Well before the introduction of Brazillian Jujitsu on Australian shores, Bob Jones began the full contact ring sports known as Shootkarate and Shootwrestling. The term ‘Shoot’ mean to take your opponent down off their feet by means of a throw or takedown.
Shootkarate rules allowed contestants to compete without gloves in a ‘Boxing Ring’ using hand strikes (closed fist or open hand), kicks, elbows and knees. Hand , elbow and knee techniques could not be used to strike the head. They could also at any opportune time ‘Shoot’ their oppponent and even follow through with what Bob termed as a ‘Bunker Shot’, which is to use only one well timed hand strike to the chest of the felled opponent. The term was used by Bob in reference to how WWII war planes would drop bombs on bunkers – when an opponent was ‘Shot’, their first instinct is to protect themselves while on the ground, they would create their ‘bunker’ by closing in both arms protecting the face and chest area. The more dominate open would have to step over, rip open the arms/bunker and drop a shot on the chest of their felled opponent to score a crowd pleasing and high scoring shot.
Shootwrestling rules saw two contestants using all of the above with the exception of hand strikes. However, when the dominant contestant shot their opponent, rather then strike their opponents ‘bunker’, they would seek to follow their opponent to the ground in an attempt to make the person submit. Once on the ground, dominance was sought by using immobilisation techniques soon followed by submission techniques such as anti-joint locks, chokes or strangulations.
Bob saw the benefits of this type of training and promoted the system on regular self defence segments on Bert Newton’s Good Morning Australia program.
BJC MUAY THAI™ , Shootkarate and Shootwrestling all rose in popularity amongst the higher ranks of the BJC, helping them to enhance their class training drills and ‘fite nite’ shows around the country saw eager and regular contestants compete using either Thai or Shoot fighting rules.
Each system was advancing at a rapid rate using training drills to suit their system of fighting.
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