Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: The Rise of Martial Arts in Britain Timeshift


Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: The Rise of Martial Arts in Britain

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Towards the end of the 19th century,

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something strange began happening to the gentlemen of Britain.

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An elite form of self-defence started a trend

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that was to fascinate us for the next hundred years.

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Men and women, irrespective of class or race, would be

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drawn into something that became a British obsession.

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It would take a century but in the end, everybody was kung fu fighting.

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Victorian London could be a dangerous place.

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Beyond the fashionable and respectable streets,

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trouble lurked in the shadows.

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A gentleman had to learn to protect himself.

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Victorian London. This was the height of the Industrial Revolution.

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It was a time when people were flooding into the big cities

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from rural areas.

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A lot of people were very poor. There was a lot of poverty

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and there was a lot of street crime. This was a violent society.

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Also you had a greater social mobility. The underground.

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There was a fear that criminals could perhaps travel from East to West

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and come and attack you on your door.

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There were what they called the garrotting panics. Garrotters were urban gangsters

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who would operate in groups of three or four or five.

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One of them would sneak up behind a pedestrian, garrotte them

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around the neck and strangle them almost into unconsciousness.

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And their confederates would come up

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and steal the pedestrian's pocket watch and wallet and so forth.

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So there was a perception that you had to be able to defend yourself.

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And the whole concept of gentlemen in society needing to have

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a smattering of self-defence skills, at least,

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goes all the way back to the Middle Ages.

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It was always assumed that gentleman led the way.

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They needed to prove that they were well-read and intelligent

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and courageous, that they could dance one minute and sword-fight the next.

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The search for a perfect method of self-defence

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led thousands of miles away, to the Far East.

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There were rumours in the Western world of this mysterious

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Japanese art of unarmed combat, of wrestling.

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But there was really very, very little known about it at the technical level.

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For the Victorians, Japan was a strange and mysterious land.

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The famous samurai warrior caste had been abolished in the 1860s,

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but some of their unique unarmed combat skills had survived.

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The samurai did have this huge tradition of martial arts.

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This embraced everything

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from horseback archery to this bare-handed

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fighting that they learned so they could cope with an enemy

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when they were disarmed on the battlefield.

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This was jujitsu, battlefield jujitsu.

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And it was a series of techniques that were designed to be lethal.

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1890s Japan had only recently opened up to the West

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and was desperate to modernise.

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There were opportunities to be had for the businessmen of Britain.

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The engineer Edward Barton-Wright,

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a self-defence fanatic, took the opportunity to work there.

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The thing about Barton-Wright was, I think, that he

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became very impressed with the concepts that the Japanese

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had preserved from their medieval martial arts.

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Barton-Wright, photographed here,

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was one of the very first Westerners to learn the secrets of jujitsu.

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With a lifelong interest in a diverse range of self-defence systems,

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to come across this extremely sophisticated form of unarmed combat,

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I think he must have been fascinated.

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He certainly was enough to train as often as he could for those three years.

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Barton-Wright was determined to master jujitsu.

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But as an entrepreneur, he also saw its commercial potential.

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After training for several years,

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he combined jujitsu with the Western arts of boxing, wrestling

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and cane fighting, to create an all-new martial art.

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He called it "bartitsu".

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He came back over to Britain in the late 1890s

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and he imported this martial art that he'd created

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and turned it into a brand name, a must-have for the English gentleman.

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Barton-Wright was his surname, and BARTitsu,

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Barton formed part of the name,

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"Itsu" coming from jujitsu.

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What Barton-Wright was aiming for was the complete

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method of self-defence, taking the best that the East and West had to offer.

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His brilliant innovation was,

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"what we should do is combine all of these systems together."

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We should establish Bartitsu as a method of crosstraining

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between these styles.

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So in essence, I would say, it was an experimental process.

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Bartitsu was aimed squarely at the elite of British society.

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I think bartitsu appealed to a lot of Victorian gentleman simply

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because the way Barton-Wright synthesised the techniques,

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it pandered to the Victorian concept of a sort of upright,

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officer class kind of a martial art.

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It was all about having a lot of bearing.

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Balance, yes, but bearing as well.

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If you look at the cane fighting, it was all about standing up straight,

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about evading your opponent simply by sliding

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sideways and then whacking them with a cane while you...

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while they are off-balance, you stand up straight,

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you maintain that gentlemanly poise.

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Bartitsu caught the attention of Arthur Conan Doyle.

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The writer was under pressure to bring back his most famous creation.

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By 1903, the legendary Sherlock Holmes had been missing

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from the pages of British literature for 10 years...

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seemingly killed off by his creator in a battle to the death

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with master criminal Moriarty.

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Readers were led to believe both had plummeted

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to their deaths in the Reichenbach Falls.

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For Holmes to return, he needed a trick up his sleeve.

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Conan Doyle's greatest hero, the most famous

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and best-loved English detective, Sherlock Holmes,

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went to battle with his arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

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Both of them are teetering on the brink, on this tiny little path,

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where the water is gushing on either side and they could slip at any moment.

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Conan Doyle turned to Barton-Wright's martial art,

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which he had read about in the pages of The Times, misspelled as "baritsu".

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In The Adventure Of The Empty House, he revived his star detective.

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"We tottered together upon the brink of the fall.

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"I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese

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"system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me.

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"I slipped through his grip and he, with a horrible scream,

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"kicked madly for a few seconds, clawed the air with both his hands,

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"but for all his efforts, he could not get his balance and over he went.

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"With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way.

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"Then he struck a rock, bounced off and splashed into the water."

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LOUD SCREAM

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But for all that, Barton-Wright's creation never caught on.

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Edwardian Britain became more interested in the martial art

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that had started it all off, Japanese jujitsu.

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And it was to find some unlikely participants at the beginning of the new century -

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the suffragettes.

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The suffragettes were fighting for votes for women

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and they were very frustrated because, in the 19th century,

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the male electorate had doubled under the 1867 Reform Act

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and what they were frustrated by was also the way in which many

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anti-suffragists were arguing that women didn't deserve the vote

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because they weren't strong enough,

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weren't physically capable of defending the country.

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So actually, the suffragettes wanted to show that in fact,

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women could be tough and strong but dainty at the same time.

