I recently caught up with Bob Gilstrap, UFC 17 veteran.
April 2014
Guru: In 1997, you had your first pro-recorded fight against Chris Munsen. Why did you choose to get into MMA then and what kind of background did you have for that fight?
BG: My story is this: I had always been interested in martial arts. Growing up I was very over weight and my nickname in high school was "fat kid". My home life growing up was pretty tough and I had multiple times seen my mother get beat on and wished when I was young that I could do something about it. I was always fascinated with Bruce Lee. After high school I moved away to where I knew no one so to fill my time I looked into martial arts. I first got involved in Taekwondo. Most people go once or twice a week for an hour or so; I was going every night for several hours or until they kicked me out. Needless to say, I excelled fairly quickly at it going through the first 6 belts in 6 months. As soon as they allowed it I began competing in their tournaments. I was a purple belt at the time and was entered in one of the black belt tournaments and was on the opposite side of the tournament from a guy who was a black belt and running through the competition. I did not meet up with him until the finals and was the only guy to even score a point against him (though I was not a black belt at the time). Before the end of the tournament I attempted a spinning crescent kick and landed wrong hurting my knee. Therefore putting me out of the tournament. My problem with Taekwondo was in fact it was a point based martial art, not actual contact. In point-based martial arts, it comes down to physics. The smaller, leaner or lighter the opponent is then the faster he or she is. Well I knew that though these people might be faster, I was surely tougher and stronger so I started to seek out full contact Martial arts. About 6 months after I had heard about a gym in Kirkland Washington called AMC.
