The World’s Greatest McDojo

Start of a Revolution

“I ran my first school out of a conference room in a motel my father owned -- nothing too formal. Guys would show up and maybe drop a buck or two in a jar, and I’d teach them what I knew,” Schulmann says. “With the Oyama organization out of the picture, I was on my own and just trying to figure out how to make this work.”

Judging by the growth of his gyms, he figured it out. His reputation as a hard-nosed instructor appealed to the blue-collar towns out of which he operated. The success of one gym begat another, and Schulmann developed a specific brand of Kyokushin Karate that could appeal to the average person, even as he held onto old-school training principles for his most promising, and willing, students.

How the most successful chain of Karate dojos in all of America has morphed into a breeding ground for world-class mixed martial artists -- all while still appealing to soccer moms looking for a workout and little kids desperate to be the next Bruce Lee -- serves as a fascinating study.

“It’s not that complicated. Around 1995, I started to realize what Royce Gracie had done in the UFC, and it made me realize I had to learn this stuff,” Schulmann says. “I had wrestled all through high school, so I knew a little bit about the ground, and, having been in lots of street fights as a kid, I knew the Gracies were right when they said most street fights end up on the ground.”

Considering the instinctive grudge most martial artists held against the sudden dominance of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Schulmann’s view was progressive beyond belief. He followed through on those views by training Brazilian jiu-jitsu under renowned trainer John Lewis.

“I wasn’t really interested in belts or anything like that, so I just trained no-gi because I thought that was the most realistic thing to train,” Schulmann says. “Around the same time, I started to look at what I was teaching people. We were teaching people a hard style of karate, but when we weren’t sparring, we were doing forms.”

Forms, or katas, are the building block of many traditional martial arts. They are supposed to instill technique and discipline in students, but Schulmann’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu training opened his eyes to some hard realities.

“We were bulls--tting people, basically, wasting all this time on forms, and when we sat down and really thought about it, none of us really believed in it that much,” Schulmann says. “On top of that, you had all these jiu-jitsu guys winning in MMA, and none of them spent half their training time doing forms. Everything was practical.”

The emphasis on practicality led to Schulmann starting the gradual process of turning Tiger Schulmann’s Karate into Tiger Schulmann’s MMA. First to go were the forms. In their place was basic grappling, along the same lines as the basic kickboxing that gradually replaced the traditional Kyokushin Karate.

“Basically, I teach martial arts for the common man. Now, every once in a while, you get someone who has the talent and desire to take it farther than just a way to work out,” Schulmann says. “The guys who make up my MMA team are guys who stepped in a Tiger Schulmann’s gym and wanted to keep on getting better and better.”

At first, the idea of a Tiger Schulmann’s MMA team was little more than a joke. The team was viewed as a glorified bunch of Karate students with no real understanding or respect for MMA. Any time the team was brought up amongst fans, forums would light up with generic one-liners and the kind of vitriol reserved for pretenders and hacks.

The situation did not get much better when Mike Stine, a Tiger Schulmann’s MMA product, got bounced by Kalib Starnes in one-sided fashion on the first episode of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 3. Conspiracy theories quickly formed around the idea that Schulmann himself had bought Stine a spot by purchasing some of the show’s commercial slots to advertise his gym.

“I’ve never even spoken to [UFC President] Dana White, but I’m somehow pulling strings for my guys behind the scenes? Come on. The team was young back then, and Mike didn’t have Kalib’s experience. That’s all it was,” Schulmann says, as his usually calm, confident voice starts to bubble with anger over the way his team -- his life’s work -- has been so casually dismissed by people who know next to nothing about him.

“It bothered me at times, but I knew I was doing things the right way, and I knew I’d get the team to where it is now,” he adds, his eyes lighting up as he touts the accomplishments of pupils such as King of the Cage champion Jimmie Rivera and Bellator Fighting Championships titleholder Lyman Good. “Now we have guys in big shows winning fights, and this is really just the beginning. Lots of the guys I have now will go on to win in the big shows, and that’s only gonna bring more people to the team.”

His vision for the future is bold: a growing chain of dojos throughout the Northeast and beyond constantly taking in random people off the street and refining a select few into world-class athletes.

Fans of MMA have often bemoaned the fact that most mixed martial artists do not start training for the sport until they hit their 20s. Most of Schulmann’s best students have been training with him since before they knew what to think about the opposite sex.

Nice McDojo You’ve Got Here

A microcosm of Tiger Schulmann’s MMA team unfolds during one of its jarringly intense sparring sessions. Stephan Regman, 19, a gangly wisp of a kid, spars with stone-faced 30-year-old Carlos Brooks. Regman seems to be holding his own at first, but Brooks traps him in a corner and lands a textbook spinning back kick to the ribs.

Schulmann immediately starts barking encouragement at his young ward, and Regman, despite being in obvious pain, keeps his defense tight and manages to stay upright for the remainder of the interval. As soon as the buzzer rings, Schulmann walks Regman through the correct counter to a spinning back kick. Regman soaks up the knowledge and a fresh round of sparring is called for with the youngster pitted against Uriah Hall, a once-beaten professional in a foul mood after recently surrendering his undefeated record to Chris Weidman.

Regman, light on his feet, pumps his jab in an effort to keep Hall from lining him up for a big shot. Suddenly, though, his angles are cut off, and Hall whips a spinning back kick at him. He slips to the left and pops Hall in the face with a crisp right cross.

A smile lights up Regman’s face. Schulmann nods ever so slightly. Just another day in the world’s greatest McDojo.