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# You'd be so nice to come home to

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# You'd be so nice by the fire... #

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These photographs show suffragette Edith Garrud,

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who was trained in jujitsu by Japanese instructors.

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She later set up a school of her own,

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specialising in teaching women's classes,

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and became eventually the jujitsu instructor for a group of,

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in fact, a secret society of women who were attached to

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the militant suffragette movement.

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The suffragettes needed jujitsu as a way in which to defend

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themselves against male aggression, whether that's from the police,

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or whether that's from male hecklers.

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Jujitsu was a minimal force response to male violence.

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So there was certainly that going on.

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But there's also, it chimed in quite nicely with ideals of femininity,

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because jujitsu was elegant.

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It was show, it was feminine and so, actually,

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it was kind of the ideal form of self-defence.

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At the height of suffragette unrest,

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Emmeline Pankhurst was being constantly arrested

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and so a jujitsu squad was formed to prevent this happening.

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The point of this was actually to protect

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Emmeline Pankhurst from rearrest.

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So once she was released from jail,

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she would go off and do her speeches and her unlawful activities and then,

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there was a corps of bodyguards, around, probably 25 women.

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And they would be swinging clubs, they would be using jujitsu,

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they would be arming themselves with cardboard body armour,

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under their dresses, and they would be distracting the police

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and get into a bit of a fight with the police,

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while Emmeline Pankhurst was whisked away in a cab to safety.

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The jujitsu bodyguard helped keep Emmeline Pankhurst on the front

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pages until the First World War ended all militant activity.

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Martial arts had gained a toe-hold amongst

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the well-to-do of Britain.

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In the final years of the First World War,

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a new self-defence art with its own distinctive philosophy arrived.

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But this time, it was brought here by the Japanese themselves.

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Judo was an evolution of jujitsu

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and was introduced to Britain as the thinking man's martial art.

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It was a modern style which had been developed in Japan

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over 40 years by its founder, Jigoro Kano.

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I think that the significance of Kano was that he was

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a sort of Marquis of Queensbury figure.

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The Marquis of Queensbury took a British martial art, boxing,

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cleaned it up and turned it into more of a sport.

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Kano did for jujitsu what the Marquis of Queensbury did for boxing.

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Kano worked with a padded floor.

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Queensbury worked with a padded fist.

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Kano removed the more dangerous techniques of traditional jujitsu.

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For the first time,

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practitioners could train at full speed without injuring themselves.

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What that meant was, by taking out some of the dangerous bits,

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it could be used as a form of training, sparring.

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It's a bit like putting two boxes out and saying, OK,

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you don't have to go full out but hit them as best you can.

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So judo was the same. He created this free-fighting system

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and people could do it for hours and hours.

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With judo, martial arts broadened its appeal into the professional classes of Britain.

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It was something which was intended

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for middle-class consumption.

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So it was regarded as both scientifically refined

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and safe, something that would be, as it were,

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appreciated by middle classes the world over.

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So the whole outreach in this country was to appeal to a middle-class

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audience, putting forward the whole idea of a dynamic, safe,

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modernised martial art, with antiquitarian roots,

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but very much streamlined and brought up-to-date for modern consumption.

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It attracted people from English, London society,

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who were from the professions, they were barristers, doctors,

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people with time and finance to be able to indulge their interest in the East.

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All of the traditional elements of Japanese politesse were

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retained for judo,

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but along with that ritualistic sense of politeness,

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what Kano wants very, very much to put forward is the idea that A, it was safe,

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B, it was sporting.

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It could be used for sporting competition.

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Within a code of sporting ethics, which was very, very much analogous to the sporting

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ethics that you would find in the British approach to sportsmanship.

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So all of that was a meeting point for people from both sides to

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enjoy this particular art or sport.

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It was a hybrid art or sport.

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Japan was very, very much on the Allied side during World War I,

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unlike in World War II, of course.

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And there was very, very much an outreach to Europe,

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an understanding that for the future of Japan there needed to be this

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kind of close cooperation and an understanding of European culture.

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At the same time, there was a real drive to find

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a method of exporting the values of Japanese culture to Europe.

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As part of that drive, a group of Japanese businessmen had

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emigrated to Britain and joined the effort. One of them was Gunji Koizumi.

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Koizumi set up a Japanese cultural centre opposite

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Buckingham Palace called the Budokwai, which celebrated everything from

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tea ceremony to flower arranging, but especially the study of judo.

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It was an instant hit.

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It was exotic.

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Because Japan in those days meant Fujiyama, geisha girls,

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you know, little paper umbrellas, you know, tea ceremony.

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That was all part of the package. So it was exotic.

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But at the same time, the guys who did it had cauliflower ears

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and broken noses, so there was this bizarre mix.

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Martial arts have always evolved.

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And one of the first British innovations was designed to

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keep Western students motivated.

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Koizumi invented a not-so ancient martial arts tradition -

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the coloured belt system.

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That's how the judo people get you addicted.

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It's very wicked.

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So everyone is climbing up the ladder with its coloured rungs.

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And all they want is the black.

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And, as soon as they get to the black, they've suddenly learned,

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really, how extraordinarily complicated judo is,

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that they actually know nothing.

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It's like learning a language - you just learn more

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and more refinement and you never know it all.

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Koizumi, seen here teaching,

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was to be at the centre of British martial arts for the next 45 years.

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With its emphasis on safety,

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judo became the art of choice for women interested in self-defence.

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Your aim is to get your opponent off his balance

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and then to push or pull him in the direction his body inclines.

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I'll have that bag...

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Because of the way judo had been developed,

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strength and size were less important than technique.

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I'll smash you for that!

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One of the pioneers of the art was Sarah Mayer.

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Sarah started judo at the Budokwai with Koizumi, late 1920s.

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In 1934, she decided to travel to Japan.

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Very unusual for a woman of that time.

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She went via Bombay and through China, and ended up in Kobe,

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and she was carrying with her introductions from Koizumi

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to various jujitsu schools and judo establishments in Japan.

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Mayer was able to train with the very best that Japan had to offer.

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Last week, I met Professor Kano for the first time.

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I'd expected to meet a very aloof person,

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for everyone seems to stand in such awe of him that I felt quite nervous.

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Instead, I found a charming old gentleman with European manners,

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who greeted me warmly and made me feel quite at home.

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He seems most anxious to help me.

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The Japanese were regarded as the gold standard of judo.

