By 1961, Degerberg had enrolled in the Midwest

Section 2i.indd 30
1/3/14 4:13 PM
Section 2i.indd 31
1/3/14 4:13 PM
Black Belt magazine’s 2006 online poll
challenged readers to name the “Best Overall
Martial Arts School in the World.” Winner?
The Degerberg Academy of Martial Arts.
you had to know how to fight. There were
the Outlaws and three other biker gangs. I
could [even] get beat up and robbed by the
biker girls, who were older.”
The 13,000 square-foot Chicago, Illinois
landmark, founded in 1980, is one of our
industry’s largest and most-profitable facilities. A national survey conducted in the
1990s ranked Degerberg Academy as the
second-highest-grossing school in the U.S.,
based on figures from Educational Funding
Company (EFC).
A Family Where
Everybody Was a Fighter
On billboards around town today, the
60-something owner-operator still looks
formidable. The Windy City legend who
is Fred Degerberg forcefully reminds us
of what made the First Generation of
American martial artists so different from
today’s black belts.
Nowadays, growing up in a country where
martial arts are an “activity” like playing soccer or softball, students know what they are
getting into. So, they want to learn the style
that is most popular at the moment. Their
fighting art is also a fashion statement.
Growing up urban tough in mid-20th century, you had no idea of what martial arts
looked like in action; you just wanted to win
more fights. Guys were always scrambling
for an edge. So, one day in the 1950s, when
Degerberg happened to see judo moves
show up in a street fight, what immediately
riveted his attention was discovering a way
to fight more than one man at a time!
“So, I immediately knew that judo was
what I wanted to do,” he says.
One of his Academy ads explains: “Fred
Degerberg was a skinny, weak kid growing
up in a rough neighborhood on Chicago’s
North Side.”
Degerberg expands on this description:
“I grew up in a mixed neighborhood where
Born in 1945 of mixed Italian and
Swedish heritage, Degerberg began training to fight at age three. It was that kind
of a family. His maternal grandfather,
Rocco Jannuzzi, had boxed professionally under the name “Rocky” from 1915 to
1920. Degerberg’s dad, Fred Senior, was a
hell-bent-for-leather World War II Marine
and an ardent amateur wrestler.
“I was about three years old, and my
father would come out and put me in a
headlock, leg scissors or an armbar every
day. He was a wrestling nut. Rocco, who
lived on the first floor, used to run me
through his boxing routine every day; and
on Friday, we’d watch The Friday Night
Fights [on TV]. And my mother, Mini, believe
it or not, was a tomboy. She was my first
sparring partner (laughter). So, I grew up in
a fighting family.”
Degerberg was a genuine “physical culturist.” He and some of his friends also started
lifting weights in his basement.
Until the 1950s and the rise of Las Vegas,
Chicago was a boxer’s paradise where even
the neighborhood bars used to put up small
rings to accommodate spontaneous matches. Also, happily enough, judo and Japanese
jiu-jitsu were being taught everywhere.
“The YMCA, Jewish Community Centers,
and all the Buddhist Temples offered judo
for next to nothing,” Degerberg recalls.
Meanwhile, young Degerberg’s earliest
heroes were positive role models broadcast
on TV shows like The Lone Ranger, Superman,
“By 1961, Degerberg had enrolled in the Midwest Judo Club. A year
later, he was a member in good standing of Biyaku/Do/Karate/Kai,
affiliated with the National Judo and Karate Association of America. All
around him, culturally catching up with his passion, the Great American
Martial Arts Explosion was only just beginning.”
32
Section 2i.indd 32
1/7/14 9:03 AM
FEATURED STORY
and The Cisco Kid.. Consequently, a life-defining moment came for him one night while
watching the popular TV show, You Asked
For It,, when it featured Japan’s Mas Oyama
breaking bricks and stones with his fists. It
was the first time he had seen karate.
Mixing Eastern and
Western Fighting Arts
By 1961, Degerberg had enrolled in the
Midwest Judo Club. A year later, he was
a member in good standing of Biyaku/
Do/Karate/Kai, affiliated with the National
Judo and Karate Association of America. All
around him, culturally catching up with his
passion, the Great American Martial Arts
Explosion was only just beginning.
