'The Dragon with two tales'
It's funny how life is really just a game. Fate will deal you the ace of spades and spit in your face, then as if by chance, you'll roll a double six, give Lady luck a beautiful rendition of the 'Agincourt salute' and shout, 'I think this is yours ma'am'.
The night of Friday 26th September 1995 was no different than any other, initially...
What started as a simple 'excuse me' in a bar turned into a violent encounter where all the things we take for granted in our lives are suddenly thrust in our face and something in your head says 'and what do you make of all this then?' The value of your life is brought into question. A million 'what if?' scenarios run through our minds.
Getting to A&E to be told that I was lucky that I hadn't lost the sight of my left eye after being kicked in the face was the catalyst of my pursuit of a martial arts venture.
The violent encounter of which I speak was not in itself a fight but an episode in my life where I was faced with two possible outcomes: Do I go through this again or do I do something about it?
This is where I, the dragon, grow two tales...
The search of a quick fix was in itself was a strange quirk of fate. I took my torn jacket into Dallori leatherwear in Poole to be repaired. The proprieter, Malcolm, upon seeing my battered face, struck up a conversation about what had happened. The irony was, Malcolm also had a boxing club, which I, looking for self-protection dutifully went along too. Two years under the wing of an ex-professional boxer saw me into the early stages of the self-protection training of which I sought. It was in the boxing I was to learn a basic form of tai-sabaki, which was later to realise itself as a key element in Sankujitsu.
The first pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were being laid out right in front of my eyes but yet I hadn't even seen a picture.
Malcolm had been offered an ABA coach position at a stable too far for me to travel to. At the same time I met a chap at work called John Watson who I knew was a black belt in karate. John and I got talking about the technical differences between boxing and karate. Before I knew it, I had agreed to a sparring match to which I was quickly being scraped off of the floor. As much as I enjoyed the boxing, I quickly realised that it wasn't the answer I had been looking for.
The next Tuesday I was at a (Shukokai) Karate club. I didn't even realise that karate had different styles.
I trained in Shukokai for four and half years attaining the grade of shodan. I think that by this time it was becoming obvious that other people's reasons for me training were (or rather had) overtaken my own and thought it best to move on.
A year of Wado-Ryu took me through to me joining a Sankukai club. At the Sankaukai club I found myself initially content with a syllabus based on my old favourite kata. After about four years, I again started to question the very foundations of Sankukai.
April 12th 2007 I opened my own club, initially with just six students. The club under the banner of the 'Sankukai' name was quite clearly undergoing massive changes. Basic fundamentals that I had learned during my training in Shukokai were brought back into my teaching. The weight-drop on impact punching and emphasis on hip position in all techniques were the qualities I re-introduced from Shukokai. If you read the information on the club's website you'll see that I don't just dictate to do a technique one specific way. I demonstrate why and the mistakes to look out for that will cause the technique to be less effective.
Punching within the style of Sankujitsu is performed with the fist landing in the vertical position as it strikes the target. This technique was demonstrated openly in front of the class using a new student hitting an impact pad. The holder of the pad had their eyes closed so they couldn't see how the technique was landing. In the test the punch was performed with the fist striking in the seiken zuki (conventional-karate horizontal) position, Nannamaken (diagonal fist) and tatezuki (vertical fist) positions. Tatezuki proved itself to be the most effective in terms of power and functionality.
Techniques such as blocks were also changed. Shuto-uke in Sankujitsu comes forward to intercept an incoming technique rather than come back then forward as most other karate styles do.
The rising block, Jodan-uke, in Sankujitsu has over emphasis on the angle of the blocking-forearm with a low elbow position to make the technique stronger. Again this was pressure tested. A student, in a demonstration, pulled down the blocking arm of a student with their arm in the Jodan-uke position with a raised elbow � giving the finishing position a flatter profile. When the elbow was lowered to create a sharp angle of the blocking arm and the test repeated, rather than the blocking arm pulled down the student's whole body became rotated because the connection in the shoulder was so strong!
I swapped the last set-of-four techniques of Pinan Shodan with the respective sequence of Pinan Nidan as I believed that Pinan Shodan's ending was too technical as a first kata.
In November 2007 a student keen to identify himself with Sankukai had been searching the web only to realise that what I was teaching was not 'pedigree' Sankukai'. Following a conversation with Andrew Morrell, the president of Cobra Martial Arts Association to which we were now members, it was suggested that I brand the style of that which I now teach under my own name. Also, by coincidence at this time I had bought a DVD of Jean Frenett's style called 'Sankudo'. I noticed how he had replaced the 'kai' suffix of Sankukai with 'do' and subsequently named his style 'Sankudo', consequently the name Sankujitsu just naturally manifested itself. The style was then renamed retrospectively to Sankujitsu and club became Sankujitsu Karate Budokai.
�And the rest, as they say, is history.
For interested parties please visit our club website: www.sankujitsu.co.uk
Sensei Lee Batchelor can be contacted via email at lee@sankujitsu.co.uk or by phone on 07941554886.
Combat magazine will be printing a [rather large] feature about Sankujitsu and me in the May 2008 edition of the publication. On Sale at WH Smiths for anyone interested enough to buy a copy and read the review.