Jan de Jong Side-Drive Kick

You will recall from my last post that Sensei Dan Newcombe, founder of Self Defence Central Dojo and Tsutsumi Hozan Ryu International, forwarded a number of photographs taken in the 1950s when his father and uncle trained under JDJ to me. This is the latest installment.

JDJ executing a side-drive kick. JDJ was never keen on the knife-edge for the foot, preferring instead to use the heel with the body weight behind the kick.

The other person's posture is interesting. It appears to be silat-like, however, JDJ had not formally begun to teach silat at that time. It may be a flowing bodymovement (nagashi) with a brushing block but JDJ had not traveled to Japan to train under Mochizuki where the taisabaki taught in his system originated.

The dojo is the Swan River Rowing Club. The mat is handmade by JDJ's first wife, as were the gis, as no martial arts products were available for purchase at that time.

JDJ often told the story of how when he first started teaching at the SRRC, they trained on floorboards and that after the first session or two, and when a student put both feet through the floorboards when executing a bridge fall, the class shrank to a few people. Obviously this mat was then brought out to encourage students to continue with their jujutsu.

Harry Hartman trained at this dojo and he informed me that the mat was rolled up and stored in a storeroom at the SRRC.

This is a photo for comparison over the years. The first photo was taken in the 1950s while the above photo was taken in the late 1980s. JDJ was in his 30s in the first photo and in his 60s in the second. The person executing the defence is JDJ's Indonesian pencak silat guru, Soehadi. This photo is taken in JDJ's home dojo with his silat senior students in the background, including Peter Clarke, fourth from the right.

Michael Clarke and Jan de Jong

Michael Clarke (not the Australian cricket captain) is a noted karateka and a published author. He's had articles published in magazines both in Australian and abroad, and has published a number of books, all to do with the martial arts.

Clarke writes a very informative and interesting blog titled Shinseidokan Dojo (shinseidokandojo.blogspot.com.au)

Remembering the past, but heading for the future - a conversation with jujitsu master Jan de Jong, 8th dan. Australasian Fighting Arts. 1991. 14(6): 11-16.

By anyone's standards Sensei Jan de Jong ... is an impressive man. Not because of his physical build or an overly forceful character, but because of his presence. he is an easy man to relax with and this is due, in part, to his age ... and the fact that he goes out of his way to make you feel welcome.

De Jong describes how he met Rienier Hulsk in Holland in 1940 which started his lifelong jujutsu teaching career.

At that time I was graded 3rd dan by my Sensei, Mr Saito, who lived back in Java. I really needed the money and so that's how I started teaching. Then after a year I decided I would open my own school and within a couple of months I had about 300 students!

Regarding the war:

De Jong: it's not a time I really like to talk about. Because war is such a stupid thing and it turns people into creatures that do the most horrible things to other human beings.

De Jong describes his response to a question posed by his pencak silat teacher, Suhadi:

'Why do you want to do silat? You're a white boy; you should be doing tennis or something like that.' I told him that it was my heart that wants to do silat. I had always been very interested in Indonesian art and the culture, and to me this was a part of that.

De Jong on training silat in Indonesia in late 1940s:

To me it was playing. Things then were not like it is now. You did not have the strict discipline that there is in martial arts classes today. But you know, I think that sometimes you can take discipline too far. For instance, I had a couple of English guys training with me once and they said how nice it was that they could actually talk to me. I asked them what they meant by that, and they told me that in England they could not talk to the Shihan directly unless he spoke to them. Now that's ridiculous, I think. In all the time I was in Japan training I never had rules like that to contend with. I think that's taking things too far.

I actually experienced this when I trained in England, and saw it evident in some instructors on various seminars we presented at in Europe. Not only were you not suppose to talk to the instructor on the mats, but also in the dojo generally, and even outside the dojo. I kid you not.

We often liked to think we were immune to this way of thinking. Generally that was true, but not always. I recall a senior instructor instructing me not to question De Jong during an instructor's class. De Jong taught us very well. If what he was teaching went against the principles he taught us, I suggest it is disrespectful not to question the teaching.

De Jong demonstrating his lifelong love of food in his description of Perth when he emigrated in 1952:

Perth was not a big, modern city it is now. In fact, in many ways it was a backward place. ... Do you know I could not even get a Chinese meal in Perth at that time? Nor could I get an Indonesian meal either. There were three Italian restaurants and that was it!

De Jong explains that he originally didn't teach silat to the general public. Attendance to closed-door training sessions was by invitation only, and only after De Jong had determined the prospective student was of 'good character and attitude.' In the mid sixties there was a large demand for karate instruction, so he relented and advertised classes in the newspaper:

To my surprise, on the day of the classes there were queues of people all the way down the road. Many of the top karate people in Perth started with me around that time. Brian Mackie - who is with Goju Kai now - he stared with me at that time. Also Denis Purvis got to yellow belt in jujutsu before he left me and went his own way.

