Gokor Chivichyan: The Hayastan Way
Interview by: Jake McKee Photos by: Dave Contreras
Gokor Chivichyan was born in Armenia and has been training in the grappling arts since the age of 5. With decades of experience in wrestling, judo, and sambo, Gokor is a wealth of experience to rely on. He’s been training world class Judoka and MMA fighters at the Hayastan MMA Academy since 1991 and is always innovating, improving, and refining the art of submission grappling.
BV: Many people in the MMA world know you as the coach of such fighters as Karo, Manny, and Roman. When you watch these fighters in the ring we’re usually guaranteed to see strong leg attacks, and some good throws. Are these two things emphasized more strongly than other things at your school?
Gokor: At my school we train in everything. We do leg locks, arm bars, choke holds, body locks, and all kinds of other things. We focus on the different things that the students like. I like my students to work on everything because sometimes you’ll be in a guard position and the guy’s legs will be moving around so why not grab his leg and finish him? There’s a lot of rotation going on and instead of trying to hit him, why not just take a leg? What we believe is that when we finish the person quicker, we have the chance to fight more often.
BV: People used to think that a lot of Judo throws couldn’t be done without the gi. You demonstrate these all the time at your school with your no-gi throws. Is this something you learned somewhere, or did you develop these on your own?
Gokor: I developed these on my own because we do a lot of Sambo in our Judo techniques plus I’ve been doing wrestling all of my life. It’s interesting because I have some students that train both Sambo and Judo and they are also wrestlers. Now they go to wrestling tournaments and they use Sambo and Judo throws and the wrestlers never see it coming. I think the throws work great with a gi, so why not if you can find another type of grip? Like I say, you drill the way you want to, the way you feel the technique works for the grip you have. If you have a gi you can use the gi, if you don’t have the gi you can use an armpit, tricep, whatever.
BV: You have a new DVD set coming out soon. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Gokor: Yes, I’ve been working with Budovideos and Kaizen and we’re making a 3 DVD set about leg locks only. In addition to that each technique has a lot of combination like I mentioned before. If the leg lock isn’t working then we’ll go for an arm bar, choke hold, etc. This DVD has been very difficult to make, but I think it will be very successful because for the people who are really looking to learn leg locks, this DVD set will be perfect for them. Here we teach everything you can do with leg locks, defense, all the combinations, escapes, and different types of heel hooks, straight leg locks. I don’t want to mention everything the set has, but people shouldn’t buy anything before this DVD comes out. No clothes, no electronics, nothing. This DVD set is a must have!
BV: Why did you decide to do a DVD set focused on leg attacks?
Gokor: Well, there are a lot of professional people at Budovideos, and they are my friends. We have a very good relationship both personal and business. They sponsor me in a lot of things and we all seem to work well together which is why I don’t like to work with anyone else.
BV: Why did you decide to do a DVD set focused on leg attacks?
Gokor: Well, there are a lot of professional people at Budovideos, and they are my friends. We have a very good relationship both personal and business. They sponsor me in a lot of things and we all seem to work well together which is why I don’t like to work with anyone else. Since 1998 I have made 4 DVDs that have done very well, that means for 10 years my DVDs have been selling perfectly. When Budovideos approached me with the idea of doing something about leg locks I said sure because that’s my specialty. I felt that I could show certain techniques better than anybody, so we decided to do this. This is going to be a great DVD to buy.
BV: How much of your leg attack arsenal did you show on the set?
Gokor: We worked a lot of hours on this one, and the quality that this is being shot in is very professional. Both the film quality and techniques being shown are unbelievable. There’s a lot of techniques being shown on the set. There could be more, but I believe that some of the older techniques work so well because there’s a lot of experience behind them and if anybody doesn’t believe that these techniques work then I welcome them to my school where I will show them first hand.
BV: Will the DVD viewer be a dangerous leg attacker after they master all of the techniques on the DVD set?
Gokor: I think this set will be very successful. Successful for me, successful for my students, successful for the people that I teach, successful for everyone. There’s a lot of techniques on this set that no one else in the world knows. You might think you know some of these techniques, but once you watch this DVD set you will think that you are just a beginner. I think it’s going to open up a lot of eyes, especially those people who love to do leg locks. A lot of times people work for leg locks and they end up losing position so I think this DVD is going to help them so much. Like I said, don’t watch this like a movie; Watch one or two techniques, grab your partner and do hours and hours of drills, and after that you will become a master.
BV: Is there anything else you want to add?
Gokor: First off I want to say how happy I am to have made this DVD set with Budovideos, and I want to let everyone out there know that they are all welcome to my school whenever they are in Los Angeles. If you have any questions, I would love to answer them face to face when you are there. Please don’t ever feel nervous when you come to my school. As long as you don’t have a bad attitude you are like family to Hayastan Grappling. We have 27 satellite schools in the US, and 43 in Europe. I will be doing seminars 3-4 times a year, and we are constantly getting bigger and bigger. I just want to let everyone know that we are very friendly people, and we would love to teach you. As soon as you come in you can feel like this is your house, we welcome everybody. to work with anyone else. Since 1998 I have made 4 DVDs that have done very well, that means for 10 years my DVDs have been selling perfectly. When Budovideos approached me with the idea of doing something about leg locks I said sure because that’s my specialty. I felt that I could show certain techniques better than anybody, so we decided to do this. This is going to be a great DVD to buy.
BV: How much of your leg attack arsenal did you show on the set?
Gokor: We worked a lot of hours on this one, and the quality that this is being shot in is very professional. Both the film quality and techniques being shown are unbelievable. There’s a lot of techniques being shown on the set. There could be more, but I believe that some of the older techniques work so well because there’s a lot of experience behind them and if anybody doesn’t believe that these techniques work then I welcome them to my school where I will show them first hand.
BV: Will the DVD viewer be a dangerous leg attacker after they master all of the techniques on the DVD set?
Gokor: I think this set will be very successful. Successful for me, successful for my students, successful for the people that I teach, successful for everyone. There’s a lot of techniques on this set that no one else in the world knows. You might think you know some of these techniques, but once you watch this DVD set you will think that you are just a beginner. I think it’s going to open up a lot of eyes, especially those people who love to do leg locks. A lot of times people work for leg locks and they end up losing position so I think this DVD is going to help them so much. Like I said, don’t watch this like a movie; Watch one or two techniques, grab your partner and do hours and hours of drills, and after that you will become a master.
BV: Is there anything else you want to add?
Gokor: First off I want to say how happy I am to have made this DVD set with Budovideos, and I want to let everyone out there know that they are all welcome to my school whenever they are in Los Angeles. If you have any questions, I would love to answer them face to face when you are there. Please don’t ever feel nervous when you come to my school. As long as you don’t have a bad attitude you are like family to Hayastan Grappling. We have 27 satellite schools in the US, and 43 in Europe. I will be doing seminars 3-4 times a year, and we are constantly getting bigger and bigger. I just want to let everyone know that we are very friendly people, and we would love to teach you. As soon as you come in you can feel like this is your house, we welcome everybody.
Tags: Interviews
Tags: Gokor Chivichyan, Hayastan Way, Leg Locks