New Zealand Freestyle Martial Arts

History and Origins of NZFMA

            The origin of the martial arts is not clear; it is very likely that most cultures had some form of martial art associated with them during their development. There are friezes from Ancient Greece, India and China that depict martial activities. It is likely the West had its own art forms but these were not integrated into the culture as they were in the East.

            Modern martial arts trace their origins from China, Japan and Korea in the main although there exceptions to this. The martial art forms from these areas where part of the warrior’s training or were part of fitness regimes and body control regimes employed by monasteries and temples.

            Our style, New Zealand Freestyle Martial Arts (NZFMA) is an eclectic or freestyle, exactly as the name suggests. What this means is that the student is not fixed to a certain fighting form, style or stance. There are a number of eclectic styles in the USA; two of the better known are Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do and Ashihara karate.  The influences on NZFMA are most strongly from Zen Do Kai, a freestyle karate and Goju-Ryu, an Okinawan Karate style. Zen Do Kai was developed by Kyoshi-sama Bob Jones from traditional karate as he felt that the traditional style was insufficiently practical in the street. Goju-Ryu is a combination style – a hard-soft, Japanese-Chinese style as befitting its place of origin. Although these are the main influences, we believe in learning from all styles and taking what we see to be useful and practical.

            We do have a core set of kata and methods of doing techniques; we are not totally ‘without form’. The kata are used to train the student to move their bodies and minds in a certain way so that they will most effectively deal with aggressive intent. Having said that, we do not proscribe how you will fight or defend yourself. It makes no sense to teach a 50 kg woman and a 120 kg man to fight exactly the same way – it is inappropriate and frustrating for both instructor and student. What we do is teach you some basics: how to punch, kick, block, throw, grab and fall. We then help you to develop a way of putting these things together that is your own and is natural for you.

            Our training philosophy is summed up by the symbols we wear on our uniforms and on three simple phrases. The ‘kamon’ (shown at the top of this screen) is our crest and one of the translations is that of the Family House. We feel that this is very appropriate because we involve whole families in our studies and also encourage each other to think of being part of a bigger family, all entitled to respect and friendship. We will visit other schools to strengthen this relationship.

  The gryphon is a mythological creature that represents our style. It is a hybrid of several animals in the same way that our style is a hybrid of many martial forms. In Persian mythology it protected the riches of the king – not the least of which was wisdom!