normally keep my mouth shut on this because I know Ari a bit, I used to pop down to his SD school he had years ago once and awhile. We have been on decent terms and I really feel no animosity towards him at all. However, there is so much misinformation flying around that I want to set the record straight (as far as I know it). I first heard of Ari when he was bouncing at this shithole club called Wastelands. It was the kind of place you used to go for cheap beer, cheaper women and fights. They had this huge hungarian dude named Tony Dobos, who was an asshole and a real tough guy. Later I heard he was teaching SD in town and in those days I was much more tied into the local community plus I was writing a lot about SD and military style combatives. I decided to pop by and have a chat with him because in those days there were about 3 of us teaching any sort of RBSD in vic.
When I first met him, he told me that he had a BB (nidan IIRC) in KI aikido. Initially he was doing straight RBSD stuff. He hooked up a business arragement with another Local Darren Laur (who is excellent BTW) and created a website that featured Darrens articles and other RBSD stuff. After this he started with a Bujutsu academy. When i talked to him about this he told me he really liked the traditional aspect of the Martial arts and decided to go that route. At this time he marketed himself as a Daito-Ryu Aikijujutsu BB as well as his Aikido one. He told me that he got it from a Fella named Kentai Takahashi. I did some digging and he is not known among any of the AJJ people I talked to including a number of well known guys in Japan like Stanely pranin. But AJJ is pretty fractured right now and is kind of hard to find, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. As far as I know this is the JJJ bb he speaks of.
As long as I have known Ari, he has been interested in MMA and grappling. He has also been trying to turn his interest in the Martial Arts into a business. He has had the RBSD site, he started a clothing line, security and bouncing training company and now SUB101.