“Before then, around 1960, an Okinawan
karate school opened on North Clark Street,
and I was there,” he recalls. “I thought it
was the coolest thing in the world. Then
aikido showed up once a week; and [then] I
heard about taekwondo and hapkido. Some
old high-school friends of mine were going
there, and I started swapping what I did for
what they did.”
through a nearly unbroken run of firstround knockouts.
Then, in his early twenties, Beal, too, got
caught up in the first wave of Asian martial
arts. He put aside boxing and trained six to
nine hours a day to absorb wrestling, judo,
karate, aikido, taekwondo and even yoga.
“He was a perfect physical specimen,”
Degerberg says today, “like Jim Thorpe.”
In 1965, Beal became owner of The Way
of the White Tiger. He renamed the dojo
Bushido Karate, and he and Degerberg
launched the Bushido Fighting
Society. “Bushido” was
what Beal called his
own eclectic mixture
of
traditional
Japanese and
This natural instinct to show off and
compare techniques prepared the future
grandmaster for his entire — and back then,
entirely revolutionary — concept of how to
teach what to whom and when. But meanwhile, the natural next step in his evolution
as a martial artist occurred when he discovered his first personal master.
Degerberg was a Lake View High School
student in the early 1960s when he discovered The Way of the White Tiger karate dojo.
A fellow student, a half-Native American
named Robert Beal, seven years older, had
already been boxing since 1945. Beal systematically slaughtered ring opponents
33
Section 2i.indd 33
1/3/14 4:13 PM
Blasts From Fred Degerberg’s Past
He Put the “Bounce” in Bouncer!
By Herb Borkland
There are classes of people in our life we don’t
want to hear say, “Uh, oh.” They include brain
surgeons, airline pilots, car mechanics … and
Fred Degerberg. Degerberg is one tough hombre to begin with. Just look at his size and demeanor in the pictures in this article. Yet, during
his 15 years working as a bouncer at Chicago’s
most notorious nightclub, the Aragon Ballroom,
he was forced to employ his self-defense skills
countless times. There were — and always are
— idiot challengers who have an inflated opinion of their pugilistic powers. Even if they have
about as much chance at victory as, say, a cat
at a Pitbull convention.
Degerberg refers to the period from 1965
through 1980 as “The Security Era.”
“Bushido,” the eclectic mixture of traditional
Japanese and Chinese styles with Greco-Roman
boxing created by Robert Beal, had become Degerberg’s way of life. He was Beal’s top student
and, at this time in 1965, he simultaneously ran
a Bushido Fighting Society, Bushido Security
Company, and Bushido Builders.
Degerberg labored during the day as a construction worker. But he was far better known
around town for his night work as a rugged Rush
Street barroom bouncer who handled security
for rock concerts at the aforementioned Aragon
Ballroom, at Soldier Field, and at the Auditorium
Theater. These venues were booking all the nowlegendary big-name acts of their time — the
Rolling Stones, Kiss, Dr. John, The Who, Alice
Cooper, Iggy Pop, the Ramones, Santana, etc.
Degerberg was famous for wearing a karate gi
while doing security work. Rowdy concert fans
who were waiting in line before a show quickly
learned not to mess with him — unless they
wanted to be kicked so hard that when they
woke up their clothes would be out of style.
Adding to the Degerberg legend was a memorable night in the early 1970s when half-a-dozen
street fighters started bad-mouthing and throwing bottles at his crew of security guards. Degerberg charged after them single-handed down an
alley glittering with broken glass and, by the time
his crew caught up, all six troublemakers were
sprawled all over the ground.
Degerberg worked the Aragon Ballroom for 15
years, and lived to tell about it. The owners desperately needed him in order to stay in business.
TV news personality Geraldo Rivera once broadcast from outside the Aragon and called its area
“the worst neighborhood in America.”
“Because we’d get as many as fifty overdoses a
night,” Degerberg explains, “we started searching people to get drugs out of the hands of dealers. We’d fill up fifty-gallon cans with booze,
guns and narcotics. Wanted criminals wouldn’t
hand over their guns, so the team learned how to
plaster guys against a wall and smother the gun
completely with their hands and body.
“I once did thirteen weapons disarms in one
night. But we never took women’s guns because,
at that time, there was an epidemic of rapes.
Otherwise, I kept working my regular stations.
I started there at the front door, then covered
stage front during the show and, afterward, I
was back stage with the band.”