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It was difficult for any Westerner, let alone a woman.

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But Sarah Mayer trained with the men.

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I practised with him once at the Kodokan

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and often sit and watch him. He is extraordinary.

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Very frail and delicate. Very small and looks quite old.

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He was in a playful mood when I practised with him.

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He just threw me round the room as if I were an Indian rubber ball.

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And when I tried any throw, he simply wasn't there any longer.

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In March 1936, Mayer became

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the first Western woman to be awarded a black belt in Japan.

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For a woman to achieve a black belt

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and for that to have been achieved in Japan, really sets out

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the stall for women's judo and says, look, we have arrived.

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We are to be taken seriously.

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And that's how, I think, generations of female judoka,

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subsequently, have a debt of gratitude to Sarah.

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In the 1930s, judo was becoming popular right across Europe.

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Including Nazi Germany.

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Sieg heil! Sieg heil!

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Before long, Britain was fighting the Nazis for real.

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In World War II, martial arts would take on an entirely different,

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far less sporting face.

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It would leave the gymnasium and return to its battlefield roots.

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Desperate times called for desperate measures.

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For the martial artist in wartime,

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any notion of fair play had to be left in the gym.

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Unarmed combat called for a more brutal approach.

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There are no Marquis of Queensbury rules in guerrilla warfare.

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It is a simple matter of kill or be killed, capture or be captured.

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This is All-In Fighting by WE Fairbairn.

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This is the book that was issued to commandos

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and other allied forces as their official unarmed combat syllabus.

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William Fairbairn, who looked more like a vicar than a man

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who could kill with his bare hands, had written a manual that

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included everything a soldier needed to know about fighting dirty.

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This was not a nice book. Not a nice manual.

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It was simply...

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elements of the martial arts stripped down to purely "kill the enemy".

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Fairbairn, who featured in these films,

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was a good man to have in a tight spot.

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Knee to the pit of the stomach and that's that.

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He was a judo and jujitsu black belt and for 32 years,

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he served as a policeman in Shanghai,

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the roughest city in the world.

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'and Gerry sails through space once more.

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'And just to make sure...'

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He had taken part in over 800 incidents,

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most of which involved firearms or knives or bottles.

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That's probably more combat than a lot of soldiers have seen.

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'The little finger can be seized and bent savagely backwards.

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'Then, turning with seized arm, edge of the hand blows are applied

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'with great gusto and paralysing results.'

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When war broke out, Fairbairn was enlisted to train both British

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and American covert troops in skills they would need behind enemy lines.

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'In this phase of the instruction period,

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'the student is taught the gentle art of murder.

0:24:260:24:29

'The technique of killing or crippling his opponent

0:24:290:24:32

'with his two hands at close quarters.'

0:24:320:24:34

He combined the streetfighting tactics he'd encountered in Shanghai

0:24:340:24:37

with his sporting martial arts skills.

0:24:370:24:39

'Grasp the pistol and deflect it toward him.'

0:24:390:24:43

He knew that there was a difference between what was done on the mat

0:24:440:24:49

and what was done in real life, so he decided to adapt, look at certain

0:24:490:24:53

techniques that you could use while you were scared out of your wits.

0:24:530:24:57

"If possible, bite his ear. Even although not successful,

0:24:570:25:00

"this will cause him to bend forward into a position from which

0:25:000:25:04

"you can seize his testicles with your right hand."

0:25:040:25:08

You've got to think like a gutter fighter.

0:25:080:25:10

You've got to be ruthless, you've got to be cruel.

0:25:100:25:14

"With all the strength of your arms,

0:25:140:25:16

"assisted by the forward movement of the upper part of your body,

0:25:160:25:18

"smash him down on your right knee and break his spine."

0:25:180:25:22

He called it All-In Fighting.

0:25:220:25:24

To use a modern phrase, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

0:25:260:25:30

You use everything available in the course for a fight to win.

0:25:300:25:36

'If your adversary hold you up from the rear, turn away from the gun,

0:25:360:25:40

'falling into him.

0:25:400:25:42

'Pin his gun arm and lock it with your left, at the same time,

0:25:420:25:45

'jabbing to his the chin and eyes and bringing the knee up to his testicles.

0:25:450:25:50

'As he falls, go with them, keeping your knee in his groin.'

0:25:500:25:53

For Fairbairn, survival was an easy calculation to make.

0:25:540:25:57

80% intent, 20% technique.

0:25:590:26:02

The intent is "I'm going to win.

0:26:020:26:06

"You're going down. I intend to hurt you. I intend to win."

0:26:070:26:12

But coming out of the Second World War,

0:26:220:26:24

it was American troops based in Okinawa that

0:26:240:26:27

would have the biggest impact on British martial arts.

0:26:270:26:30

They had found a new secret weapon in self-defence.

0:26:300:26:33

Karate differed from judo and jujitsu as it concentrated on ways

0:26:480:26:52

of striking, punching and kicking, rather than grappling and throwing.

0:26:520:26:57

In terms of martial arts,

0:26:570:26:58

the most significant event was to do with the American

0:26:580:27:02

occupation of Japan, Okinawa, after the Second World War because,

0:27:020:27:06

during that time,

0:27:060:27:07

you saw American servicemen learning, en masse, Japanese martial arts

0:27:070:27:13

and then taking them back to America

0:27:130:27:15

and these are the martial arts that find their way into popular consciousness.

0:27:150:27:20

And it wasn't long before Britain was exposed to it too.

0:27:200:27:23

Most Brits after the Second World War would have first

0:27:240:27:29

encountered Asian martial arts in general through the films, and

0:27:290:27:33

it was first of all through karate moves in films, the karate chop.

0:27:330:27:37

The first time British people as a general filmgoing audience would

0:27:380:27:43

have seen martial arts

0:27:430:27:45

would have been in the one or two post-war film noirs.

0:27:450:27:50

The big sequence is a scene with Spencer Tracy in Bad Day At Black Rock.

0:27:500:27:57

A film like Bad Day At Black Rock, which is a 1955 film,

0:27:570:28:02

in that fight scene, you've got the chop.

0:28:020:28:05

HE GASPS

0:28:100:28:11

There is a chop to the neck, a chop to the lower back.

0:28:180:28:21

It's amazingly appealing and it symbolises in a very, very

0:28:230:28:28

easy and small form, the other, the strange, the exotic.

