I found Jim Harrison’s web page. I had never heard of him either. My guess is that he either wanted to keep a low profile or he did not have the marketing skills to get his style known. The other reason is that they are located in Montana, rather than LA or another large martial arts town. Heres the link:
www. jimroninharrison.homestead. com/directory.html
He's one of the few to have put Joe Lewis on his butt. I'm impressed.
Shaolin Kung fu for 3 years.
ko, Geoff. Geddy, I assume you already know this. For many years, Mr. Harrison taught in Mission, Ks. I was in the fifth grade, and used to ride my bike to watch his students practice on Johnson Drive. Despite hi ferocious reputation in the Karate world, he always had time to say hi to a little kid. Later in life, I had the honor to train under some of his black belts, notably Steve Mackey, who as of August '01, still operated a Bushidokan school in Overland Park, Ks. Some of the best fighters in the Midwest came from the Bushidokan schools, including former World Champ Bob “Thunder” Thurman. Bushidokan is spelled B-A-L-L-S.
Harrison looks like a tough dude with some pretty serious Karate skills. I don’t think he’s into modern mma (from what I saw on the webpage) but I’m sure if he was at competition age now and changed training up to fit the sport of mma he would do well. I’m not suprised I haven’t heard of him. There are tons of guys out there like him who are super tough as well as being great teachers but just aren’t into mma scene. The 20 years old of today fighting mma are the same type of guys that would have been doing what Harrison did (contact Karate) when he was young.
Started training vale-tudo, mainly BJJ and wrestling about 13 months ago. Started adding boxing and Muay Thai lately. Fought my first pro fight about 7 months ago.
Back when the UFC was first started, my teacher, Matt David, told us that Jim Harrison had applied to enter but was turned down because of his age, I think he was in his 60’s at that time. I’m glad to hear that he is kind to small children, he seemed pretty intimidating when I met him, but then it was during a competition (kick boxing) and he might of just had his game face on for his competing students.
ANyway, glad to see that some of you have heard of him!