Mackie is director and chief instructor of the IKGA in Australia, 7th Dan Kyoshi Shihan, and has been teaching at the Karate Academy of Japan in Perth since 1966. Purvis went on to form the Denis Purvis Karate Academy. There was also Branco Bratich who is now Chief Instructor for Yoseikan Ryu Karate Australia.

De Jong explains how he changed the Indonesian way of teaching to fit the Australian culture. Clarke asks if De Jong thought it was a good idea to change the system to suit the students.

Yes, I know what you're saying, but you know you can learn all the time. And if the results are better one way than the other, why carry on in a way that gives poorer results? I'll give you an example. In 1978 a Major Greg Mawkes MBE asked me if I would go and teach the army self-defence. I said okay and soon afterwards found myself teaching members of the SAS and the Commandoes. Shortly after I had started to do this the Major and I had a discussion about things. He told me that he thought the method of fighting was really good and he was pleased with that. But he said the men were having some difficulty understanding it all. I said this was the usual way of things and that my students were the same. He then explained the army did not have unlimited time to spend on this and that what he needed was quick results.

So it was at that point I had to think things through and see what I cold come up with. I looked at the usual way the army taught things and decided I would alter the way I was teaching and come more in line with the army way of doing things. Well, do you know, the people started to pick things up much faster than before, and they could do the techniques much better than before! So I had a talk with my Instructors and said I thought that we should change things so that we were teaching everyone like this. And at that time we changed the way we taught the students. The techniques were still the same, it was only the method of teaching them that was different. And since then things have been much better.

A bit on Mawkes (not included in Clarke's article):

Major Mawkes (Retd) served in the Regular Army for 22½ years including two tours of Vietnam with 1 SAS Squadron. He was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to SAS in the 1982 New Year’s Honours list, specifically for establishing Australia’s military counter-terrorist capability.

De Jong's explanation is very telling. It shows that he was results oriented; results being defined in practical terms. It shows his leadership style was often consultative. It also shows his never ending quest for finding better ways to teach.

What's not included in the explanation is the influence of Mochizuki's Yoseikan in De Jong's army-inspired new way of teaching. What was this new way of teaching? As we've seen above, De Jong was not a fan for an 'army style' discipline way of teaching. No, what it was was to divide a tactic into phases in order to be able to better teach, learn, and analyse it. A very readable book on this approach is Gerry Carr's Sport Mechancis for Coaches. This division into phases can be seen in Mochizuki's Nihonden Jujutsu. You can check for yourself. A copy of this book is available for sale on ebay, for US$4,000.

The next few blogs will be devoted to Clarke's works on De Jong.

Jan de Jong Pt 4 - The Post WWII Indonesian Years

In the last blog we'd left Jan de Jong and his new family leaving the Hunger Winter of Holland to return to the warmer climate of Indonesia.

Indonesia had been occupied by the Japanese during World War II. Two days after the Japanese surrender to the Allies, the Indonesians seized the opportunity of the Netherlands situation to declare independence. British forces landed to disarm the Japanese and 'to maintain law and order until the time that the lawful government of the Netherlands East Indies is once again functioning.' Prior to the arrival of the British forces, the Dutch Lieutenant-Governor of the Indies met Lord Mountbatten in Ceylon and asked that Japanese troops still in Indonesia be ordered by the British to suppress the Republican government. Mountbatten agreed but the Japanese delayed. Prior to their repatriation, the Japanese forces did, indeed, fight Republican forces and hand over the territory won to the British forces.

The British forces found themselves in conflict with the fledgling Republic who, when confronted with all out combat from the sea, air and land from the British (assisted at times by the Japanese), decided to withdraw from urban battles and adopt a guerrilla campaign. The Dutch, under the pretext of representing the Allied forces, sent in troops to regain control of their former colony in what was to be their largest military effort in their history. After more than four years of bloody conflict where human rights abuses abounded on both sides, the Dutch formally transferred sovereignty to Republik Indonesia Serikat (Republic of United States of Indonesia) on 27 December 1949. The Royal Netherlands Indies Army (KNIL) were officially disbanded six months later.

No sooner had Independence been won then the new Republic had to face numerous armed challenges. The Darul Islam terrorised the countryside of West Java in their move to establish an Islamic State. The former Dutch army captain Turco Westerling band claimed the lives of thousands of innocent lives. Outside Java, demobilised ex-colonial armed men who remained loyal to the Dutch crown staged a revolt and proclaimed 'the Republic of South Malaka'. There were also various separatist movements and the Indonesian Communist Party all pushing their separate agendas through violent means.

This was the Indonesia De Jong returned to in 1946 and lived in for the next seven years. He was initially posted to Jakarta but was soon reassigned to his hometown of Semerang. He was mostly unsuccessful in locating people from his past but was fortunately reunited with his parents and brother who had survived the Japanese camps. His father told him that one of the Saito brothers (his former Japanese jujutsu instructors) had helped him when he was interned but no news was ever heard of his former instructors again.

