Jan de Jong history
Peter Clarke March 2011
Jan de Jong was a jujutsu teacher of renown. He was also
my teacher and friend.
His background is of interest to many people with an interest in
jujutsu. In 1993 a celebration to mark his 50 years of
teaching jujutsu was held and there were a number of events over
the course of a weekend. The highlight was a formal evening
dinner. I gave a speech at this dinner, setting out his
background in martial arts.
Before reproducing the speech, I set out below some of the
background leading up to the giving of the speech.
In preparation for the task, I collected the known information
from early sources and my own knowledge. I then interviewed
Jan on two or three occasions concerning his background. From
this information, I wrote the speech tailoring the information to
accord with the occasion and the available time. The final
draft of the speech was read and approved by Jan before being
delivered.
There are a number of reasons why I have explained the
background to the formation and content of the speech. First,
the content was vetted by Jan and to a large extent represents what
he wanted said. His history and background and the material
in the speech is for the vast majority not verifiable by
documentation and comes largely from what I have been told by
him. Naturally enough both Jan and myself exercised some
editorial control of the content. Whilst our discussions were
wide ranging, one has to temper one's knowledge of matters and
write material befitting the occasion.
There are some matters in the speech which I now know to be
either quite wrong or perhaps dubious. I have not sought to
correct those matters; that is perhaps something for another
day. These shortcomings said, the speech as some historical
significance and I have chosen to publish at in its unedited
form. The passage of time has eroded any recollection of
whether I stuck to the script and how much I may have ad
libbed.
Go to
speech