JTR Jujutsu

[Mr. President]

I was wondering if anybody here knows about Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, AKA JTR Jujutsu, taught by Dong Jin Kim in Washington D.C.

As far as I can tell, he's as legit as they come (his wiki page states that he trains special forces and the like), but I wanted a second opinion. His website:

jtrjujutsu.com

Thanks

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Depends on what you mean by "legit." Claims of teaching military are generally pretty meaningless, for a variety of reasons.

Mr. Kim is teaching his own (modern, eclectic) system of jujutsu. It's unclear what background or training he has in other forms of jujutsu that he might have used as the basis for his system. He claims high jujutsu rank from the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, but the DNBK is an umbrella organization for promoting martial arts, not a specific style. They do issue rank certificates, but I don't know what their criteria are for doing so.

From watching him move in the videos, I would guess that his system is largely based in hapkido, which he also holds rank in. Maybe the hapkido folks here can chime in on their impression of his skills. I will note that there are a couple of ground techniques demonstrated by black belts which are rather poorly done. That's not necessarily a knock against the school, since ground fighting is clearly not their focus.

 

[Instructor]

I responded in the Hapkido post.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Okay, I've watched some more videos from Mr. Kim's YouTube channel, and I'm not particularly impressed with the execution of the moves being shown. Not saying the techniques are invalid, but from my perspective they are missing a lot of important details which would be necessary for them to be effective in real world application.

For the most part, it's not Mr. Kim doing the demonstrations, but at least some of the demonstrators are wearing black belts or are identified as instructors.

I suppose it's possible that these problems are an artifact of the way they do demos and that they practice more realistically in other situations, but I personally wouldn't bother to go to these folks for training.

Take that for what it's worth - Mr. Kim is much higher ranked than I am and unless you've worked with me you have no reason to trust my judgment over his on these matters.

 

[Instructor]

As a guy who puts a lot of martial arts video out there I can say it's harder than it looks. Dealing with the camera, the sound, teaching the move out loud, and demonstrating the move... It's a lot of balls to juggle so to speak. It's really easy to criticize. Heck I criticize my own video's because I know I can do it better.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

As a guy who puts a lot of martial arts video out there I can say it's harder than it looks. Dealing with the camera, the sound, teaching the move out loud, and demonstrating the move... It's a lot of balls to juggle so to speak. It's really easy to criticize. Heck I criticize my own video's because I know I can do it better.

I totally understand that. There are two reasons I don't put videos of my own up:
1) Everything I could show, someone else has already done a better job of demonstrating on YouTube, so it's really not necessary.
2) Even if I was happy with a video I made at the time, I would probably come back 6 months later and see a bunch of details that needed improvement and feel embarrassed.

That said, the problems I was noting with the demonstrations on Mr. Kim's channel are consistent with a bunch of different demonstrators across different videos. That makes me suspect it may just be the way they do things. If they're happy with it, that's great. Not everyone has to do things in a way that I think is effective. If they were teaching a traditional art for the sake of tradition, I wouldn't say anything, since I wouldn't necessarily understand the context of the tradition in question. However, since he's promoting his art on the basis of modern combat effectiveness, I feel I can make my judgments based on that criteria.

 

[Instructor]

That makes sense Tony. Can you pick a particular video and link it here? Let's give it a hard look. I would like to try to see the video through your eyes and then give feedback from my own point of view. Not to argue but just as a way for me to learn more about what works and what doesn't so forth.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

That makes sense Tony. Can you pick a particular video and link it here? Let's give it a hard look. I would like to try to see the video through your eyes and then give feedback from my own point of view. Not to argue but just as a way for me to learn more about what works and what doesn't so forth.

Will do. Do you want me to offer my critiques first or do you want to watch without my setting up any preconceptions?

 

[Instructor]

Ummm, I guess I'll try to watch it and evaluate based on my own perspective and relate what I see and then you relate what you are seeing. It's concievable we are seeing the same thing.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I couldn't decide, so here are a couple to look at.

 

[Instructor]

Top Video:

I don't train JuJitsu so grain of salt on my comments. From a Hapkido perspective this seems very odd. It's like the techniques are Hapkidoish... but with none of the precision I am accustomed from our schools. No wide stance for stability, no live hands, no ki-finger. It all just seemed a little loosey goosey.

Also just reaching out and grabbing uke like this seems odd to me as well. We customarily train from a set attack point. That is to say that uke either grabs in some fashion or punches or kicks and then we perform joint locks from this.

The man performing the techniques seemed to be rocking the locks back and forth with muscle power. That is torque with force not form.