Over the years, his renowned security expertise
took Degerberg to the top. Southern rockers
Lynyrd Skynyrd once offered him a signed blank
check for his services. He was called upon to
accompany President Jimmy Carter and VicePresident Walter Mondale. He was asked to work
security for the Pope and for the Israelis, who
offered Uzis to his crew.
But show-business jobs predominated. Eventually, while working regularly for the Warner
Brothers Entertainment Group, Degerberg became great friends with fellow-Chicagoan and
Saturday Night Live star John Belushi, his wife
Judy, and sidekick Dan Aykroyd.
“This was the best time of my life,” Degerberg
says today. “I miss them.”
Historically speaking, there’s an important factor inherent in Degerberg’s security-era altercations, especially early on. Back in the 1960s,
people in general — and challengers in particular — questioned whether the martial arts really
worked in the street.
“It’s easy for a person to open a karate school
[today] and nobody will question them as to
whether or not karate will work,” says J. Pat
Burleson, a legendary karate pioneer based in
Dallas, TX renowned for his part in proving that
karate worked for real. “Today most instructors
don’t have to worry about some cowboy coming in and challenging them, saying, ‘Let’s see if
your karate really works, black belt!’
“The reason is that we greased the rails for
them. We created the respect for the martial
arts in this country by proving that it worked,”
Burleson says.
Fred Degerberg is certainly among that elite
breed. In fact, it’s part of his legacy.
34
Section 2i.indd 34
1/3/14 4:13 PM
Chinese styles with Greco-Roman boxing.
Degerberg became his top student.
“We were the laughing stock of the industry,” Degerberg admits. “Just like Catholics
didn’t marry Jews, you didn’t marry martial
arts and boxing. Western and Eastern styles
didn’t go together. They said we were mixing oil and water.”
Other old-school masters may have
scoffed, but “Bushido” worked in the
streets. Degerberg also placed a respectable
fourth in an international judo competition
and became 1964-1965 Junior Illinois State
Weightlifting Champion. Winning early
karate tournaments became problematic for
him, however, because, unable to pull his
punches, he kept getting disqualified for
knocking out his opponents.
Degerberg remembers showing Beal a
1967 magazine article by Bruce Lee and
telling him, “Somebody else is doing what
we’re doing.”
“My Lucky Day ”
Beal moved their school to the Hamlin
Park fieldhouse in 1970, and four years later
promoted his top student to 1st-degree
black belt. They were innovating training
in ways which later mainstreamed: teaching
women, not just men, how to box, and playing music during class, for example.
However, Degerberg was already branching out, hungry for new arts to conquer.
He received a red belt from the Illinois Tae
Kwon Do Association. Then, in 1974, on what
he calls “my lucky day,” Aspen Academy
of Martial Arts President Tom Crum introduced Degerberg to Dan Inosanto, Bruce
Lee’s protege.
“Dan and I got to know each other,”
Degerberger says. “He made his first school
seminar outside California in Chicago. I
“In 1965, Robert Beal became owner of
The Way of the White Tiger. He renamed the
dojo Bushido Karate, and he and Degerberg
launched the Bushido Fighting Society.
‘Bushido’ was what Beal called his own
eclectic mixture of traditional Japanese and
Chinese styles with Greco-Roman boxing.
Degerberg became his top student.”
Section 2i.indd 35
1/16/14 2:36 PM
followed him and hung out for many years.
He really opened my mind to new ideas.
He was so humble about everything, which
kept him always in the learning-mind state
of a new student.”
Through Inosanto’s connections, Degerberg
began demonstrating a lifelong genius for
networking among and studying with the
greatest living international grandmasters
and instructors.
By 1980, Degerberg’s students began
requesting a bigger, more professional fulltime school. At a meeting, one student
pointed out, “You know, the best school
hasn’t been built yet.”
“That set me off,” Degerberg laughs.
“That’s it! The best school! It had to be big.
I first thought of the Sears Tower — onehundred-ten stories — but I had just a few
thousand dollars.
“The school had to be fully equipped,
with great hours. A wide variety of classes
in different arts, with boxing, weight-lifting,
yoga, dance, aerobics, soft and hard styles,
weapon arts, standing and grappling, and a
constantly evolving blend of arts. And other
total self-defense systems as they may present themselves.
