In 1991 Sensei Graham Dunn invited me to attend a seminar on Jujitsu with Shihan Jan De Jong. I had been training in Karate for 19 years at this time and Jujitsu for 3 years. It was at this seminar that things came together. This gentle man I’m sure inspired many on that day and you’ll see that many who were in attendance still train to this day with the principles and techniques learnt and still being applied. I met many of those in attendance again over the years as we came back to spend some more time with Jan De Jong. It wasn’t just the techniques, he also gave us a tremendous amount of history and kept things on the move, always with a subtle sense of humor. As I ask around it’s amazing how many people and martial arts in general have been influenced by this man, including President Terry Riches and myself.
Below is two photos of seminars I attended, some calendars and personal postcards he would hand out. John Coles has done a fantastic blog on his life, his style and his school.