It was kind of hard to watch and made me feel uncomfortable. I think the possibility of over torque of uke's joints is fairly high doing things like this.

In terms of actual physical combat hard to say. It's only one video after all. I would need to see these techniques employed in a more realistic fashion.

Bottom Video:

Lock to lock to lock transitions.... It almost seems like they were instructed to demonstrate three consecutive locks. More just reaching out and grabbing an offered limb.... I dunno.... doesn't sit well with me.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I think we're seeing a lot of the same things. (BTW - as a jujutsu guy, it looks more like hapkido to me than any jujutsu I've ever seen.)



Top video:

Tori is reaching out and grabbing uke so that at point of contact, uke's arms are in a strong position next to his body, while tori is fully extended (and in some cases leaning forward off balance). If uke wasn't being 100% floppy-armed compliant then tori would have zero chance of actually pulling the arm away from the body and into position for the lock.

In some cases tori is finishing the wristlock with his own arms locked out straight at maximum distance from his body. That seems like a recipe for loosing control of the opponent.

Applying standing joint locks in a real situation is tricky. You have to break your opponent's balance and body alignment, preferably getting him to over-extend a limb in the process, while maintaining your own balance and alignment, in order to have a chance of completing the technique against a resisting opponent. These guys seem to have it reversed.

(For the record, I am not particularly great at standing wristlocks and would not want to rely on them in a real fight. That said, if I was demonstrating one I at least know to break uke's balance and alignment and isolate the limb I'm attacking. Every teacher I've had has taught me that much.)

Bottom video:

More of the same. The video claims to be showing "sparring drills", but there's no sparring - just reaching out and grabbing the arm of a compliant partner in order to apply techniques. The only difference is that the partner is shuffling around in a sort of fighting stance instead of standing normally. There's no kuzushi to set up the joint locks or the throws. There's no awareness of when the opponent is in a strong position.

The ground submissions are pretty terrible, but I don't necessarily hold that against them since their style is mostly stand-up. The lack of kuzushi is more troubling, since the only way to make throws work without it is to be much bigger and stronger than your opponent.

Just two videos doesn't prove anything, but I'm seeing the same kinds of problems in most of the other videos. It seems to be how they actually practice, as opposed to someone getting nervous and forgetting a detail because the camera is rolling.

 

[Instructor]

You worded it better than me. Yes we are in complete agreement.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I wonder if Mr. Kim's list of titles as instructor for various governmental agencies has any connection to all the honorary 5th degree black belts he's given out to various government officials?

Nah, couldn't be.

(Seriously, though, why would anyone even want an honorary 5th degree black belt? Is it useful for fending off honorary muggers?)

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Since I've been critical, I should note that Mr. Kim himself seems to move rather better than any of his students in the videos. (Which is a good thing.) If you are considering attending the school, however, you should figure that the skill of his black belt instructors is a better indicator of the skills you are likely to attain by training there.

 

[Buka]

I think we're seeing a lot of the same things. (BTW - as a jujutsu guy, it looks more like hapkido to me than any jujutsu I've ever seen.)



Top video:

Tori is reaching out and grabbing uke so that at point of contact, uke's arms are in a strong position next to his body, while tori is fully extended (and in some cases leaning forward off balance). If uke wasn't being 100% floppy-armed compliant then tori would have zero chance of actually pulling the arm away from the body and into position for the lock.

In some cases tori is finishing the wristlock with his own arms locked out straight at maximum distance from his body. That seems like a recipe for loosing control of the opponent.

Applying standing joint locks in a real situation is tricky. You have to break your opponent's balance and body alignment, preferably getting him to over-extend a limb in the process, while maintaining your own balance and alignment, in order to have a chance of completing the technique against a resisting opponent. These guys seem to have it reversed.

(For the record, I am not particularly great at standing wristlocks and would not want to rely on them in a real fight. That said, if I was demonstrating one I at least know to break uke's balance and alignment and isolate the limb I'm attacking. Every teacher I've had has taught me that much.)

Bottom video:

More of the same. The video claims to be showing "sparring drills", but there's no sparring - just reaching out and grabbing the arm of a compliant partner in order to apply techniques. The only difference is that the partner is shuffling around in a sort of fighting stance instead of standing normally. There's no kuzushi to set up the joint locks or the throws. There's no awareness of when the opponent is in a strong position.

The ground submissions are pretty terrible, but I don't necessarily hold that against them since their style is mostly stand-up. The lack of kuzushi is more troubling, since the only way to make throws work without it is to be much bigger and stronger than your opponent.