“Video, heavy bags, speed bags, boxing
rings, wing chun dummies, mirrored and
well-matted, music, co-ed, adult-kid-teen-tots
classes — all separated and by rank. From nocontact tai chi to full-contact anything goes,
etcetera. The blend — with belts! We had to
bring in the best martial arts champions and
grandmasters worldwide, to study from the
best. And all with a positive, open, learning
and growing attitude.”
Wow, talk about a grandiose plan for the
ultimate school!
In 1980, Degerberg temporarily broke with
Robert Beal and opened his own school in
Lincoln Square.
Building One of the
Country ’s Best Schools
“A couple years after Katie [his late wife
of 32 years] and I opened the Degerberg
Academy of Martial Arts [DAMA], we were
$150,000 in debt and losing the school.
I was in danger of being jailed for back
taxes. My friend Tom Letuli told me about
the Educational Funding Company [EFC]
and Nick Cokinos in Washington, DC. We
flew out and joined the EFC family, and met
hundreds of other great people and martial
artists willing to share their knowledge.
“After some hard work over four or five
years, we became the number-one school in
the EFC. Without the EFC, we would have
closed down.”
Instead, DAMA has gone on to become a
dazzling global mecca for many of the most
serious, ambitious martial artists of their
generation, including MAIA’s Dave Kovar,
Cliff Lenderman, Mike Young, Pat Murphy,
all of whom are 8th-dans. Plus, filmmaker
Diana Lee Inosanto, Dan’s daughter, a fifthdan who married one of Degerberg’s top
instructors, Ron Balicki.
It’s impossible to list all the important
martial artists associated with the Degerberg
Academy in this short article. The same goes
for citing his overwhelming number of personal rankings, titles and awards. All of that
would require a book.
Future Days
As would seem almost inevitable, for a life
lived on such an epic scale, Atlanta, Georgia’s
RCM Entertainment is currently producing a
“After some hard work over four or five years, we became the
number-one school in the Educational Funding Company. Without
the EFC, we would have closed down.”
Section 2i.indd 36
1/17/14 4:56 PM
followed him and hung out for many years.
He really opened my mind to new ideas.
He was so humble about everything, which
kept him always in the learning-mind state
of a new student.”
Through Inosanto’s connections, Degerberg
began demonstrating a lifelong genius for
networking among and studying with the
greatest living international grandmasters
and instructors.
By 1980, Degerberg’s students began
requesting a bigger, more professional fulltime school. At a meeting, one student
pointed out, “You know, the best school
hasn’t been built yet.”
“That set me off,” Degerberg laughs.
“That’s it! The best school! It had to be big.
I first thought of the Sears Tower — onehundred-ten stories — but I had just a few
thousand dollars.
“The school had to be fully equipped,
with great hours. A wide variety of classes
in different arts, with boxing, weight-lifting,
yoga, dance, aerobics, soft and hard styles,
weapon arts, standing and grappling, and a
constantly evolving blend of arts. And other
total self-defense systems as they may present themselves.
“Video, heavy bags, speed bags, boxing
rings, wing chun dummies, mirrored and
well-matted, music, co-ed, adult-kid-teen-tots
classes — all separated and by rank. From nocontact tai chi to full-contact anything goes,
etcetera. The blend — with belts! We had to
bring in the best martial arts champions and
grandmasters worldwide, to study from the
best. And all with a positive, open, learning
and growing attitude.”
Wow, talk about a grandiose plan for the
ultimate school!
In 1980, Degerberg temporarily broke with
Robert Beal and opened his own school in
Lincoln Square.
Building One of the
Country ’s Best Schools
“A couple years after Katie [his late wife
of 32 years] and I opened the Degerberg
Academy of Martial Arts [DAMA], we were
$150,000 in debt and losing the school.
I was in danger of being jailed for back
taxes. My friend Tom Letuli told me about
the Educational Funding Company [EFC]
and Nick Cokinos in Washington, DC. We
flew out and joined the EFC family, and met
hundreds of other great people and martial
artists willing to share their knowledge.
“After some hard work over four or five
years, we became the number-one school in
the EFC. Without the EFC, we would have
closed down.”
