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

Versions of Stand-up Grappling

Mike Martello demonstrates Chin na

The late Mike Martello was one of the favorite instructors I have trained with. Part class clown, part mad scientist working over lab rats, and all martial artist. As you can see, Mike was very short, but very powerful. He had to perfect body dynamics because he simply did not have the mass to out-muscle the big guys. As a result, Mike was able to teach very well and was a ton of fun to train with. Additionally, he had a very high level of body control in form work, which was beautiful to watch. I had a few long e-mail exchanges with Mike between his visits to Seattle, where we learned a bit about each other and life in general. Mike is missed by students on at least four continents throughout the world.


Wally Jay demonstrates Small-Circle Jujitsu

Aside from Wrestling in school, I studied Aikido for two years and got a great overview of spiral energy and joint locking. My training partner Corey was fortunate to have trained extensively with Wally and Leon Jay of "Small-Circle Jujitsu". I was able to attend a pretty wild seminar with Leon Jay in Portland some years back. I dislocated a guy's finger, Corey got seriously knocked out by Leon, and we learned a lot about energetics. In the short interview with Wally above there is mostly some pain-compliance that looks good for the camera. But let me tell you, the Jays can get really rough. They say "Pain makes believers".

Tim Cartmell demonstrates Chin na

And then there's Tim Cartmell.
The seminars I have attended with Tim on combat Bagua, Taiji and Xingyi application and stand-up grappling have been some of the most influential in my recent training years.
I wish there was more video available of Tim but he stays pretty much below the radar on YouTube.
For those that don't know, Tim was a successful fighting champion in Taiwan and authored and translated many books on martial arts including the classic "Effortless Combat Throws". Tim is a "grappler's grappler", now a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. During the time I have met and talked with Tim, he has dispensed with the notions of metaphysics and Chi in favor of good old leverage and mass-in-motion. His principles are proven in combat, both on the street and on the mat.
As you can see, Tim's techniques in this video resemble those Make Martello uses in the first video. I only wish there was more available. Fortunately, I have hours of the seminars I attended recorded, which is an invaluable asset. I look forward to training more with Tim in the future.

Special thanks to my friend and instructor Jake Burroughs for bringing Tim Cartmell and Mike Martello to Seattle, and for the continuing training Jake provides me.

Give Them The Finger(lock)

Ah, you gotta' love old Wally Jay.
There are obviously universal qualities that all grappling arts share, but Wally Jay and son Leon have really refined joint locks with "Small Circle Jujitsu".
Our fellow Dojo Rat Corey trained with the Jays in London and again back in the Midwest along with George Dillman. I met and trained briefly with Leon in Portland. Small-Circle Jujitsu is a perfect compliment to the Aikido and Chin-Na I've done, and the flow drills ease the transitions between techniques in a resisting opponent.
Look at the finger locks Professor Jay uses on the student in the video. Done correctly, I have not met anyone that will not react to a finger lock in a very predictable way. It is something a small person can apply to a much larger person, from a variety of angles.
Now, nobody carries on like in the video above, the finger lock is intended to cause pain and distraction in an opponent while you line up a knockout technique.

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.

Professor Wally Jay: Small-Circle Jujitsu

"Dance Of Pain"

The stand-up grappling skills we learned at our Dojo are directly from Professor Wally Jay and his son Leon Jay. Wally Jay revolutionized traditional jujitsu by integrating "Small-Circle" aspects into techniques. My Dojo training partner studied directly with Leon in London, and brought us many of the various lock-flow drills we have shown on video. The concepts taught by the Jays enhance any joint locking techniques, reflect many of the elements within Chinese grappling systems, and have been adopted by instructors such as George Dillman in what he now calls "Okinawan Tuite". We are shown in a picture on the right of this Blog With Leon Jay and Stan Miller, a Portland Dojo owner.
In the video above, Wally Jay demonstrates finger and wrist control techniques in his "Dance of pain". This one might be good for the club bouncers also.

How "Small-Circle Jujitsu" Changed Everything

Jujitsu Master Leon Jay (left) The Dojo Rat "Away Team" (center) and Dojo owner Stan Miller (right), At a Seminar in Portland

There are two schools of modern Jujitsu: Brazilian Jujitsu (BJJ), which rose to cult status ten years ago, and there is "Small-Circle Jujitsu" (SCJJ). Of course, this is just my interpetation, but here goes: BJJ is great on a one-to-one fight when you have plenty of time and you're not going to get run over in a parking lot or have someone stick a knife in your back while you are rolling on the ground.
Jujitsu has evolved from a Samurai kill-or-be-killed art to a sport, the same sad legacy of modern Tae Kwon Do. After World War Two, G.I.'s and Marines were returning from service with a new and devestating combat art (jujitsu) which was generally practiced as modern Judo. The art has always employed throwing and locking techniques, although at a somewhat less sophisticated level than Aiki-jitsu and Aikido. Brazil, which had it's own "Wild West" culture, had a lot of Japanese immigrants, and "Vale Tudo" (anything goes) emerged as Brazilian challenge fights. The peak culminated with Mixed-Martial Arts, and most matches are won in submissions on the ground, crappy for streetfighting.
Ah!, you say, so tell us somthing new...
Enter Wally Jay, a tall Chinese-Hawaiian with powerful Judo skills. Wally Jay is responsible for refining jujitsu techniques to the most sophisticated level I have seen, and they have since found their way into every joint-locking system around. Wally Jay's jujitsu, and that of his son Leon, Ed Melaugh, Ron Ogi and others is not a roll-on-the-ground and choke art, it is STAND-UP FIGHTING. Through his innovation of the "small-circle technique", which rotates locks on the shortest possible axis, and other methods such as "thumb-wrist entry", Wally Jay created a stand-up jujitsu that allowed for repeated joint-locking flows, strikes, sweeps and throws.
The Jays are absolute masters at fingerlocking, and lead huge Black Belts around in complete agony. Moreover, they have developed methods for snatching fingers, wrists and neck chokes that most systems had never used.
The next level of development came when the Jay's began working with George Dillman of Ryukyu Kenpo, known for it's pressure-point knockouts. The two systems meshed prefectly, with the motto "Lock to strike, strike to lock" emerging. Further enhancement arrived with Ron Ogi. Ogi is the inheritor of James DeMile's system, DeMile being Bruce Lee's top student. Ogi, and subsequently Ed Melaugh added DeMile's Wing Chun striking and a modern hybrid art was born. Professor Remy Presas of Fillipino stickfighting fame influenced the system by adding flow drills, which allow the practitioner to move smoothly from lock-to-lock-to-strike-to-lock, etc. You have to see it to believe it. Jujitsu locking and takedowns, Ryukyu Kenpo pressure-point striking, Wing Chun centerline concepts, and Fillipino-based flow drills to practice safely. It's one hell of a hybrid system.
Up here at the Rat's nest, Shima Dojo, this is what we practice on the "hard arts" side. Myself and a couple of the other guys are also heavy into Tai Chi. That may not seem compatable, but it is. The Tai Chi smoothes everything out and helps keep it one continous flow. As I said in a previous post, I'm working on uploading some video of our flow drills, hopefully soon.