Jim Armstrong
A Legacy of 40 Years in Martial Arts and Self-Protection
With over 40 years in martial arts and self-protection, Jim Armstrong is a highly experienced instructor, coach, and mentor.
His journey began with multiple black belts, instructorships, and years of competitive training, including representing Australia in the World Stick Fighting Championships.
Jim has taught throughout Australia and across the world, including the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, the UAE, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Since 2015, he has travelled regularly to Europe, sharing his refined principles of self-defence, movement, and performance with students, instructors, and experienced practitioners.
Founder of Raw Life Australia, Raw Combatives & BareBones Combatives – Based in Rowville, Melbourne.
After nearly 20 years of hard training, Jim stepped back and began to question the limits of traditional methods. That process led him to create a different approach. One built on function, simplicity, and real-world application rather than tradition for tradition’s sake.
Much of that exploration began in what later became known as ‘The Garage’ in Melbourne, where Jim and a small group of dedicated people tested ideas, challenged assumptions, and shaped a fresh way of looking at martial arts and self-protection.
“Try Less, Do More”
— Jim Armstrong
Today, Jim leads around 30 sessions each week through Raw Life Australia in Rowville, along with workshops, seminars, private coaching, and corporate training.
His teaching can stand on its own as a complete self-defence method or be added into other systems to deepen understanding and improve performance.
Jim has also worked with athletes from rugby, Australian rules football, golf, cricket, shooting, and other sports, helping them improve movement, awareness, and performance under pressure. More and more, his method is also being used to support mental health, physical wellbeing, and real self-confidence, not just fighting ability.
Teaching self-defence at The Lab, Rowville
Teaching our ‘Ladder of Choices’ at Raw Life Australia, Rowville.
Jim’s commitment to learning has never stopped. Alongside completing Cert III and Cert IV in Fitness, he has undertaken more than 30 additional courses in recent years.
He is always refining his methods; reading, listening, testing, and evolving, with the aim of helping people get the best out of themselves, whatever that looks like for them.
In 2014, Jim founded BareBones Combatives, a system stripped back to what matters most: mindset, movement, and function. That process of simplifying, refining, and improving still sits at the heart of how he teaches today.
In the early years of his teaching, Jim focused heavily on sport fighting and self-defence, with students often sharing how the training helped them both inside and outside the ring.
Over the past decade, that work has grown into something deeper. His teaching now helps people become not just more capable in training, but better family members, better friends, and better versions of themselves.
In recent years, Jim has spent a great deal of time working with people facing mental health challenges, physical disabilities, and illness. He takes real pride in knowing that his teaching has helped people far beyond martial arts, in ways that go well beyond styles, systems, and techniques.