0:28:280:28:32

I suspected that that scene in Bad Day at Black Rock would have

0:28:320:28:35

had enormous impact, just because it was so shocking.

0:28:350:28:41

I understand that before it was filmed,

0:28:410:28:43

Spencer Tracy read the script and said, "This is ridiculous.

0:28:430:28:46

"There is no way a guy with one arm could defeat a big thug,"

0:28:460:28:51

and the martial arts adviser put his hand in his pocket

0:28:510:28:55

and then beat Spencer Tracy up with one arm.

0:28:550:28:58

And Tracy said, "OK, I believe that," and was very keen to learn the moves.

0:28:580:29:02

It started out with those weird little newsreel clips

0:29:040:29:07

of people breaking bricks and head-butting boards.

0:29:070:29:11

And then the mythology sort of built up around it

0:29:120:29:15

and it started appearing in sort of cool movies.

0:29:150:29:20

I think Elvis became a karate guy.

0:29:200:29:23

Come on! Come on.

0:29:260:29:27

No, no! That's karate.

0:29:270:29:28

The public perception of karate at the time,

0:29:280:29:32

other than those people who were actually doing it,

0:29:320:29:35

was, again, it was this devastating fighting skill

0:29:350:29:38

where you could chop somebody with the with the side of your hand

0:29:380:29:41

and they'd fall down dead.

0:29:410:29:43

Of course, you know and I know that it's not like that,

0:29:430:29:46

but that was the perception.

0:29:460:29:47

It was something Oriental and mysterious,

0:29:470:29:51

and you don't argue with karate guys.

0:29:510:29:54

Or girls.

0:29:540:29:55

Martial arts were the must-have skill for TV action stars.

0:29:550:29:59

You can see the advance in fashions of martial arts styles

0:30:010:30:06

in the Avengers heroines.

0:30:060:30:08

Honor Blackman became very good at judo.

0:30:080:30:10

But when Diana Rigg came in, for her, it was karate.

0:30:120:30:15

Oyuka!

0:30:270:30:28

You attacked her as a woman.

0:30:340:30:36

But she has the skill of a man.

0:30:360:30:39

In fact, her fight sequences are a combination of karate and ballet,

0:30:390:30:43

which is really quite striking and very influential.

0:30:430:30:46

Action movie heroines still do that,

0:30:460:30:49

the sort of ballet kicks and karate chops.

0:30:490:30:52

That still seems to be a good way of taking down five bad guys.

0:30:520:30:57

Unlike the elite samurai roots of judo,

0:31:050:31:08

karate was originally developed

0:31:080:31:10

as a means of self-protection for peasants and workers in rural Japan.

0:31:100:31:15

In Japan itself,

0:31:210:31:23

you would find that karate had a very much more working-class environment

0:31:230:31:26

and certain forms of karate were even more working-class than other forms,

0:31:260:31:31

like kyokushinkai with its very much more manly or rougher edge.

0:31:310:31:36

The knockdown ethos of kyokushinkai

0:31:360:31:39

appealed to a very, very working-class environment.

0:31:390:31:42

It was almost inevitable that in this country,

0:31:420:31:45

it would also appeal to a working-class environment.

0:31:450:31:48

Yeah, I come from the East End of London,

0:31:540:31:56

lived in a sort of two-up two-down.

0:31:560:31:59

Ticky Donovan, seen training here, took up karate as a teenager.

0:32:000:32:04

Fighting then, it was sort of a common thing in the East End,

0:32:050:32:09

so it was... My mother didn't want me to do it,

0:32:090:32:12

but I wanted to learn to protect myself.

0:32:120:32:15

As karate entered popular culture,

0:32:150:32:17

clubs began to spring up across the country.

0:32:170:32:19

When I first started going to the club in Clapham Common,

0:32:190:32:22

it'd be packed and the Japanese would have free fighting,

0:32:220:32:26

and next week you'd go, it was half empty

0:32:260:32:28

cos people wanted to do the moves but didn't want to get up and fight.

0:32:280:32:33

But coming from the East End, we just loved the fighting side of it.

0:32:330:32:37

As a Glaswegian, I've always been very interested in fighting,

0:32:380:32:42

purely for survival reasons.

0:32:420:32:44

However, I think karate gave opportunities

0:32:440:32:48

for the young people of the time

0:32:480:32:51

to do something different from the sort of rather grey surroundings.

0:32:510:32:56

Most of my friends were taking the mickey out of me, you know,

0:32:560:33:00

as I went into Wimpy, they'd go, "Oh, here comes Ticky, chop-chop!"

0:33:000:33:03

I just couldn't get enough of it.

0:33:030:33:05

I mean, I pulled every muscle I think I own.

0:33:050:33:08

I pulled my hamstrings, pulled everything, you know,

0:33:080:33:11

with the stretching and kicking,

0:33:110:33:13

but I just loved every minute of it.

0:33:130:33:15

Haa!

0:33:150:33:17

MUSIC: "Dazed And Confused" by Led Zeppelin

0:33:170:33:20

Karate's tough reputation didn't put off women either.

0:33:260:33:29

This is the other side of Pauline Fuller.

0:33:310:33:33

Housewife, mother,

0:33:340:33:36

and Europe's top woman karate expert.

0:33:360:33:40

Down at the gym, Pauline sheds her feminine qualities

0:33:400:33:43

along with her blouse and skirt,

0:33:430:33:45

and becomes five foot nothing of blonde ferocity.

0:33:450:33:49

I was the first woman in England to do karate. I used to be scared stiff.

0:33:490:33:52

I used to hide and creep out when the lesson started.

0:33:520:33:55

But, I thought, "Well, here goes," so I took it up.

0:33:550:33:58

For the next ten years, karate was the martial art of choice

0:34:020:34:06

but its deadly image would eventually prove unpalatable to the media.

0:34:060:34:11

We've all heard of judo

0:34:110:34:13

but here, in Tokyo, there is another form of self defence

0:34:130:34:17

in which Japan leads the world. It's called karate.

0:34:170:34:21

It's a method by which a hand, a fist,

0:34:230:34:26

can be more deadly than any cosh

0:34:260:34:29

and a Japanese can kill at one blow

0:34:290:34:32

by striking seven vulnerable points of the body.

