About Us & Location
History of East West
East West was founded by Ryan Fiorenzi in 1997. Having trained in many martial arts schools, Ryan sought to bring together the best of all these different martial arts into one school, so students didn’t have to train at several schools to become well rounded martial artists.
He had learned the importance of a good training environment by training in both good and bad training environments. He felt it was critical to have a school culture where students could train with having to worry about getting injured, embarrassed, or having to deal with egos and politics.
One trend that he had observed was that many of the schools that taught effective self defense and had good fighters who had bad attitudes. They were fighters, and often bullies, and not martial artists.
And many schools developed students that had great attitudes and behavior, but couldn’t fight. They were martial artists that would probably get hurt if they ever had to defend themselves in a real situation!
He chose the name East West Martial Arts because he wanted to bring together the good attitudes and character development that you seen in many Eastern martial arts, and the evolved training methods and progressive mentality of Western systems.
Grappling Curriculum
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the main art taught at East West, is a perfect example of this. Having it’s roots in Fusen Ryu Jiu-Jitsu and Judo from Japan, it evolved in Brazil into an even more advanced form of self defense.
He continues to offer his students the most cutting edge training in grappling, offering instruction in:
- Jiu-Jitsu with the gi (uniform): similar to someone wearing a winter jacket or sweatshirt.
- No gi Jiu-Jitsu: useful for when a partner, opponent, or attacker has no shirt.
- Leg locks from Sambo and Shooto: an entire area of the science of submissions that is neglected at many BJJ schools.
- Striking on the ground and self defense training: many schools do little reality combat, instead focusing on preparing students for tournament competition.
- Judo for takedowns and prevention of the takedown with the gi.
- Wrestling for takedowns without the gi.
In addition to these non grappling based arts:
His school has developed a reputation for helping students become good grapplers quickly, as well as developing well rounded students who can punch, kick, do takedowns, as well as deal with multiple attackers and weapons. And while maintaining the “Leave Your Ego At The Door” training atmosphere.
East West Firsts…
Ryan became the first black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the state of Michigan, earning his rank from Rigan and Roger Machado, and is the highest rank in Michigan.
East West has several schools that have affiliated under them, where their Head Instructors have become their students. Ryan and Tyrone Gooden regularly do seminars all over Michigan and beyond.
In addition to their great reputation for instruction, they have created several dvds and books that will be available soon on this site. Ryan is the creator of the informational website / blog: www.TheBJJWay.com, and is a regular contributor to the magazine BJJ Legends.
East West has a number of honors besides what was mentioned above. They were the first to hold a grappling camp in Michigan, bringing in 5 black belts (Chris Haueter, Ryan Fiorenzi, Tyrone Gooden, Montise Peterson, and Jamel McCurry), for 3 days of incredible training.
They were also the first to hold a women’s grappling tournament, and their Women’s Jiu-Jitsu instructor, Sharon Schlief, is the highest ranked woman in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Michigan.
They were also the first to bring to Michigan several world renown grappling instructors: Rigan Machado, John Machado, Jean-Jacques Machado, David Meyer, Chris Haueter, and Paulo Guillobel.
Video tour of East West Martial Arts:
