Here’s a glimpse of what is going on at Rubicon Fightsport in Austin, Texas, where they have included catch wrestling as sanctioned by International Submission Wrestling Alliance in their martial arts curriculum. Laren Umphlett, who teaches at the academy, posted this video on Youtube and facebook. Many of you who tune in to this blog regularly have heard me talk about catch wrestling as a viable groundfighting option to the ever-popular BJJ. While I give much respect to BJJ fan, the complete fighter should learn both styles.
I read some very interesting information on a couple of blogs with conflict between him and a guy named Tom who trained with Karl Gotch for a number of years. It seems there are some serious questions raised in reference to Laren
I might have read the same thing you did. I think it was on a catch wrestling page on fb. From what I could tell, Tom had trained with Karl in the mid-90s at his home in Florida (and appears on Karl’s conditioning video). Laren, it sounded like, trained with Karl later, when he was less mobile, but still was with him for three years and appeared to have gained a lot of knowledge. Their quarrel seemed to stem from several different things.