0:34:320:34:35

Now, when you've learnt how to kill people with one blow,

0:34:370:34:40

-what are you going to do with that?

-I don't know.

0:34:400:34:43

I was going to tell the other people in England about it

0:34:450:34:47

but I'll have to think it over, I think.

0:34:470:34:50

Already with an image problem,

0:34:500:34:52

karate was about to be struck a heavy blow.

0:34:520:34:55

We had a major problem occur in '67, I think it was.

0:35:030:35:07

A kitchen hand called Anthony Creamer

0:35:080:35:12

had bought a book called What Is Karate? by Masutatsu Oyama.

0:35:120:35:16

It's quite a violent form of the art

0:35:160:35:19

and he fell out with one of the waiters

0:35:190:35:22

in an establishment he worked at

0:35:220:35:24

and apparently, within three seconds,

0:35:240:35:27

he'd killed a man stone dead

0:35:270:35:29

and quite rightly, he was put away for it.

0:35:290:35:32

But the fallout was very bad.

0:35:320:35:34

The judge in the court...

0:35:340:35:36

..said something in the region of,

0:35:380:35:40

"I am so appalled at what I've heard here that I think this..."

0:35:400:35:44

The words he used was, "vicious and evil skill

0:35:440:35:48

"should be banned in this country."

0:35:480:35:51

Self-taught Anthony Creamer had broken the golden rule

0:35:510:35:54

that martial arts should only be used for self-defence.

0:35:540:35:58

Their moral and ethical foundation was publicly called into question.

0:35:580:36:02

But martial arts were also being challenged from within

0:36:040:36:07

by those who wanted to move them into a new arena.

0:36:070:36:10

By the 1960s, martial arts had begun

0:36:170:36:19

to leave their traditional roots behind and turn into pure sports.

0:36:190:36:23

Judo was the first to change.

0:36:250:36:27

Old school self-defence took a back seat to competition.

0:36:280:36:32

For the first time,

0:36:320:36:33

British martial artists began looking to the West for inspiration.

0:36:330:36:38

You look to other sports. You see what other sports are doing,

0:36:380:36:41

what boxing is doing, what wrestling is doing,

0:36:410:36:43

all Olympic sports, and of course, you want to join them.

0:36:430:36:46

The father of British judo, Gunji Koizumi,

0:36:460:36:49

had always tried to prevent this transition

0:36:490:36:52

into a solely sporting pursuit.

0:36:520:36:54

It was peculiar. Koizumi didn't believe in sport judo

0:36:540:36:57

and the reason he didn't like sport judo

0:36:570:37:00

was because he thought it produced conceited individuals

0:37:000:37:04

whose only focus was on winning, that was it.

0:37:040:37:06

My understanding is that

0:37:080:37:09

Koizumi really saw judo very much

0:37:090:37:11

as this intellectual and moral education

0:37:110:37:14

and much less so as a sport.

0:37:140:37:16

But the process of turning judo into a sport had become unstoppable.

0:37:160:37:22

Syd Hoare represented Britain in the first Olympics to feature judo,

0:37:220:37:27

Tokyo, 1964.

0:37:270:37:29

You go in the stadium and you're looking at these thousands of people

0:37:290:37:32

all waving flags and shouting and screaming.

0:37:320:37:35

You're in a big, open field

0:37:350:37:37

and then, your name is called out

0:37:370:37:38

and then you go up on the mat

0:37:380:37:40

and there's somebody on the far side walking on

0:37:400:37:43

and you may know him, you may not,

0:37:430:37:45

you know, "I wonder what this one's going to be like."

0:37:450:37:47

Scary. It's very scary to step on a mat

0:37:470:37:51

and face your opponent and look them in the eye.

0:37:510:37:55

Once you go on the mat, you're handcuffed to someone.

0:37:570:38:01

It's like you've been handcuffed to a running machine.

0:38:010:38:04

You've just got to keep going.

0:38:040:38:07

You can't... There's no ball to pass to anyone else.

0:38:070:38:10

It just keeps happening to you

0:38:100:38:12

and this is often terrifying, which is always very interesting.

0:38:120:38:16

You can win by throwing someone flat on their back,

0:38:180:38:21

by getting a submission from a lock on the elbow or from a strangle.

0:38:210:38:25

For British judo fighters,

0:38:340:38:35

the world stage was a chance to take on the best,

0:38:350:38:38

and the best were the Japanese.

0:38:380:38:41

In the early days, the Japanese were completely pre-eminent.

0:38:430:38:48

I mean, nobody could beat them.

0:38:480:38:51

And then emerged a very big Dutchman called Anton Geesink,

0:38:530:38:59

who was very large and very powerful

0:38:590:39:05

and very, very good at judo.

0:39:050:39:08

Geesink's golds at the '61 World Championships

0:39:080:39:11

and the '64 Tokyo Olympics opened the floodgates.

0:39:110:39:15

The Japanese were no longer unbeatable

0:39:150:39:17

and the chance for British competitors had arrived.

0:39:170:39:20

This was a kind of cataclysmic moment

0:39:200:39:23

in the history of international judo, you know,

0:39:230:39:28

and an astonishing achievement.

0:39:280:39:31

Japan was just devastated by this loss.

0:39:310:39:35

I mean, people weeping in the streets.

0:39:350:39:37

The fact that Geesink won

0:39:380:39:40

really allowed Westerners to have a renewed sense of self-belief

0:39:400:39:45

about their ability to compete with the Japanese.

0:39:450:39:49

I think, prior to Geesink, there was certainly a sense

0:39:490:39:53

that if you drew a Japanese, you probably were going to lose.

0:39:530:39:56

A couple of years later on,

0:39:560:39:57

there were Russians winning world championships,

0:39:570:40:00

French winning world championships,

0:40:000:40:02

there were Brits winning world championships,

0:40:020:40:04

all coming in at different times.

0:40:040:40:06

CHEERING

0:40:060:40:08

For women, the development of competitive judo

0:40:100:40:13

was a slow journey that began in the West.

0:40:130:40:16

But for Britain, it was worth the wait.

0:40:160:40:18

Woman's judo was quite late getting started,

0:40:200:40:24

and indeed, the first contests

0:40:240:40:27

were conducted behind a curtain in some leisure centre

0:40:270:40:30

because it was felt that the public wasn't quite ready to cope with...