De Jong commenced teaching jujutsu in Jakarta and Semerang, though it was never in any sustained way. The previously mentioned student of De Jong, Kees van Deijk, had ceased training in 1947. He joined the KNIL as a sergeant-major and was posted to Jakarta, Indonesia. Van Deijk wrote to me and described their improbable meeting in Indonesia after WWII:

One day when I was in my office I heard a well-known voice. Who was sitting about five metres next to me? Jan. We looked at each other, astonished, meeting in Indonesia, how was it possible. To make a long story short: after talking with each other for hours, Jan and I decided to give a jujutsu demonstration in the Army hospital at Jakarta. We did it together with my fencing teacher, Dick Trouvatt, and these demonstrations were so successful that we did it twice. Thereafter I lost connection with Jan until 1994.

He went on to say in his correspondence to me: 'Now that I am writing I see Jan before me (often with his smile), who gave me jujutsu lessons, which formed a part of my character in my life. I'll never forget him!'

De Jong turned his attention to learning the indigenous martial art of Indonesia, pencak silat ('silat'). He had been introduced to silat during his school days but had not trained it in any depth.

Just as with his jujutsu instruction, it wasn't simply a matter of locating a school and enrolling for lessons. He asked his barber if he knew of a good teacher, a Guru, who might teach him. The barber told him he knew a man who knew a lot about silat and a little while after that brought him to his house. This man, Soehadi, visited De Jong on a number of occasions where they would talk about various matters. On one occasion he asked, 'why do you want to do silat? You’re a white boy, you should be doing tennis or something like that.' De Jong replied, 'because it's in my heart to do so.'

On some of the visits to De Jong’s house, Soehadi would be accompanied by other men. Unbeknown to him, they were leaders of the Suci Hati aliran (Suci Hati is Indonesian for ‘pure heart,’ and aliran refers to the same concept as ryuha). It was usually the custom for the applicant to be brought to the elders, but due to the War of Independence being waged and De Jong being a Dutchman attached to the KILN, Soehadi thought it judicious to go against custom and bring the elders to him. After a number of months, Soehadi informed him that the elders considered him of good character and acceptable to them for inclusion into their aliran and that he was to be his Guru. As it turned out, Soehadi was the chief guru for all of middle Java, but he had never mentioned that he even trained silat, let alone was a guru of some note.

Training was conducted three times a week in a garage and was initially on a private basis due to the conditions of the times. About a year after he'd started training, Soehadi told De Jong that permission had been granted for him to meet 'the brothers'. The two men journeyed up Mount Ungaran, about 15 miles from Semarang and arrived at a house which had a picture of Sukarno (leader of the Indonesian's struggle for independence) on the wall and 'the brothers' all sporting long hair. He realised he was deep in rebel held territory and the long-haired Indonesians were persuda (Indonesian for youth), young freedom fighters operating in fierce gangs and who had vowed not to cut their hair until all the Dutch had been driven out of Indonesia. The bond between members of an aliran is exceedingly strong and appears to transcend nationalistic concerns.

Given the Indonesian culture and temperament, training was a lot more relaxed than under the Saito brothers. De Jong was very fit and very experienced in combative arts so he was able to pick up the skills of silat very fast. Gradings consisted of various senior members of the aliran observing the training and deciding that a higher grade would be awarded. De Jong said he was awarded the equivalent of sixth degree black belt in 1951.

Soehadi and De Jong lost contact when De Jong emigrated to Australia in 1952. Nearly thirty years later Soehadi recognised his former pupil on television giving a jujutsu demonstration in Indonesia. He wrote a letter addressed to: 'Jan de Jong, Perth, Western Australia', and despite the limited address it found its destination. In 1986, De Jong’s students raised the funds to fly Soehadi to Perth for a reunion. The photograph above was taken at De Jong's dojo at his home and has the elderly Soehadi blocking a kick by the elderly De Jong. The photograph to the right is of the same elderly Soehadi demonstrating his silat at the same location. Elderly but ever so sprightly. The person kneeling furthest to the right is Peter Clarke in the photograph to the right is the Clarke mentioned in the first blog concerning the school of Jan de Jong. In addition to being graded sixth dan in jujutsu, he was also the highest graded pencak silat student/instructor of De Jong (in addition to dan grades in aikido).

During these years, De Jong was practising as a physiotherapist at the hospital in Semerang. His third child and second son, Hans de Jong, was born at the same hospital (1950 I think). In later years I would have occasion to visit that hospital and the room where De Jong practiced his physiotherapy, but that is a story for another blog.

After living with the risks and stresses associated with living in a theatre of war for twelve years, and now with the added responsibility of a young family, who had themselves been threatened by armed bandits during a home invasion, De Jong decided to emigrate. Through his aversion to cold climates born of the Hunger Winter, he narrowed his choices to South Africa, South America and Australia. Perth won out due to its political stability, language, and of course, warm climate.