An Interview with Sensei Tony Christian , part 1.

This is the first part of a long interview I did with Sensei Christian back in 2015, that was published in the UK martial arts magazine 'Martial Arts Illustrated'. 

'FOLLOWING THE TRAIL' – A CONVERSATION WITH SENSEI TONY CHRISTIAN.

Sensei Tony Christian has been involved in the martial arts for 50 years and was a professional instructor for almost 40 years , until his recent retirement. He goes back to the early days of Karate and then the introduction of Goju Ryu. The Kung Fu boom of the 1970's and the Kickboxing 1980's.

He currently hold the grade of 8^th dan and is the senior instructor within the British Karate Association.

I've been attempting to interview Sensei Tony Christian for many years – after all he is my Sensei. But as the interviewer Michael Parkinson once commented. : “There are some people you don't so much interview, as light the blue touch paper and retire.” Anyone who has met Tony Christian will know , he falls into this category. So, here goes.....

ANDY MOORHOUSE = “Back in the 1960's Karate was a very rare thing, how did you first come across it ?”

TONY CHRISTIAN = “It was a very rare thing. My interest may have come with the James Bond books and films in the very early 1960's. And these boys were seen as magic men, magic death touch.....The early boys (of Karate), the very early boys - and Danny Connor (see note 1) was one of them - had been training with the likes of Murakami and Vernon Bell (note 2). Danny had opened a club at Blair Hall in Liverpool and one of his students was Harry Benfield (note 3): a missing link in the early story of Karate here. He was a lovely guy, a lot older than me, he'd be well into his twenties, I was a teenager. A friend called Willy Gould said to me , “I've seen this Karate, you've got to come see this.” It must have been, talking to Terry Wingrove, 1965, when Kase, Enoda, Kanazawa and Shirai (4) first came over. There is a photo of them when they first must have landed. Two of them were doing a demonstration at the Red Triangle club (5). We sat mesmerised by them !

My Dad was mad on boxing (he was a boxing promoter and manger in Liverpool) and I'd been pushed into that when I was a kid. Now, I've come to a conclusion that people are sporty or their not – Like they can be musical or not, or academic or not. The people who become barristers etc were clever at school that sort of thing. I was sporty, always playing football, not much rugby in Liverpool really. And involved in boxing through my dad. I saw Karate and I'd never seen anything like it, but I remember at the time, no-one took us on. No-one was interested in getting us to join up, become members and start training. So it went on the back-burner for a bit.”

“Anyway, later Willie Gould came to me and said he had found a Karate club, by the Carlton

Cinema. Upstairs in a Labour club. This club was the one started ,in Liverpool, by Danny Connor, but was run by Harry Benfield, who was only a purple belt. This was Wado Ryu, but at that time it was all just Karate to us. This was where I met up with Danny and we became life long friends. Anyway Danny disappeared off to Japan – to further his studies – and sort of never came back ! So we were left swinging. Then we ended up getting involved with Terry Dukes.”

“At this time there was just Wado ryu and Shotokan in Liverpool. We were doing Wado and that was a dead-loss. We weren't learning anything. The (Japanese) instructors were just coming round and knocking the cr*p out of us. Looking back, it could be because they couldn't speak English well enough, they couldn't explain. We were making mistakes and they couldn't explain enough to correct us, so they just hit us until we stopped making the mistake ! This could be how Budo got lost, because it could be explained ? We just mimicked the moves, the kicks and punches. But, to learn Budo, you've got to talk to someone, have a conversation. They weren't up to it, so we didn't pick-up any of the Budo – not their fault though.....

We picked up the kicks and punches and Harry was always head butting things, like bricks ! It was just like crazy.”

“We thought Terry Dukes (6)was marvellous when he first came around – explaining stuff. Of course he was a total con-man, but we didn't know that then. His style of Karate, Mushindo (7), didn't exist. And this is where I met George Andrews (8), when I'd gone to London to train with Terry Dukes. Now , we thought the sun shone out of him. I was lucky, I had a great bunch of mates in Liverpool and in Karate. The likes of Terry O’Neil and Steve Cattle (9) – a very good friend to me. Now they'd been to Japan. They were very dubious about it, Steve Cattle said ; “ There's no such thing as 'Mushindo Karate' (out in Japan). I think it's a load of bull !” Because Dukes made all sorts of claims for Mushindo. “

“There was something not right about Dukes and Mushindo, but he was a second Dan – and good for that. So, we thought he was good at first. Nothing by today's standards, but.....What happened then was we lost the club we were in. It was compulsory purchased and was going to be knocked down. So we decided to smash it, kicking doors off, smashing windows – butting brick ! (a lot of laughter around here.) Harry butting stuff : we wrecked the place.”

