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Fitness

The Dog Brothers’ Summer Gathering of the Pack

What happens at a Gathering of the Pack? Participants test their physical, mental, and psychological mettle in live combat using stick fighting, grappling, and knife fighting.

val worthington, valerie worthington, bjj, mma, brazilian jiu jitsu, grappling

Written by Valerie Worthington Last updated on October 2, 2011

On September 18, 2011, the Dog Brothers held their Summer Gathering of the Pack at Gokor Chivichyan’s Hayastan Mixed Martial Arts Academy in North Hollywood, CA. Describing themselves on their website, www.dogbrothers.com, as “a bunch of sweaty, smelly psychopaths with sticks,” the Dog Brothers is a group guided by Marc “Crafty Dog” Denny that enables participants to test their physical, mental, and psychological mettle in live combat using stick fighting, grappling, knife fighting, or some combination of these.

The Dog Brothers’ credo, “The greater the dichotomy, the profounder the transformation. Higher Consciousness through Harder Contact,” provides some insight into the goals of the organization: enabling members to access some of the more primal aspects of human experience that relate to survival, group identity, and protection of the members of that group.

Competitors at Pack Gatherings square off against one another in physical combat using the aforementioned tools, though the emphasis is on the experience of combat itself rather than a specific item or method. Fueled by adrenaline and self-preservation instincts, competitors strike a balance between pushing their own personal boundaries and maintaining their composure in the heat of battle. The Dog Brothers believe these combat experiences have a profound influence on group members’ perspectives and beliefs and that this influence can and should translate into other realms of life.

A wide variety of martial arts traditions are drawn upon in their training, including Filipino stick and knife systems, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, stickgrappling (the Dog Brothers’ own creation), Krabi Krabong (a precursor to Muay Thai Kickboxing), and Dog Brother Kali Tudo ™, which includes striking, throwing, and trapping.

In a manner similar to other combat-related tests of skill and fortitude, the Dog Brothers create an environment where participants can “leave it all out there” in battle and then come together afterward, believing that in pushing one another they have brought out the best in everyone. To quote an excerpt from the opening words at each Gathering, “One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day.”

val worthington, valerie worthington, bjj, mma, brazilian jiu jitsu, grappling

About Valerie Worthington

Valerie Worthington has been moving her body since before she was born, for many reasons and with many outcomes. She really started to pay attention to how, when, and why her body moves when she began training in Brazilian jiu jitsu in 1998. From then on, she became hugely invested in educating herself about how to optimize her body movement for BJJ and how to support it in doing so. She has observed that these endeavors require her to invest herself not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and psychologically, fueling a particular interest in the influence on her life of these dimensions of athletic activity.

Valerie has developed as a BJJ practitioner via her own training and competition preparation, teaching and coaching other practitioners, and writing about her life as a jiu jitsu devotee through the lens of her education, personal experiences, and professional background. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Michigan State University. She is a first-degree black belt in BJJ, as well as co-founder and proprietor of Groundswell Grappling Concepts. She trains at Princeton Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Princeton, New Jersey.

Most recently, Valerie is the author of How to Love a Grappler: A Guide for People Who Love People Who Love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

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