Jan de Jong speech
Introduction
Early
days in Indonesia
World War
II
Indonesia
Australia
-- early days
Japan
Australia
-- modern history
Introduction
I am very pleased to have been asked to speak at this very
auspicious occasion of the celebration of Jan's 50 years of
teaching jujutsu, as I have been one of the principal beneficiaries
of that of his teaching for the past 20 years.
There will be a number of speakers called upon during the
evening to recount their experiences and to provide you with some
insight into the man who has pursued the improvement of his own
skills and the imparting of that skill to others with a single
minded dedication that I have rarely seen in anyone in any field of
endeavour. These people will be forthright and frank in their
comments knowing that if they say anything disparaging, Jan has the
capacity to extract painful retribution beyond the capacity of
anyone else.
By way of introduction I shall give a brief history of Jan's
martial arts background.
Early Days in
Indonesia
Jan was born and raised in Indonesia. He was born in Semarang an
important port on the north coast of Middle Java.
Jan, at the age of 7, .was introduced to jujutsu by his father
who was then training jujutsu himself and wanted his sons to
learn. In those days training was a daily activity. Training
was at 2:00 in the afternoon for 2 or 3 hours, no mean feat if you
have experienced the heat of Indonesia.
Jan's teachers were two brothers, K. Saito (7th Dan) and Y.
Saito (8th Dan). One was a photographer and the other was a
florist.
Jan was just the right size and age to train with the youngest
brother of Saito Sensei, Uchi Saito, and they were the youngest
members of the class. Instruction was given in
Indonesian. Saito sensei was graded by Master Tsutsumi who
founded the system after studying Takenouchi Ryu. Recent
investigation of this by Tanaka Sensei suggests that the Tsutsumi
system may be substantially older than that and go back well before
even the origins of Takenouchi. I'm not going to elaborate on
that because there are a number of up and coming instructors here
who will have to do their history exams in due course and I would
not want to make their task too easy or lessen the enjoyment of
having to find these things out for themselves.
Jan graded to third dan, the highest technical grade.
Under the guidelines of the system, after grading 3rd dan, he could
not hold a higher grade until he was at least 35 years of
age. I certainly won't be having that problem! There
are 3 people with 2nd dan at the moment who have some aspirations
to grade 3rd. The present goal would be to do so by 40 but
for one of us, and I won't mention Paul by name, time has almost
run out.
As he would soon leave for Holland and never see his instructors
again he would not be upgraded by them and in fact held that grade
for many years.
In 1940 he left to go to Holland to train as a pilot. It was
common for Dutch people in the colonies to return to Holland to
complete their education as the qualifications from the Dutch
institutions were more highly regarded. Jan arrived just a
few months before the outbreak of hostilities with Holland.
World War
II
The outbreak of hostilities put an end to the prospect of Jan
being a pilot. Mind you for those of you that have been a
passenger in a car being driven by Jan, you can be excused for
thinking that you were in the cockpit of a 747 hurtling down the
runway for take-off.
Jan first started teaching in Rotterdam. He first started
teaching for Reinier Hulsker who owned a sports school and then
approximately 12 months later started his own school. Within
a few months of doing so he had 300 students. The reason for
teaching was that the war had interrupted the flow of funds from
his father back in Indonesia. Without a source of income he turned
to the thing that he did best. He did this for approximately
4 years. The school closed on 13 November 1944 when the occupying
forces rounded up all of the men folk to work in the munitions
factories. It was on the 11 November that he hid in the water
for 11 hours to avoid the round up.
During this period in Holland, he taught 4 people to the grade
of shodan. So far as Jan has been able to ascertain, none of
them survived the war.
Jan was involved with the Dutch underground movement and spent
much of those years attempting to stay out of the clutches of the
occupying forces.
Also during this period he studied physiotherapy at day classes
and was teaching jujutsu at nights, as well as on Wednesdays and
Saturdays.
Indonesia
Jan returned to Indonesia in 1946, joining the Dutch Indonesian
Army as a physiotherapist. He was recruited in Indonesia as
the Dutch badly needed people back in Indonesia as they tried to
reestablish themselves in the region. This was at the time
that the Dutch Indonesian Army were fighting the Indonesians in the
struggle for independence. He was first sent to Jakarta and
was stationed there for about 9 to 12 months. He went back to
his home town, Semarang, in 1947 and could find virtually no one
there from his earlier days. The war had extracted a heavy
toll. Many people had perished during the war and many people
that were taken prisoner were not detained in their local area but
were moved to camps far away. He found only three people that
he had known prior to the war.