“Now this is were it gets fun, because we had no where to train and Harry Benfield didn't pick it up, he wasn't bothered. So me and Bob Greenhalgh – (training partner), sat down and talked about what are we going to do ? We decided to do something about it and got a hall. We also wanted out of Mushindo and being involve with Terry Dukes. We even wrote to Kenei Uechi as a way out and got a lovely letter back. At its end it said “where there's a will there's a way.” Looking back, the 1960's was the blind leading the blind ! We then had little clubs all over the place. Everton Valley, where Bob Honiball (10) joined (Sensei Christian’s first student to become a Black Belt.) ,but we were having doubts about things. Dukes was saying things like, he was flying over to Okinawa for meetings all the time. “

Andy Moorhouse = “The thing was Terry Dukes had a skill. He could do Karate to a decent level – unlike many people in the past, or even now, who say that they are Black Belts or masters, but haven't trained and have no physical skill. “

Tony Christian = “He was a good kicker ….and talker. I was the north of England representative for Mushindo – hows that for creditability ? Dukes was really clever and doing well. He was teaching T.Rex and Mary Hopkins. Tony Viscounte (11), the record producer, was a student and friend. We think he picked a lot up from Kyokyushinkai. Steve Arneil (12)was teaching in London back then, Steve Morris (13) was also an early student of Arneil's, before he left for Japan.....

Dukes was talented, but embroidered the truth, sucked a lot of people in. He used to take us to the Samye-Ling monastery etc. Now if I've got some of this wrong, sorry, it's 'cos I've made a mistake.”

“To move it along the trail. Duke was very interesting, but a crazy man ! He started calling himself Nagaboshi Otomo. Terry O'Neil said : “ I bet he wants the cheques done to Terry Dukes ?” We laughed about it. I was lucky I had all these scouse mates up here, Harry Benfield , Terry O'Neil and Steve Cattle, who had doubts. Terry and Steve were well in with Shotokan. We were a bit out in the cold because of our involvement with Terry Dukes. “

“Now, Dennis Martin (13) , who'd been in Mushindo with me, see's as demo by Brian Waites (14) and Steve Morris (15). They'd been training in Japan and had just come back with Goju (Kai) Ryu. This was very early 1970's. We get Brain Waites to do a course in Liverpool. On this course is Gary Spiers (16) . Terry O'Neil had met him out in Japan and had invited him over – never thinking he'd come – and Gary had followed him back. Next thing, and all this was in a very short time, I had a club in the Gordon Smith Institute, a right rough part of Liverpool : next to the VD clinic ! Not a lot of us, only ten to fifteen students and Gary rolls up wanting to train. He didn't want to teach, just train. That's were he was great, there was no pose about Gary, he just wanted to get in line and train. So we trained together, went for a beer and became mates. In a very short space of time, we decided we were going to set up Goju Ryu in this country. Gary started teaching Gekisai etc. I already knew some of the kata : Saifa and Seiunchin, from Mushindo. Dukes had been doing them much the same, coming from Kyukoshinkai. It wasn't difficult to change over, we were already Black belts, but in Mushindo crap. “

“What we did next then, Steve Morris was going to look after London and the south. Brian Waites, the Midlands and we were looking after the north and build it up. Now they (Spiers , Morris and Waites), were all third Dan's from Yamaguchi (17) - head of the Goju Kai and Yamamguchi was behind them. He'd already conquered America and thought he'd do Britain too. Then Brain Waites just seemed to disappeared. Looking back Brian might have had enough of all the hassle. Trapped between two very powerful characters, Gary up here and Morris down south, both going in different directions. We got a guy called Steve Bellamy (18) on board, he was a Sheffield based Wado ryu Black belt. Me and Gary went down and started teaching him the Kata etc and he became the secretary of the British Goju Kai – which we set up about 1971. Like a lot of things in life, nothing came of it. It was all talk and no walk. We picked up a lot of people, everybody wanted to see Goju, everybody was fascinated by Goju ; it was new. And this was before Chinen (19) and long before Higaonna. (20).”

“Gary Spiers we the first guy up here. A New Zealand lad, part Maori. He was a student Gogen Yamaguchi, he'd also trained with others, Higaonna for example. The door was wide open for him. He could do Sai, not so good looking back, but no one else could back then ! We all thought he was wonderful. He was an awesome fighter. He doing slapping parries and low kicks, when the rest of us were doing big blocks and high kicks , impractical stuff. He'd come from Yamaguchi's school. Which was all Kin Geri (groin kicks) and Nukite ( eye poke) : serious stuff. I thought it was fabulous, still do to this day, it was good stuff. It was and is a vicious fighting system. Then Gary went on to make his doorman stuff which made him really famous, which was based on his Goju Kai stuff. But, back then he was a Yamaguchi boy. He was a big man and thing I like about him was he was a sincere man. There was no pose about him, no pretence, just one of those – what you see is what you get people. “