Professor Wally Jay Has Passed Away

Professor Wally Jay, Remy Presas and George Dillman


It was with great sadness that I was informed about the Death of Wally Jay, founder of "Small-Circle Jujitsu.
As pictured above, Professor Jay traveled and taught with Remy Presas of "Modern Arnis" and George Dillman of Ryu-Kyu Kenpo, and they were known as "The Big Three".

Many of my instructors had trained with these men, who were an incredible resource of self-defence knowledge. My Training partner Corey trained with them, and spent time training with Wally and his son Leon both in Indiana and London England. Many of our lock-flow drills come from the Jay's "Small-Circle Jujitsu".
I was fortunate to have attended a seminar in Portland with Leon Jay. At that seminar he nailed Corey with a "light-force" knockout that put him out cold. Needless to say, I had to drive us back to Northern Washington while Corey nursed a sore head.
The Jay's had their own take on traditional Jujitsu, and were interested in integrating Dillman's pressure-point Karate and Presas' Stick and knife methods into their system.

For those who are interested, here is a link to a piece I wrote in 2006 called "How Small-Circle Jujitsu Changed Everything".

UPDATE: Jason has provided us with this link to the Small-Circle Jujitsu website and many, many remembrances for Professor Wally Jay

Locking And Hitting Drills

Yes, once again it's time to fire up the new-fangled picture-taking machine and present another episode of Drinking Dojo Productions...
This drill is a blend of Small-Circle Jujitsu and Chinese infighting as taught by Ed Melaugh and Ron Ogi respectively.
Here, the opponent begins by presenting his hands and arms so the defender can learn to seize fingers, wrist and elbow locks. You move slowly and consistantly but don't lock hard, just flow.
Next, you begin to tap opponent's face or forehead, being careful of your training partner's eyes. This does several things: It represents a true hit or strike; it serves as a distraction to lure opponent into a finger or wristlock. Once again, flow slowly and constantly and take care not to hurt your training partner.
Finally, you add in elbows, palm slaps, leg traps - anything that fits the flow. Keep pumping your palm into the opponent's face area, keep him reacting and continue moving into him with foward pressure. Every time he tries to protect his face, something will open up as a target. Fill the void, move in, keep him on his toes.
Don't get too agressive with this drill, these things are best learned at a consistant, moderate pace.

Wally Jay and Small-Circle Jujitsu

I've written before about how the stand-up grappling of Small-Circle Jujitsu have brought a huge array of techniques to the rough stuff in our little Dojo.
Our training partner (we'll call him "Brown Dragon") was fortunate to have studied at length with both founder Wally Jay and his son and inheritor of the system, Leon Jay. Small dijit manipulation is one thing that is not allowed in MMA and BJJ, probably because it is so easy to induce permanent damage to the hands with the types of finger and wristlocks involved. As you can see, or perhaps you have experianced the amount of pain involved with these locking techniques. The idea, of course is not to break the joint, but to demand pain compliance. This kind of pain sends involuntary messages to our nervous system that cause knees to buckle, or raise us up to awkward positions as the body tries to move away from the pain.
Obviously, this system is useful for Bouncers, Police officers, and others that can not strike and hit their charges. It must also be realized that the idea is not to hold onto a lock forever, it is a matter of using it to gain compliance or set up a strike to take the guy out in his moment of vulnerability. The Ryukyu Kenpo guys have a saying; lock to strike, strike to lock. The combination is very effective.
Also in this video is a young Ron Ogi. I have had the pleasure of having Ron Ogi demonstrate the one-inch punch on me while I held a phone book to my chest, and I can tell you he is very powerful. My training partner and I traveled to several seminars with Leon Jay (pictured at right of Blog) and Ron Ogi. These guys have a pretty potent combination of Locking, classical Gung-fu infighting, and pressure point manipulation. The flow drills were heavily influenced by Professor Remy Presas of FMA fame. This was at a time when Ron Ogi was a student of Professor Wally Jay, who traveled to many Dojo's across the country with Presas and George Dillman. It must have been quite a show with "the big three" all together at one seminar.

Small-Circle Jujitsu And Push Hands

Sensei Rick Alford

Here is a fairly good demonstration of how Small-Circle Jijitsu (Wally Jay style)
sticks and flows with the opponent. You can see some of our versions of lock-flows on the video bar to the right of the screen.
At our Dojo, we are trying to integrate the techniques in the video above with Tai Chi Chuan push hands practice. In that case I guess it would be called Chin na.
You can see how well they would work together; close proximity, face-to-face, constant contact. Push hands may appear more circular than the demonstration above, which clearly has the Japanese Jujitsu influence.
I'm curious what the Aikido and BJJ guys have to say...