0:40:300:40:35

..you know, the sight of woman on the mat,

0:40:370:40:40

but I think that's kind of changed.

0:40:400:40:43

106-pound final. 48 kilos.

0:40:430:40:47

Jane Bridge of Great Britain against Anna de Novellis of Italy.

0:40:470:40:52

Bridge wearing 107, Anna wearing 110 on the back of her gi.

0:40:520:40:57

Our early woman's teams used to beat the Japanese all the time,

0:40:590:41:04

and the first women's world champion was a Brit.

0:41:040:41:09

Jane Bridge of Great Britain the gold medal winner

0:41:090:41:12

in the 106-pound category.

0:41:120:41:14

And that win gave Jane Bridge

0:41:160:41:18

Britain's first ever gold medal in world championship judo.

0:41:180:41:21

Indeed, in any world level competition, not even Brian Jacks,

0:41:210:41:24

Dave Starbrook, Keith Remfry or Neil Adams have achieved that.

0:41:240:41:26

Judo club members and friends also turned out to welcome her back

0:41:260:41:30

after a competition in which

0:41:300:41:32

she not only became the world champion at her weight

0:41:320:41:35

but also the award which carried

0:41:350:41:37

the grand conscription "Best Stylist on Earth".

0:41:370:41:40

After the official welcome, the band led a procession

0:41:400:41:42

through the streets of the town to her parents' chip shop.

0:41:420:41:45

There, her tearful granny had laid on a fish and chip supper,

0:41:450:41:48

something Jane normally doesn't touch when she's in training.

0:41:480:41:51

Karate followed a similar trajectory.

0:41:580:42:01

It became something Britain excelled at.

0:42:020:42:04

At first, there were barely any competitions outside Japan.

0:42:060:42:10

When karate first come in,

0:42:120:42:14

it was just traditional, you know,

0:42:140:42:16

it was a self defence.

0:42:160:42:18

People went to learn karate to protect their self.

0:42:180:42:21

Judo was already a sport then.

0:42:210:42:24

In the early days, the Japanese dominated the competition scene

0:42:250:42:29

but in a few short years,

0:42:290:42:31

British teams were mounting a credible challenge.

0:42:310:42:34

When we first started fighting the Japanese,

0:42:470:42:51

we could only mimic them,

0:42:510:42:53

so we tried to fight the same way as they did,

0:42:530:42:56

and they were faster and more supple than us,

0:42:560:43:00

and they was beating us every time.

0:43:000:43:02

As it went on, we started developing our way of fighting.

0:43:020:43:06

We started using our strength and our reach,

0:43:060:43:09

and we moved. The Japanese fought in a very straight line

0:43:090:43:12

because they very traditional. We started moving from side to side,

0:43:120:43:16

and bouncing around more, like boxing.

0:43:160:43:19

By evolving their style, the British were able to break through in 1975,

0:43:190:43:24

finally getting the Japanese at their own game,

0:43:240:43:27

and the victories kept coming.

0:43:270:43:30

We won in '82 in Taiwan,

0:43:300:43:33

then we won in '84 in Holland,

0:43:330:43:36

then we won again in '86 in Australia,

0:43:360:43:40

then '88 in Egypt,

0:43:400:43:43

and then 1990 in Mexico.

0:43:430:43:45

Great Britain won the World Championships five times in succession,

0:43:450:43:49

which no other country has ever done

0:43:490:43:52

and which, I'm pleased to say, I got the OBE off the Queen for.

0:43:520:43:56

Even the Japanese couldn't achieve what the British teams had

0:43:570:44:01

but in spite of giant-killing sporting success,

0:44:010:44:03

martial arts were always more popular with fellow practitioners

0:44:030:44:06

then the general public.

0:44:060:44:08

For martial arts to break into the mainstream,

0:44:160:44:19

it would take a secret fighting art that came from China, not Japan.

0:44:190:44:23

During the late '50s and '60s,

0:44:360:44:38

Chinese immigrants began to arrive in Britain from Hong Kong.

0:44:380:44:43

Unlike the English-speaking middle-class Japanese migrants

0:44:430:44:46

that had brought judo, the Chinese were largely poor and working-class

0:44:460:44:50

and the vibrant and insular Chinatowns of the British cities they came to

0:44:500:44:55

were closed communities.

0:44:550:44:57

I think it took the Chinese community in this country a long time

0:44:570:45:01

to come to the collective decision

0:45:010:45:04

to integrate with local society, the host society,

0:45:040:45:08

so that this applied also to the martial arts.

0:45:080:45:11

Kung fu literally means "special skill" and is a blanket term

0:45:170:45:21

for hundreds of different styles of Chinese martial art.

0:45:210:45:25

Some of these techniques were brought to Britain by immigrants.

0:45:250:45:29

There was an embargo, a literal embargo against teaching Europeans

0:45:300:45:34

for many, many long years.

0:45:340:45:36

The last defence of the Chinese,

0:45:360:45:38

as it were, against the strange, alien outside world

0:45:380:45:42

with which they were having to grapple,

0:45:420:45:46

there was always, as it were, this secret reserve -

0:45:460:45:48

"At least we can outfight these guys if we have to."

0:45:480:45:51

Kung fu master Austin Goh came to Britain to study.

0:45:530:45:57

In the '70s,

0:45:570:45:59

there was a lot of racism because Chinese are not...

0:45:590:46:02

Obvious, I'm small, people would pick on you.

0:46:020:46:04

So I had loads of fights, I have scars from knives.

0:46:040:46:06

I got quite a lot of practices every day, my being Chinese.

0:46:060:46:11

They picked on the wrong man, then?

0:46:110:46:12

They pick on the wrong man sometimes, pick on the wrong man.

0:46:120:46:15

The secrets of Chinese kung fu were unlocked for Britain

0:46:200:46:24

mostly thanks to the influence of one man.

0:46:240:46:27

Bruce Lee is probably the coolest man on the planet, of all time.

0:46:320:46:38

Bruce Lee is cooler than Elvis Presley by far.

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Bruce Lee is cooler than Jimi Hendrix.

0:46:420:46:44

Bruce Lee is as important as Che Guevara.

0:46:440:46:47

It wasn't until Bruce Lee burst onto the cinema screens

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that people had any idea, any conceptual understanding

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of, "Wow, that's kung fu!

