The Journey Continues
Published: Thu, 02/28/13
I watched the BBC programme last night 'Everyone was Kung Fu
Fighting - the rise of martial arts in Britain' Thanks to Katy
to passing on the link. You can see it at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p2pm6/Timeshift_Series_12_Everybody_was_Kung_Fu_Fighting_The_Rise_of_Martial_Arts_in_Britain/
The programme takes an unusually broad historical and cultural view
of the subject of the rise of oriental martial arts in the UK. I
picked up on a few things I didn't already know, one thing
being the role that Jujitsu played in the Suffragettes movement,
yes really, check it out by watching the programme. It was also
fun to see James Marwood, who I know from Fightcamp, demonstrating
Bartitsu. The interesting thing was to be reminded that Jujitsu
had been taught and practised in the UK since the 1890s
(popularised to a large degree by Barton-Wright who then returned
to the UK and created Bartitsu) and followed by Judo in the 1920s.
During WW2 a lot of servicemen and some women got trained in
'Combatitives' largely thanks to Captain WE Fairbairn.
After the war the Americans discovered Karate on Okinawa and in
Japan and Karate schools became common from the 1960s onwards. But
it was with the release of 'Enter the Dragon' in 1973 that
really brought Martial arts into the popular consciousness. That
was the time I got involved and luckily my teacher (George Mayo)
had a long pedigree in bona fide martial arts as he had been
teaching Jujitsu in North London since the early 1960s and had
developed his own form of Karate. The Bruce Lee phenomenon was
really rather odd because while he triggered off a massive interest
in so called 'Kung Fu' Bruce Lee himself had relatively
limited experience in traditional Wing Chun, was very critical of
the limitations of classical chineese training and had developed
his own system of Jeet Kune Do which draws heavily on western
boxing and fencing and apparently he learned his kicking, which was
so impressive in his last film, from Chuck Norris who is basically
a Tae Kwon Do master. Read this interview which Geoff Thompson
conducted with Chuck Norris in 1999,
http://www.shotokankata.com/Articles/Chuck%20Norris%20Interview.htm
I am certainly not being dismissive of Bruce Lee in any way but as
one of the presenters on the programme pointed out it kind of
brought things full circle from Barton-Wright's initial fusion
of Jujitsu with western methods of fighting in the 1890s to Bruce
Lee's hybrid style in the 1970s. In both cases that individual
didn't create a massively successful style directly. There has
been a resurgence of interest in Bartitsu in recent years but it
failed at the time for various reasons but mainly it seems because
actual Jujitsu and later Judo became more popular. It is possible
to find Jeet Kune Do teachers but mainly Bruce Lee facilitated the
popularity of more traditional Chinese martial arts from Tai Chi to
Wing Chun, the styles he himself was quite dismissive of during his
own career. Anyway, I think Martial arts are a fascinating
journey, both individually and within the wider community and the
programme illustrated this rather well. For me personally it has
been a great privilege to be a tiny part of this process and to
have known some amazing people along the way. If you would like
the chance to train with Ivar Hafskjold and hear about his
extraordinary life journey in Martial Arts then come to the Summer
Camp in September http://www.stavcamp.org