The martial art of Shootfighting is a recent creation. It had its genesis less than 25 years ago when a famous German wrestler taught the art of real wrestling, or “Shootfighting”, to a group of top Japanese martial artists. The wrestling they learned bore only a superficial resemblance to today’s professional wrestling.

Two of these Japanese martial artists, Masami Soranaka, practitioner of karate, judo and sumo, and Toshiaki Fujiwara, a muay thai kickboxing champion and judo expert, combined their knowledge of these diverse styles and created what has come to be known in Japan as UWF wrestling or the strong style.

Official matches have been held for almost 10 years and the sport’s popularity hs grown until it is now the third most popular spectator sport in Japan behind baseball and sumo. There are currently three main organizations sanctioning matches and teaching the style. Of these, the oldest and largest is the Fujiwara Gurni (family) run by founder and former champion Yoshiaka Fujiwara.

The current world champion of the fujiwara Gurni is Miami’s Bart Vale, the first foreigner (American) to reach the highest levels of the sport. Vale, who coined the term Shootfighting to describe the style, combined the wrestling and muay thai techniques he learned in Japan with his experience in American Karate and kickboxing to advance the sport even further. He is presently attempting to promote the sport through his Miami Shootfighting School and by holding regular matches in Florida and California.

To develop the stamina and toughness necessary to compete in such a grueling sport, professionals train in Japan up to 14 hours a day. The training consists of several hours of each exercise, bag work, wrestling and kickboxing. Some of the world’s top athletes, including former kickboxing champions and Olympic wrestlers, now compete in Shootfighting. Techniques are drawn from all the various martial arts mentioned and favor no one style. However, the top fighters are usually the most versatile, able to kick, punch or wrestle as the situation calls for.  Most martial artists are drawn to Shootfighting to learn the unique form of grappling often neglected in other systems.

Takedowns combine judo with other wrestling throws. The ground work uses a variety of joint-locks against all parts of the body. Most of these techniques use the entire body weight against an individual joint and are devastatingly effective regardless of size. Other basic martial arts principles, such as using an opponent’s weight and momentum against hom, also play a big part in wrestling.

The art of Shootfighting was developed from a competitive sport to a street self defense system by Mr. Bart Vale, an eigth degree black belt in Tracy Kenpo Karate. There are 13 levels based on skill and proficiency. Each level has 8 techniques of submission that become more complex as you reach the final level of black belt.

Shootfighting teaches the practitioner to fight combining 3 different skills.
1)The stand up which uses Muai Thai concepts.
2)Transitions from the standup to the ground is your shooting skill.
3) ground fighting which includes throwing to joint locking plus leg locks.

The overall strategy in Shootfighting is to fight to your opponents weakness. If one trains in all three phases one becomes a very versatile martial artist.