Just two videos doesn't prove anything, but I'm seeing the same kinds of problems in most of the other videos. It seems to be how they actually practice, as opposed to someone getting nervous and forgetting a detail because the camera is rolling.

That says it all right there. If only bad guys took these classes they'd know how to act.

Violent are people are just that. They're violent. When you want to apply a standing hold, regardless of the hold, you have to stop the violence first. Ask any cop, any security guy, any bouncer, any medical worker, EMT ect.

Go ahead, apply a limb lock to a guy already in motion, already aggressive, a guy who's been in prison, a guy with mental health issues or even your pissed off neighbor. I dare you.

 

[drop bear]

For the record, I am not particularly great at standing wristlocks and would not want to rely on them in a real fight

As a side note here. Arm drags wizzers and figure four controls raise your success rate a bit. And you are a bit safer.

 

[Hanzou]

As a side note here. Arm drags wizzers and figure four controls raise your success rate a bit. And you are a bit safer.

Position before submission.

Every time.

 

[Nettlesome]

I was wondering if anybody here knows about Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, AKA JTR Jujutsu, taught by Dong Jin Kim in Washington D.C.

As far as I can tell, he's as legit as they come (his wiki page states that he trains special forces and the like), but I wanted a second opinion. His website:

jtrjujutsu.com

Thanks

I couldn't decide, so here are a couple to look at.

I understand this thread is a bit older, but thought I'd chime in: I learned under Grand Master Kim for six years and am the black belt in the first video posted above. The techniques shown (1-20) form the core of his style; standing joint locks.

Grand Master Kim passed away some time ago and the dojo was taken over by his most senior students (all 4th degree black belt or higher). They carried on his tradition but have also introduced new ground techniques that you may want to consider.

I would like to thank those who offered their constructive reflections on the techniques shown in the videos. But I would also caution those new to martial arts from drawing conclusions from the comments in this thread, as the contributors appear to confuse the formalized standing techniques shown in 1-20 with street application.

Those who have studied in a traditional dojo will understand how basic techniques form the building blocks for many, many clever variations. But first, the basics...usually done with a permissive partner (or alone), performed the same way every time. Then slowly, slowly, the Master introduces variety and complexity.

In the case of JTR, basic training (as the video shows) begins with basic wrist grabs. The techniques are then applied vs. grabbing/choking; first from the front, then the sides, the back, the head, etc. Then against multiple opponents.

I should also mention that that there's a great deal of elbow and knee work...it's generally assumed that (outside of ideal conditions), one would soften up an opponent before applying a lock or a throw. Low kicks are also employed, but not often.

As a student of this system, I would observe that this particular style is not well suited for a traditional, boxing type of fight, since in many ways it depends on the element of surprise (after a grab). During my time at the dojo, I would also grade the style as fairly low when it comes to ground fighting (though that may have improved). Sparring was also a bit of a problem, due to the system's reliance on painful joint locks that can easily - SO easily- injure a partner.

Summing up: I would say the core movements of JTR share similarities with many other styles (Krav Maga, particularly). I think Grand Master Kim's system would be familiar to any highly ranked belt that incorporates joint locks. (A student at the dojo who was a highly ranked belt in karate, for example, had many "AHA!" moments of recognition.) The dojo asks students to work hard, endure more pain than other styles, and apply a quiet work ethic (no chatting, just work). It's a serious place.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I understand this thread is a bit older, but thought I'd chime in: I learned under Grand Master Kim for six years and am the black belt in the first video posted above.

Hi Nettlesome! Welcome to MartialTalk and I hope you stick around and join in some of the conversations.

I would like to thank those who offered their constructive reflections on the techniques shown in the videos. But I would also caution those new to martial arts from drawing conclusions from the comments in this thread, as the contributors appear to confuse the formalized standing techniques shown in 1-20 with street application.

And thank you for reacting graciously to critique from a bunch of random internet weirdos that you don't know.

That said, as the person who probably offered the longest list of criticisms way back when, I'll note that I do understand the difference between a formalized technique practiced with a cooperative partner for instructional purposes and the street application of said technique. My concern was that such formalized techniques should be designed to teach the most important underlying principles which make it possible for the "street application" to actually work. You can simplify the context, remove complicating factors, standardize the energy your training partner feeds you - but the fundamental concepts should be there from the beginning. Things like kuzushi, leverage, disrupting your opponent's structure while maintaining your own, relative body positioning, using the opponent's energy, and so on. The techniques as you demonstrated them seemed to be focused just on the final position of the various locks, which you achieved by just grabbing a rag-doll limp opponent and moving him wherever you wanted. From a pedagogical standpoint, I don't think that's very helpful to either beginners or advanced students.