Instead, DAMA has gone on to become a
dazzling global mecca for many of the most
serious, ambitious martial artists of their
generation, including MAIA’s Dave Kovar,
Cliff Lenderman, Mike Young, Pat Murphy,
all of whom are 8th-dans. Plus, filmmaker
Diana Lee Inosanto, Dan’s daughter, a fifthdan who married one of Degerberg’s top
instructors, Ron Balicki.
It’s impossible to list all the important
martial artists associated with the Degerberg
Academy in this short article. The same goes
for citing his overwhelming number of personal rankings, titles and awards. All of that
would require a book.
Future Days
As would seem almost inevitable, for a life
lived on such an epic scale, Atlanta, Georgia’s
RCM Entertainment is currently producing a
“After some hard work over four or five years, we became the
number-one school in the Educational Funding Company. Without
the EFC, we would have closed down.”
Section 2i.indd 36
1/3/14 4:14 PM
FEATURED STORY
Chicago’s Key Role in
American Martial Arts
By MASUCCESS Managing Editor John Corcoran
Chicago, Illinois holds a special place in the history of
American karate. “In my opinion,” says legendary Dallas,
TX-based pioneer J. Pat Burleson, “the American system
of martial arts started in two
places in this country — in
Chicago and in Dallas/Ft.
Worth. It spread quickly from
there to places like Los Angeles and New York.”
Burleson should know. He’s
widely heralded as one of
America’s earliest national
tournament champions and
toughest fighters.
There weren’t very many karate tournaments held back in
the early 1960s. Fighters had
to travel all over the country if they wanted to compete in the few that
were conducted.
Further, the tournament fighting rules were a study in contradictions
in this embryonic period. The “light contact” rules stipulated closelypulled blows to the face and only light body contact. Yet, a fighter might
break an opponent’s bones or knock him into the grandstand and not
be disqualified. Competitors fought with bare knuckles and feet; safety
equipment hadn’t been invented yet.
Consequently, this period came to be known, suitably, as the “Bloodand-Guts Era” of American sport karate.
On July 28, 1963, Chicago put a permanent imprint in our history when
the so-called 1st World Karate Tournament was held at the University
of Chicago Fieldhouse. Promoted jointly by John Keehan and Robert
Trias, this was actually the first genuinely “national” karate tournament
conducted in the United States. It attracted most of America’s prominent
martial artists of the time who came to compete or officiate.
This landmark event set a dual precedent: 1) it was the foundation/
prototype for subsequent large-scale, national-caliber karate competitions; and 2) it marked the official birth of “American karate” by attracting America’s premiere competitors who, according to Burleson, who
competed in it, “began integrating techniques. It was the first time you
saw the marriage of kicking and punching in competition.”
311 competitors took part in just six divisions, plus a grand champion
fighting run-off. Brown belt AlGene Caraulia, who went on to establish
a karate school and longtime teaching career in Cleveland, OH, won the
grand championship.
In essence, the ‘63 World Tournament was the starting point for American karate tournaments as we know them today.
Chicago-based pioneers never truly received the full credit they deserve
for their key role in the development of American martial arts. Perhaps
the main reason is because all of the influential national martial arts
magazines were located in Los Angeles and New York. These publications most often featured — and built stars from — black belts within
their respective territories.
37
Section 2i.indd 37
1/17/14 2:29 PM
FEATURED STORY
Chicago’s Key Role in
American Martial Arts
By MASUCCESS Managing Editor John Corcoran
Chicago, Illinois holds a special place in the history of
American karate. “In my opinion,” says legendary Dallas,
TX-based pioneer J. Pat Burleson, “the American system
of martial arts started in two
places in this country — in
Chicago and in Dallas/Ft.
Worth. It spread quickly from
there to places like Los Angeles and New York.”
Burleson should know. He’s
widely heralded as one of
America’s earliest national
tournament champions and
toughest fighters.
There weren’t very many karate tournaments held back in
the early 1960s. Fighters had
to travel all over the country if they wanted to compete in the few that
were conducted.
Further, the tournament fighting rules were a study in contradictions
in this embryonic period. The “light contact” rules stipulated closelypulled blows to the face and only light body contact. Yet, a fighter might
break an opponent’s bones or knock him into the grandstand and not
be disqualified. Competitors fought with bare knuckles and feet; safety
equipment hadn’t been invented yet.
Consequently, this period came to be known, suitably, as the “Bloodand-Guts Era” of American sport karate.