0:46:550:46:57

"Oh, this is really different. We want some of that."

0:46:570:47:00

Bruce Lee, shown here fighting,

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combined an acrobatic screen combat style with real-life fighting skill.

0:47:050:47:09

His American films were made during a time

0:47:120:47:15

when Hollywood cinema was becoming more tolerant of violence on screen.

0:47:150:47:19

Despite the hard-edged tone of his films

0:47:220:47:25

and little being known about Chinese martial arts,

0:47:250:47:27

kung fu became a point of common interest

0:47:270:47:30

between the Chinese community and the rest of the British public,

0:47:300:47:33

many of whom were fascinated to know more.

0:47:330:47:36

DRUMMING

0:47:360:47:39

I think this will introduce some of the Chinese culture

0:47:390:47:42

to the Western people,

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especially during Chinese New Year like that.

0:47:440:47:47

Bruce Lee grew up in a middle-class family in Hong Kong.

0:47:510:47:54

When he wasn't training wing chun kung fu,

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he was a cha-cha dance champion,

0:47:570:48:00

but after a move to the USA, his kung fu skills landed him a part

0:48:000:48:04

as a TV sidekick in the series Green Hornet.

0:48:040:48:08

After a number of Hong Kong films,

0:48:080:48:10

he got his first Hollywood hit - Enter The Dragon.

0:48:100:48:14

When you see Bruce Lee on the screen,

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you know that you're seeing someone who can actually fight.

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He's doing amazing things

0:48:190:48:21

that none of the people in the movies before Bruce Lee could do,

0:48:210:48:24

so before that, you could see people do a karate chop or a throw

0:48:240:48:27

but Bruce Lee's doing things that an athlete couldn't do,

0:48:270:48:30

he's doing amazing things that a ballet dancer couldn't do.

0:48:300:48:33

So the thrilling effect of seeing that,

0:48:330:48:36

you're looking at someone fighting and you know it's choreographed

0:48:360:48:40

but you know it's real,

0:48:400:48:41

you know that Bruce Lee is a martial artist, you can tell.

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It was an amazing, amazing sensation for everybody.

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I mean, no-one had seen a man, a little guy who'd jump and scream

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and beat the hell out of anybody, and we men love that.

0:48:530:48:56

We men love it. We all wanted to be like him, big, small,

0:48:560:48:59

so he had a great...

0:48:590:49:01

He had an amazing impact to the world, and to me, to everybody,

0:49:010:49:05

to my master, to everyone,

0:49:050:49:07

because he shows the world what a human being can do,

0:49:070:49:11

regardless of Chinese, black or white,

0:49:110:49:13

that you can achieve things through hard work and training,

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and it was through that philosophy that everybody went crazy for him.

0:49:160:49:20

By the time his signature film Enter The Dragon was released in Britain,

0:49:230:49:28

Bruce Lee had already died,

0:49:280:49:29

but with his fighting style emphasised in slow motion,

0:49:290:49:33

he had a lasting impact.

0:49:330:49:35

CRUNCH

0:49:350:49:36

In the '70s, people went to see Enter The Dragon.

0:49:360:49:41

It was the first martial arts film they had ever seen

0:49:410:49:43

and coming out of the cinemas,

0:49:430:49:45

children were doing the catcalls, the screams, the kicks,

0:49:450:49:49

they were trying to do Bruce Lee immediately,

0:49:490:49:52

so the effect of Bruce Lee was immediate and lasting

0:49:520:49:55

and it was everywhere. Everyone wanted to be Bruce Lee.

0:49:550:49:58

Following their hero, many fans are fancying themselves

0:49:580:50:02

as instant kung fu champions, do-it-yourself style.

0:50:020:50:05

It was absolutely unbelievable.

0:50:050:50:06

The whole town, the whole city was crazy.

0:50:060:50:09

We all came jumping out of the cinemas,

0:50:090:50:12

pulling muscles, and flying kicks.

0:50:120:50:14

# Everybody was kung fu fighting... #

0:50:140:50:17

For the first time in Britain,

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martial arts had broken through to a wider public.

0:50:200:50:23

# In fact it was a little bit frightening... #

0:50:230:50:27

Kung fu fighting, the Carl Douglas novelty hit, I think we have to say,

0:50:270:50:31

a definition of one-hit wonder, isn't he?

0:50:310:50:33

It was one of those songs that was played forever

0:50:330:50:37

and actually, I'm sure every single documentary about martial arts

0:50:370:50:41

uses it on the soundtrack somewhere,

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so he's probably still getting royalties.

0:50:430:50:45

# And I kicked him from the hip

0:50:450:50:48

# Everybody was kung fu fighting... #

0:50:480:50:50

For one brief moment,

0:50:500:50:52

martial arts had mass market appeal.

0:50:520:50:55

They became a source of parody in popular comedies such as The Goodies

0:50:550:50:59

and featured in TV ads.

0:50:590:51:00

Hi-yah! Hi! Hi-yah!

0:51:020:51:04

Yaah!

0:51:040:51:06

Hi-yah! Hi!

0:51:060:51:08

Be careful how you use it.

0:51:080:51:10

It became a fashion statement to learn kung fu,

0:51:100:51:13

it was a subculture that developed

0:51:130:51:14

and everybody wanted to be in on the latest fad, the latest craze.

0:51:140:51:19

People started opening clubs all over the place.

0:51:220:51:24

Even people that weren't back belts

0:51:240:51:26

were just putting on black belts and opening a club.

0:51:260:51:28

I mean, in the early days, anyone wearing a pair of silk pyjamas

0:51:280:51:32

could put a poster in local paper shop saying, "Kung Fu Classes."

0:51:320:51:35

The first class was in Time Out magazine,

0:51:350:51:37

remember the old magazine in London

0:51:370:51:39

and it was listed, just said, "Kung Fu" and the address. That was it.

0:51:390:51:42

Ten. Eleven...

0:51:420:51:45

Some unqualified instructors have made as much as £30,000 a year

0:51:450:51:50

by setting up classes, charging exorbitant fees

0:51:500:51:53

and then disappearing without giving more than a few lessons.

0:51:530:51:57

A lot of them came out of the woodwork.

