at the core she’s a
fighter. She’ll take a swig of vodka and fight, so to speak.” What
other people from your gym have fights coming up? “We
have Donald Cerrone fighting for the WEC title against Jamie Varner at the
end of January. Leonard Garcia will probably end up fighting Mike
Brown for the other WEC title, but I’m not sure about that. As far
as big fights, we just had Elliot Marshall win this past weekend, and
Georges and Rashad have fights coming up, of course.” Ring
Physician Dr. Gary Furness said, “I know Greg meets dozens of people.
but on the off chance, please say ‘hi’ to him from the doc that first
chatted with him at Jardine/Silva UFC in May, then Strikeforce a week
later. Then quiz him on the strip club and alcohol-plan for Joey
Villasenor when he was going against Phil Baroni in New Jersey.” “Oh,
yeah, for the pre-fight interviews it’s kinda the same deal every time:
They ask you the same questions, so I decided I’d tell them that I took
Joey to the strip club and got him drunk with a bunch of women to try
something unorthodox. It’s on You Tube; I guess you can watch it,
and everybody’s been laughing at me ever since. If I can make
somebody smile my day goes well.” I
also have a question from Kelly Crigger: “Ask
Greg how he enjoyed his trip to Mount Vernon. I took him there when
he was in DC and when he saw the bedroom where George Washington died, he
was moved. Greg's a huge history buff and appreciates that kind of
stuff.” “That
was amazing. You know what moved me was that and his back porch: I
was sitting in the same place as George Washington had sat and that blew
my mind. I have a couple of heroes that I really look up to and
George Washington is one of the big ones – just to be where he was, to
see the bed he died in and to see the desk where he made all his
presidential decisions… I’d been to places where he’d had some of
his hardships and I always wondered what was so special about Mount
Vernon: Why did he want to go back there? And then when I got to go
and I saw how beautiful and amazing it was – I saw his grave and his
tomb – it was amazing. It just blew me away and I was so happy.” Greg,
is there anything you’d like to add? “Thank
you to my wife, Stephanie, for all her support, and my kids for being so
understanding that I have to travel all the time.”
For more on Greg Jackson: www.jacksonsmma.com
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