On July 28, 1963, Chicago put a permanent imprint in our history when
the so-called 1st World Karate Tournament was held at the University
of Chicago Fieldhouse. Promoted jointly by John Keehan and Robert
Trias, this was actually the first genuinely “national” karate tournament
conducted in the United States. It attracted most of America’s prominent
martial artists of the time who came to compete or officiate.
This landmark event set a dual precedent: 1) it was the foundation/
prototype for subsequent large-scale, national-caliber karate competitions; and 2) it marked the official birth of “American karate” by attracting America’s premiere competitors who, according to Burleson, who
competed in it, “began integrating techniques. It was the first time you
saw the marriage of kicking and punching in competition.”
311 competitors took part in just six divisions, plus a grand champion
fighting run-off. Brown belt AlGene Caraulia, who went on to establish
a karate school and longtime teaching career in Cleveland, OH, won the
grand championship.
In essence, the ‘63 World Tournament was the starting point for American karate tournaments as we know them today.
Chicago-based pioneers never truly received the full credit they deserve
for their key role in the development of American martial arts. Perhaps
the main reason is because all of the influential national martial arts
magazines were located in Los Angeles and New York. These publications most often featured — and built stars from — black belts within
their respective territories.
37
Section 2i.indd 37
1/3/14 4:14 PM
2014 dramatic TV series — not a reality show
— based on lives turned around by the ways
and teachings of Fred Degerberg. But, for
such an indelible career, even show business
is ultimately too small a niche into which to
fit Degerberg.
“I had Jesse Glover — a dear friend and
great guy [Bruce Lee’s first student in 1959]
— here for a seminar two years before he
died,” Degerberg says. “After seeing my
home and the school’s collections, he asked
me what I planned on doing with all the martial arts stuff when I died, because it was the
most he had ever seen. I said, ‘Give it to my
black belts.’ He said, ‘No! You should make a
museum with all this stuff!’
style,” he explains. “I’m proud when people
mention my name alongside of Bruce Lee.
But the truth is, mixing martial arts was an
idea whose time had come.
“Today, though, what MMA lacks is respect,
and this is a big mistake. Even boxers are
more respectful than cage fighters. These
guys miss most of the point, frankly. I stand
for mixing arts, but, in my school, if you don’t
bow right, get the hell out of here.”
What follows, then, personally-speaking, for so indelibly important a figure in
our industry?
“So, that is now a new goal of mine, to
fulfill Jesse’s idea.”
“I’m looking for the next great turn of
events, the next martial art, to make people
function better and be happier. It’s your duty
to share this with people if they need to
know it.”
Looking back, Degerberg understands
how he was always compelled by familybased fighting systems.
A student of Degerberg has summed
up best the grandmaster who hates being
called a grandmaster:
“I learned from my father and grandfather. From Robert Beal and his dad and
uncle. Dan Inosanto, and from his dad and
the jeet kune do family. And my great friend
and mentor, [bando savant] Dr. Maung Gyi,
from his father.”
“The most incredible thing about Fred is
his humanity. He is kind, patient, respectful, loyal and generous. He is a person of
remarkable integrity and a true leader.”
Degerberg smiles and quotes a hit song
from the Seventies: We Are Family.
A major part of Degerberg’s legacy is his
Academy’s Adult Blend, a cocktail of global
fighting arts. Way back when, Degerberg
absolutely foresaw where martial arts were
headed and actively helped to make that
evolution succeed beyond the narrower
dreams of traditionalists. Put simply, he was
doing mixed martial arts (MMA) long before
the term was invented.
Herb Borkland is a veteran black belt and
writer living in Front Royal, Virginia. He can
be contacted at [email protected].
To learn more about how hundreds of
other successful school owners, both large
and small, operate, visit the Martial Arts
Industry Association’s website at www.
masuccess.com. Through this constantlyenhanced website, members can access a
massive amount of useful information on
just about any topic from A to Z.
“I’ve been mostly concerned with things
that actually work, the proverbial ‘better
mousetrap,’ and one tremendous concept or
“As would seem almost inevitable, for a life lived on such an epic scale,
Atlanta, Georgia’s RCM Entertainment is currently producing a 2014 dramatic
TV series — not a reality show — based on lives turned around by the ways and
teachings of Fred Degerberg.”
Section 2i.indd 38
1/3/14 4:14 PM