Chris Luttrell

Chris Luttrell is co-owner and mixed martial arts coach of Luttrell-Yee MMA[1] and an officer in the Albuquerque Police Department Gang Unit,[2] who has trained a number of notable mixed martial artists, such as Cláudia Gadelha, John Dodson, Georges St. Pierre, Carlos Condit and Rashad Evans. He has won a number of martial arts awards.

Biography

Luttrell has lived his whole live in New Mexico. He wrestled on the varsity team all four years at Manzano High School in Albuquerque. Throughout his teenage and young adult years, Luttrell trained in judo, which is how he met and befriended Mike Winkeljohn. Winkeljohn recruited him to start working with his kickboxing students, to teach them grappling skills, and in exchange he received instruction in various forms of striking (kickboxing, boxing, Muay Thai.) It was also through his judo classes that he met one of Greg Jackson's students and eventually Jackson himself, later introducing Jackson to Winklejohn.

He went to college at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in criminal justice.

Career

Criminal justice

He served in the Bernalillo County Sheriff's department as a reserve deputy from 1995 to 2000 and then accepted a position with the New Mexico State Police. In 2007, he moved over to the Albuquerque Police Department, and is now a member of their Gang Unit.

Martial arts

Chris was the principle figure in developing the system Jackson's system martial arts which is known as Gaidojutsu system, (loosely translated at "technique of the streets"). Chris introduced Mike Winkeljohn to Greg Jackson and eventually talked Greg into converting his self defense gym into an MMA gym. They then needed to develop a system that they thought had the most effective, fight proven techniques. Luttrell did this by traveling the country as a flight attendant, finding every fight gym or serious martial arts dojo and requesting to train for a night. Chris trained with everyone from Royce Gracie and Pat Militech to Megaton Diaz with whom he had epic roll at his academy. City by city, as his travels took him, he trained, learned, and recorded, Chris would return to his hotel and take notes in a journal on every technique he'd learned at each academy and bring it back to Albuquerque. These techniques would then be tested in the gym, in the bars, streets, and wherever was necessary to verify the legitimacy of the technique and what didn't work was discarded. When cage matches or Vale Tudo matches first began happening in the southwest, Chris was the first to compete. Along with Jackson and Winklejohn, the three organized a belt system for Gaidojutsu, and in 2000 Luttrell was the first to obtain a black belt in the art. The original team was made up of the following: Chris Luttrell, Brad Ahrensfeld, Tom Vaughn, Josh Groves, Chad Lemoine, Keith Jardine, Diego Sanchez, and Kyle Seals.[3]

He was approached in 2011 by Keith Jardine[4] to help establish a school [5] to teach mixed martial arts as both a form of fitness training and self-defense. Two years later, Luttrell took over as owner and head coach and renamed the gym Luttrell's MMA,[6] and in 2015, he partnered with long-time acquaintance and colleague Ray Yee, to form Luttrell-Yee MMA.

Awards

Some of Luttrell's accomplishments include:

  • Texas Vale Tudo Champion 1995
  • Arizona Grappling Champion 1994
  • Grablefest Champion 1997
  • 3X New Mexico State wrestling champion
  • 1st Black belt in Gaidojutsu
  • National Freestyle Champion, represented Team USA in 1980 Schoolboy World Championships at 112 lbs.

Notable mixed martial arts students

References
  1. Fallah, Arman. "Albuquerque Kickboxing". www.abqkickboxing.com. Retrieved 2017-03-19.
  2. Writer, Patrick Lohmann | Journal Staff. "Updated: Boss Had Told Cops Suspect Dangerous". www.abqjournal.com. Retrieved 2017-03-19.
  3. direct interview with Chris Luttrell.LeVaux, Ari. "Mixed Martial Albuquerque". alibi. Retrieved 2017-03-19.
  4. Trula Howe (2012-01-30). "Fighters in Combat Series: Coach Chris Luttrell". KNUXX. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  5. "MEAN 1 mma & fitness". www.keithjardine.net. Archived from the original on 2017-03-16. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  6. Writer, Gary Herron | Rio Rancho Observer Staff. "Luttrell's Fitness puts RR on MMA map". www.abqjournal.com. Retrieved 2017-03-19.
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