The Vince Morris Years
I suppose that this gentleman was responsible for changing my whole karate thinking and teaching methods. Without doubt Vince Morris is the most important karate teacher in modern times. It always puzzled me that if karate was a deadly self defence, then why when it came down to doing any kind of self defence in our karate club we had to do Ju Jutsu ?. This went on for years and we just went along with it as part of the clubs syllabus. Then one day I bought a karate magazine that had an article by Vince Morris, ( I used to get every martial arts magazine that came out and had a very large collection going back 30 years) Karate bunkai and Kyusho jutsu was the article. Typical Vince Morris!
This sparked off my interest in Karate as a real self defence system. Interestingly it was from an unexpected source that I was lent a copy of one of Vince’s seminar sampler videos. One of the clubs in our association that I visited now and again had a Dan grade that I had not seen for many years his name was Alan; Alan mentioned to me that he had a tape of Vince Morris. This surprised me because this was one of the clubs that did karate and then ju jutsu for self defence and was very traditional in the way they taught. Anyway Alan lent me the tape and I was hooked! I found out that Vince held regular seminars in Nottingham and booked us on the next one.
I found Vince to be a real gentleman; he was very approachable and friendly. His knowledge on Kata bunkai (application) and Kyusho jutsu (vital point techniques) was incredible. Vince showed me that Karate WAS a real effective self defence system. I and Chaddy (John) went to Nottingham almost every month for the next Five years. At times we took some of our students with us, all of them loved it! It was a pity not more people from our group took on board Vince’s methods.
This period had a real effect on the club and it went from strength to strength. I changed most of the syllabus to incorporate Vince’s methods and it worked really well.
I suppose that this gentleman was responsible for changing my whole karate thinking and teaching methods. Without doubt Vince Morris is the most important karate teacher in modern times. It always puzzled me that if karate was a deadly self defence, then why when it came down to doing any kind of self defence in our karate club we had to do Ju Jutsu ?. This went on for years and we just went along with it as part of the clubs syllabus. Then one day I bought a karate magazine that had an article by Vince Morris, ( I used to get every martial arts magazine that came out and had a very large collection going back 30 years) Karate bunkai and Kyusho jutsu was the article. Typical Vince Morris!
This sparked off my interest in Karate as a real self defence system. Interestingly it was from an unexpected source that I was lent a copy of one of Vince’s seminar sampler videos. One of the clubs in our association that I visited now and again had a Dan grade that I had not seen for many years his name was Alan; Alan mentioned to me that he had a tape of Vince Morris. This surprised me because this was one of the clubs that did karate and then ju jutsu for self defence and was very traditional in the way they taught. Anyway Alan lent me the tape and I was hooked! I found out that Vince held regular seminars in Nottingham and booked us on the next one.
I found Vince to be a real gentleman; he was very approachable and friendly. His knowledge on Kata bunkai (application) and Kyusho jutsu (vital point techniques) was incredible. Vince showed me that Karate WAS a real effective self defence system. I and Chaddy (John) went to Nottingham almost every month for the next Five years. At times we took some of our students with us, all of them loved it! It was a pity not more people from our group took on board Vince’s methods.
This period had a real effect on the club and it went from strength to strength. I changed most of the syllabus to incorporate Vince’s methods and it worked really well.
