Dream.Love.Grow

Leeds, London – We had the pleasure of speaking with Martin after he decided to open up his school. It’s not just any ordinary school, it’s where you train to become a ninja. Just kidding, but the practice is very much an art and anyone who has the courage to follow their dreams, is worth speaking to in our books. Below is his story.

How did you first begin to learn and how many years have you been practicing?
I first picked up a pair of hollow, plastic, training nunchaku when I was around 11 years old. The timing couldn’t have been better. I had just seen Bruce Lee’s famous clip in Enter The Dragon just days earlier. In one blinding flash I had seen somebody show me the miraculous and I wanted a piece of it.

The very first move I learnt was what I call the ‘Standard Catch’; the right arm swings the nunchaku outwards and upwards in front of the body. flinging the free moving baton over the right arm. The free baton is caught by a waiting left hand already waiting in a catch position just to the right of the ribs on the right side of the body. From there, the left arm swings outwards and upwards, flinging the free baton over the left arm to a waiting right hand. A rhythm can then be built up of one revolution after another with the practitioner in the middle.

How did you first begin to learn and how many years have you been practicing?
The timing was not only special because of the Bruce Lee film but because I had reached an age where I was gaining more spacial awareness, an understanding of geometrics and I had an enquiring mind. It was a period of spiritual awakening when my intuitive nature was really starting to reveal itself in other respects such as music. It was at this time that I first encountered Buddhist thought and Taoism for example. Phrases I had heard on the Japanese cult classic, ‘The Water Margin’, such as “Do not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon” and “Don’t think. Feel. It is like a finger pointing to the moon (smack). Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory.” (Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon) really captured my imagination and I was drawn to the deeper side of martial arts training.

All these factors came together to lead me on a journey of discovery through my nunchaku practice, learning how they ‘want’ to move and working with those forces. That journey started just over 30 years ago, and has included training in Goju Ryu (Karate), Jiu Jutsu, Iaido (The Way of The Sword), Kobudo (Japanese weapons), Wado Ryu (Karate) and lots of creative weapons play.

What has practicing this art taught you?

The main thing that nunchaku has taught me is that reality is beyond description and to get the most from life we must feel it and embrace it totally, going with the forces that that are constantly at work. If someone is pushing in business, in a personal relationship, in the street, the most intelligent thing we can do is accept what is in front of us and work with it – without judgement. The best results are achieved through harmony. Sometimes we need to yield. Sometimes we need to assert. By feeling the ebb and flow of life, we can see threats before they are too close, and not be in the line of fire. That is why I wore the blindfold in the clips, and the reason why I am not out of breath at the end of the clips. It is also the reason I did what I did in everyday clothes. I guess Bruce Lee or Lau Tsu would say ‘There is no Martin. There are no nunchaku; just movements in harmony.’

How can it help others? Mentally? Physically?
For me, teaching people nunchaku has never been about teaching people nunchaku. I encourage people to feel, to trust their intuition, to put aside their discriminatory mind and allow an inner wisdom or guide to come through; to go with their instincts. My personal opinion is that this inner wisdom is what some would call God and I only wish that listening to it was as easy while surrounded by the pressures of life as it is when I am surrounded by swirling nunchaku.

Why did you choose to create this school?
Although I have been teaching nunchaku for many years as a welcome visitor to martial arts clubs, this has always been informal and not as a recognised school. As a self-employed person, I now feel as though I have the flexibility to fit the school into my life and I feel as though my time has come at the end of a long and necessary maturation process. ‘Chan’ is the traditional Chinese word for meditation or ‘Zen’ in Japanese, and it is effectively learning through meditation. I avoided Zen in the title partly because it would create an image of a sitting Buddha which may have given a false impression of what takes place in my classes, and also because I perceive the fluidity and circularity of the moves to be more Chinese in character than Japanese (speaking from a martial arts perspective). Nobody would have recognised the Chinese for ‘nunchaku’ so I kept that word in the name of the school, even though it was Japanese.

What age range do you teach?
The Chan School Of Nunchaku can teach most people up to any age, regardless of most disabilities. As long as there is conscious awareness then one can learn nunchaku. I recently taught a blind person in a seminar. That was insightful for me because she understood some of the things I said more than the sighted students. Feel is not a choice for blind people. Teaching children is tricky if they are too young because the nunchaku can literally be too big for them to use effectively. I prefer to teach students of around 7 years and upwards. Adults can learn either in my classes or in private sessions. I am considering remote sessions through Skype.

For more information please contact: martin@chanschoolofnunchaku.co.uk