Tim Kennedy is a rarity in the martial arts world — even though he denies it, as you’ll see. He started in the traditional arts (shotokan karate, Japanese jujitsu, wrestling, boxing and jiu-jitsu), then enlisted in the military, where he trained in the Modern Army Combatives Program as a soldier and the Special Operations Combatives Program as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. Later, he transitioned to Strikeforce, the International Fight League, the UFC and other MMA organizations, where he built a record of 18-6. It should come as no surprise that Kennedy is also a member of the Black Belt Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2011 as MMA Fighter of the Year. In this enlightening interview, he elaborates on a subject he is uniquely qualified to discuss: the link between traditional martial arts, mixed martial arts, combatives, civilian self-defense, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a relatively new creation called combat jiu-jitsu.
You’ve done combatives in the most dangerous environments that exist and MMA in the most professional events that exist. Therefore, I will start by asking your opinion on how much crossover there is between these two worlds.
I can’t give you a percentage, but I believe that being good at one makes you good at the other, and being fit for one makes you fit for the other. There’s a lot of characteristics within the military that obviously make you better — a better athlete, a better martial artist, a better human, a better entrepreneur, a better husband, a better father. The discipline and intentionality that the military teaches carry over into a lot of things.
On the technique side, the things you learn in martial arts — “martial” is war and “art” is technique — were designed for war. Some of them were [designed to function] in the absence of weapons and some of them with weapons. Some predate any form of launchable or ballistic weapon. Some were designed to use farming tools. Some were designed to combat certain types of assassins. Clearly, these techniques and the approach to learning them is very war-driven, so it would make sense that they exist within the sphere of war.
When you get into the elite special-operations units, everybody trains. There might be some crazy outlier who for whatever reason isn’t into it.
