Burton began his martial arts quest in 1979 training with a student of Dan Inosanto and Richard Bustillo’s Kali/Jun Fun Gung Fu Academy. He joined the Academy the following year. He trained in class during the summer months and continued to train on his own while attending the University of Southern California. After finishing his academic studies, Burton decided to pursue his passion for the martial arts full time. He lived in a very small camper trailer in the parking lot of a dog and cat hospital in one of the worst areas of Los Angeles over a five year period which he refers to as his “monk hood”. He tended to the animals at night in exchange for his meager accommodations. This allowed him the free time to participate in 14 classes per week (each class was an hour and a half long) and spend off time practicing and researching the history of the arts. He attended each class that Dan Inosanto taught, following him from the Torrance IMB Academy to his classes at Harbor College and then to the evening classes in Marina Del Rey. Burton also trained diligently with other instructors including Thai Boxing great Chai Sirisute, Silat instructor Herman Suwanda and Bukti Negara (Silat) founder Paul DeThouars. He worked enough to pay for classes and the bare necessities, saving whatever was left over to pay for seminars and training trips. “I have attended at least sixty seminars by various top martial artists. Probably many more.” He also traveled to the Philippines on several occasions to train with different masters. Burton’s years of dedication to training led him to Full Instructor status in both JKD and Filipino Kali under Dan Inosanto. He was also awarded instructors credentials in Thai Boxing from Chai Sirisute, in Bukti Negara from Paul DeThouars and in Ilustrissimo Kali from Grandmaster Ilustrissimo. While this may sound like an impressive resume’, for Burton this was only the beginning.

His stick fighting experience led him to become one of the Original Dog Brothers, a group renowned for their all-out, full-power, limited rules matches. Burton got in the ring, fighting in China. In 1992 he began training with top Brazilian jiu-jitsu and No Holds Barred fighters in the U.S. and Brazil.