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| Via Wikimedia Commons. Pic by: Zero Xero |
This post will be dedicated to the man behind the famous Straight Blast Gyms, Matt Thornton. Over the last couple of years especially SBG Ireland with head coach John Kavanagh has been featured in MMA media almost daily, both due to Conor McGregor's extreme starpower and the sheer skill of SBG based fighters (McGregor, Gunnar Nelson, Cathal Pendred, Paddy Holohan etc.). The man who started it all, the founder of SBG however, is Matt Thornton. His approach to MMA and Martial Arts in general is very unique and has a solid base in philosophy. Thornton, being one of the pioneers of American Mixed Martial Arts, has developed his very own philosophy to accompany his Martial Arts training, taking ideas from e.g. Jiddu Krishnamurti among certain other schools of skeptical thinking and philosophy. In this article, I want to focus in this philosophical approach - as the title indicates - which underlies his training methods. Since his philosophy is the result of years and years of research, this text will attempt to be a first glance at one of the core principles to which Thornton refers rather often. The concept of Aliveness.