There were no people from the old school and despite searching;
it seems that there are no survivors from that school, certainly
none that are teaching after the war. As far as we can
ascertain Jan is the sole surviving teacher of the style in the
world. We are unable to find any continuation of it in Japan.-a
shame for a system which traces its beginnings back to the 14th
century and has so much to offer.
Independence was August 1947 and Jan was offered a job as a
physiotherapist with the Indonesian Army Health Department (Jawatan
Kesehaten Tentara) and worked a couple of days per week in the
military hospitals.
It was on this occasion that Jan took up the study of the
indigenous Indonesian martial art of pencak silat, having only done
very little of it in his younger days. He was taught by Mr.
Soehardi. It was very difficult for a European to be accepted
into the brotherhood in those days. It is more than just a martial
arts school and gaining admission was a very difficult thing at
that time. That secrecy was maintained even when he came here in
that pencak was only taught discreetly, only having been opened up
in the last 15 to 20 years. At the same time the Indonesian
Government has sought to promote the art and opened it up with
International tournaments. A team is leaving to compete in Jakarta
next month as most of you will be aware.
During this time Jan was awarded the status of mahaguru which is
the highest of the technical gradings that can be awarded. It
was troubled times in Indonesia and Jan moved to Australia.
Australia - early
days
He gave his first lessons on the grounds of Parliament House. He
first stayed at the Mia Mia hostel which used to be where BP House
in Mount Street now stands. At this time the Barracks Arch was
still there with the Public Works building.
During these days Jan worked as a labourer, electrical labourer,
a packer at Gordon and Gotch and then with another man in fixing up
houses. At one stage he worked at Atkins Carlyle and it was
there that he met Margaret.
The first dojo was in Charles Street North Perth and then for a
short time in Victoria Park near Mint Street, before moving to his
home in Edgehill Street Scarborough.
In 1956 it was at the Swan River Rowing club near the Barracks
Street jetty. After 3 years there it moved to Hay Street
Perth and then in 1963 moved to its present location of 996 Hay
Street. At the time of the move to Hay Street there were
approximately 300 students.
By the late 1960's Jan was doing the unheard of - teaching
martial arts full time. Many people sought to discourage him
saying that it could not be done full time.
Japan
In 1969 Jan went to train in Japan for 6 months. He trained
under Sensei Mochizuki at Shizuoka near Mt Fuji for approximately 3
months in aikido, Shotokan karate and sword work. At that
school it was required that at least 3 arts were trained and
training was full time whilst living at the dojo. He was
graded to 1st dan in each.
During this stay he also visited the Takeuchi Ryu and Sosuishi
Ryu schools.
Australia - modern
history
Jan is the former chief instructor and advisor to the SAS of the
Australian Army and currently working on a manual for military
personnel with Greg Mawkes. He started working with Greg in
1978.
In 1978 after some experience with teaching the SAS and seeing
the results that he got, he introduced the mon grading system. It
was designed to better teach the principles of the art at an
earlier stage and resulted in better trained students.
Jan has been the Australasian representative of the World
Jujutsu Federation since 1979 and in 1980 promoted to 4th dan. In
1982 he was promoted to 6th dan when a team of students toured
Europe. This was the first trip of many where Jan would take
a team of students travelling Europe and Asia.
He was appointed National Coach of the Australian Jujutsu
Association in 1985 and also President in 1986, retaining those
positions to this day. Since being appointed to the position
of National Coach he has travelled at least once a year to the
capital cities around Australia conducting seminars.
Jan was made Vice President of the world body in 1989 - and
awarded an 8th dan in 1989.
Jan was awarded The Order of Australia Medal in 1990 for his
contribution to Martial Arts.
For the last 11 years I have travelled with Jan to a lot of
places and assisted him teaching - no matter what part of the world
he is in he is happiest on the mats doing what he does best -
teaching jujutsu.
Jan I hope that you have a very enjoyable evening and for the
rest of the celebratory weekend. I would just like to thank you for
being a great teacher and an even better friend.