Rolling Thunder Martial Art
The Thinking Person's Martial Art |
Formerly JC Martial Arts |
Rolling Thunder Martial Art
|
|
Contact us | Home | Training Times |
His father fought in World War ll and was a champion rifle shot.
As he rose to the rank of Sergeant Major he also became the Army's champion drill instructor, being in command of the escorts for the Southern Command for the Royal Tour in 1954.
He was renowned for his innovative teaching methods, ignoring the traditional army bullying and blustering and teaching his men by respecting them.
From this background John learned the value of dedicated practice in acquiring high level skills, as well as the importance of treating people as equals, not subordinates.
In 1961 at the age of 13, as a response to schoolyard bullying, John took his first Martial Arts lession, in Judo.
From that day on he was never bullied again.
While he didn't learn much Judo that first night, the next day he learned one of life's great lessons, which was that all bullies are cowards.
As the only junior in a club of adults, strength was useless. This led to development of techniques which used body dynamics, movement and leverage, which allowed him to hold his own against his larger opponents.
After high school he studied medicine at Sydney University, graduating in 1971.
Once in practice he became fascinated by the influence of the mind in causing physical illness. After studying psychology and sociology he devoted the majority of his medical practice to psychosomatic medicine. This interest in mind-body interactions developed into involvement with its applications in sport and led to a ten year consultancy at the Victorian Institute of Sport in the areas of coach development, athlete performance and the place of the mind in the causes and the cures of sporting injuries.
As the years passed John supplemented his Martial Arts with other activities, both physical and mental.
These included squash, horse-riding, ballroom dancing and music, playing the clarinet and then forming and running a jazz band.
Aware that Judo, while an excellent grappling art, didn't address the striking skills, John tried various striking arts without finding one which satisfied him until, in 1991, he tried Hapkido and immediately fell in love with it. Like Judo but unlike the other striking arts he had considered, Hapkido was an art which utilised circular rather than linear energy. It encompassed punching and kicking, but in a way which was light and effortless rather than heavy and muscular. One of the factors which didn't impress John with the commonly known Martial Arts was that the striking, particularly the kicking, put a grinding strain on the joints with each kick or punch, strain which irreversibly damaged the knee, hips, elbows and shoulders of the practitioners as they grew older.
The Hapkido striking allowed the joint surfaces to move apart at the moment of impact, a process which benefited the health of the joint rather than detracted from it.
The next step in the evolution of Rolling Thunder came with the incorporation of elements of Wing Chun. Hapkido sparring was somewhat ad hoc, and John found that the control over the centre line which is the core of Wing Chun provided a stable base onto which he could add Hapkido technique to create an effective combat platform.
Intrigued by reports of the internal art of Ba Gwa, John sought instruction and found that it, in its twisting motions, offered a further dimension to his evolving Martial Art, one which made throwing and self-defence techniques far more effective.
Interacting with this evolving Martial Art core all the way along were factors from the other facets of John's life.
From horse riding and latin dancing came the ability to move the hips independently of the chest, an element which is both vital and unique to Rolling Thunder.
From dancing and jazz performing came an awareness of rhythm, which led to breaking movements into individual parts and then applying a musical rhythm to them in order to facilitate the quick learning of effective, graceful
technique.
From squash came the knowledge that the shuffle step is the quickest and most mechanically effective way of covering short distances.
Underlying the process which was melding all these different elements together were two other major influences - medicine and psychology.
As a doctor John's knowledge of anatomy and human movement gave him insight into the biomechanics of movement which enabled him to eradicate inefficient and ineffective elements from techniques, leading often to innovative and unexpected improvements.
As a psychologist John was able to integrate understanding and anticipation of human movements into the dynamics of his techniques, adding yet another perspective.
In his position of Medical Commissioner to the Professional Boxing and Combat Sports Board of Victoria and ringside physician, John officiated at and observed countless thousands of combat bouts in professional boxing, amateur boxing, kick boxing, Thai boxing, Cambodian boxing, Karate, Taikwondo, mixed martial arts and various other disciplines. This gave him graphic evidence of what works and what doesn't in the competition arena, as well as what constitutes a good trainer versus a poor trainer.
By 2009 all these intertwining strands had resulted in the emergence of a distinctive new martial art, for which John chose the name Rolling Thunder.