0:51:570:51:59

A lot of them were cooks and chefs and stuff

0:51:590:52:01

and because we didn't know,

0:52:010:52:02

if he looked Chinese, he could be a martial art master, so we enrolled.

0:52:020:52:06

We thought it was kung fu, and we had no idea,

0:52:080:52:11

no books, no videos, nothing,

0:52:110:52:14

so we had to take it on face value,

0:52:140:52:16

and it was a lot of jumping around and press-ups,

0:52:160:52:18

and we thought that was it.

0:52:180:52:20

Until now, martial arts had largely been practised by white people

0:52:230:52:27

but kung fu changed that too.

0:52:270:52:29

This was something that spread, the idea of martial arts,

0:52:330:52:38

to a very, very wide black community.

0:52:380:52:41

Bruce Lee's ethnicity is really, really important to remember.

0:52:410:52:44

Bruce Lee is not white.

0:52:440:52:46

Bruce Lee is not black, but he's not white,

0:52:460:52:50

and the importance of Bruce Lee on the screen at that time,

0:52:500:52:54

when non-white faces were such a rarity

0:52:540:52:56

or they were in minor positions,

0:52:560:52:58

here you get this small, non-white guy, beating white guys

0:52:580:53:02

and beating everyone.

0:53:020:53:04

That has a really important status.

0:53:040:53:07

Bruce Lee was the hero.

0:53:070:53:09

He was the hero the way Clint Eastwood was the hero,

0:53:090:53:12

the way Humphrey Bogart was the hero,

0:53:120:53:14

the way Alan Ladd was the hero.

0:53:140:53:16

He was absolutely the centre of the film. He got the girl

0:53:160:53:18

and in the end, he won.

0:53:180:53:20

No compromise.

0:53:200:53:22

He didn't have to die so his white best friend could move on.

0:53:220:53:26

In Britain, Bruce Lee is still THE great martial arts hero,

0:53:290:53:33

all these years later,

0:53:330:53:35

and now he has the James Dean early death thing going for him as well.

0:53:350:53:39

He didn't hang around to make lots of increasingly terrible films

0:53:390:53:42

and tarnish his reputation.

0:53:420:53:44

Bruce Lee didn't just popularise kung fu

0:53:530:53:56

but all the traditional martial arts.

0:53:560:53:58

But his own style was anything but traditional.

0:53:590:54:02

It was a hybrid system called jeet kune do.

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I think that Bruce Lee is part of the tradition,

0:54:090:54:13

which is the martial arts tradition

0:54:130:54:15

of trying to find something that works and that works best,

0:54:150:54:19

how do you construct the ultimate martial art?

0:54:190:54:22

And this has always been the question - how do you do it,

0:54:220:54:26

which way do we do it, does it work?

0:54:260:54:28

And Bruce Lee's answers are different

0:54:280:54:32

but maybe not essentially different from the answer given by bartitsu,

0:54:320:54:35

which is a hybrid martial art of East meets West.

0:54:350:54:38

Bruce Lee's jeet kune do is a combination of big long kicks,

0:54:380:54:42

of western fencing techniques

0:54:420:54:45

and copying off the punching style of Muhammad Ali,

0:54:450:54:48

which is a pretty hybrid kind of an influence.

0:54:480:54:52

The final fight scene with Chuck Norris in the Way of the Dragon

0:54:530:54:57

is the best showcase of Lee's practical style,

0:54:570:55:00

using whatever works best.

0:55:000:55:02

In the years that followed, martial artists took note

0:55:130:55:17

of Bruce Lee's ideas about effective fighting.

0:55:170:55:20

A new sport that was focused solely on practical technique,

0:55:200:55:23

at the limits of what was legally and socially acceptable,

0:55:230:55:27

was introduced from America.

0:55:270:55:28

Mixed Martial Arts, sometimes referred to as cage fighting,

0:55:320:55:36

was a combination of Hollywood spectacle

0:55:360:55:38

and the rougher end of fighting sports.

0:55:380:55:41

# Oh, this life

0:55:410:55:43

# Has knocked me down to my knees... #

0:55:430:55:47

It had shed the need for Eastern tradition,

0:55:470:55:50

replacing it with a Western mindset

0:55:500:55:52

of finding whatever was needed to win.

0:55:520:55:55

But martial arts have also evolved in the opposite direction

0:55:560:56:00

towards methods that seem as far away from combat as possible.

0:56:000:56:04

Tai chi can be a slow moving, Zen-like type of exercise

0:56:050:56:09

for those least inclined to want to know anything at all about fighting.

0:56:090:56:14

Martial arts in Britain,

0:56:150:56:17

as they are everywhere in the world, continues to evolve,

0:56:170:56:20

so I think the key thing is not to take any part of it as sacrosanct,

0:56:200:56:25

as fixed in time.

0:56:250:56:26

Nothing in this world is fixed in time anymore

0:56:260:56:29

and the martial arts will continue to be popular

0:56:290:56:32

because the martial arts will continue to dynamically evolve.

0:56:320:56:35

Martial arts are no longer the sole property of the nations that created them.

0:56:390:56:43

From Barton-Wright's first experiments,

0:56:430:56:46

they gradually became ingrained in British culture too.

0:56:460:56:49

Jujitsu provided a way for women to confront violence in society

0:56:530:56:57

and let the politicians know that they weren't to be messed with.

0:56:570:57:00

The middle classes took up judo

0:57:050:57:07

for its highly disciplined Japanese approach to sport.

0:57:070:57:10

Martial arts in Britain

0:57:140:57:16

have responded to the social needs of each generation.

0:57:160:57:19

Karate became the stronghold of working-class Britons,

0:57:240:57:27

some of whom went on to be the best in the world.

0:57:270:57:30

And kung fu burst through the cinema screens,

0:57:360:57:39

making martial arts a part of everyday life.

0:57:390:57:42

Martial arts may have sent out mixed messages

0:57:470:57:49

since they first arrived in Britain,

0:57:490:57:52

but they remain underpinned by an extraordinary idea.

0:57:520:57:55

The underlying principle that one must sort of remember,

0:57:550:58:00

which is the sort of truth that the great Kano discovered, was

0:58:000:58:05

people would get on so much better

0:58:050:58:08

if only they spent more time trying to strangle each other

0:58:080:58:11

and throw each other on the floor.

0:58:110:58:13

He believed this, and it's sort of true.

0:58:130:58:16

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