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Applied Karate with "Mr. SELF DEFENSE" Gary Spiers
From Traditional GOJU-RYU Karate to Street COMBATIVES LEGEND
* 39 years experience working in the private security industry, including door supervision, bodyguarding and close protection.
* Did bodyguarding and close protection work for numerous A-list celebrities, including Michael Jackson.
* Did security work in every continent on the planet, apart from the Arctic and the Antarctic.
* Was hand picked by Michael Jackson's Management to arrange security for Michael Jackson's 1989 concert in Liverpool, which had a crowd of 125,000.
* Was issued with Godan (5th) Dan Grade personally by Gogen "the cat" Yamaguchi in 1987.
* Was the pioneer of "Applied Karate" in the UK.
Gary Spiers Bio
developed an interest in the combative arts at 7 years of age. His father had been an American GI (whom he never knew) and his mother was Maori. At school, Gary frequently got into fights. He attended a school where he was only one of seven children with Maori heritage in the entire school. He was often picked on, so had to learn to defend himself. He started learning wrestling, followed by judo and jujitsu. At that time, there was only one karate dojo in New Zealand, which was not accessible to him as it was only open to European expatriates.When his mother died, he was still in his teens and he was put in an orphanage. Because his was of mixed race they immediately started to try an bully him on the first night at the orphanage someone tried to rape him. Gary said he had to learn there and then how to fight. From that point on he faced many challenges before he left the orphanage and was taken in by an aunt.
At 18 years of age he started doing door supervision at various working mens clubs and bars. In 1962, when he was 19 years old he left New Zealand for Australia and it was there that he started training in Goju Ryu karate under Bob Jones and Tino Ceberano. In Australia he also began working extensively on the doors. In 1968 Gary was involved in a very serious altercation whilst doing door work, this led him to depart Australia on a cargo ship bound for Japan. In Japan, he enrolled at the dojo of the legendary Gogen "the cat" Yamaguchi. Gary became a personal student of Gogen Yamaguchi and Yamaguchi would take him along to classes in universities where they spread Goju by teaching a captive audience. At one point Gary Spires became Gogen Yamaguchi's enforcer as they would travel around the Universities (Almost all the Universities had Karate Clubs and in Japan at that time and the popularity of University Karate in Japan was akin to the popularity of College Football in the USA) and someone would step out of line Gary would get the nod to “give it to them “( smash them ). Whilst in Japan he taught English and waited tables in restaurants to fund himself. Whilst staying and training in Japan he was often referred to by the natives as Kuma-San (Mister Bear).
After his time training in Japan, he traveled to the UK via Russia and Europe (he did a part of his journey from Japan to the UK on the Trans Siberian Express). When in the UK he started teaching his style of combatives, which he termed "Applied Karate". Gary Spiers was a close friend of Terry O'Neill and when they first met in Japan, it was Terry O'Neill who invited Gary Spiers to the UK once he was ready to leave Japan. He arrived in the UK in 1971, settling in Liverpool and stayed there for the remainder of his life. Gary opened the first Goju club in the UK and started an association, this was pre the Bruce Lee and Enter The Dragon martial arts boom, so money wasn’t great. Hence, he started doing doorwork in the UK as well as teaching. Very soon he became heavily involved in door work in the UK. It was at this point the legend that most people know grew since he started working on the doors. This was also the time he created his own system Applied Karate , he never stopped doing Goju himself but his activities on the door told him things needed adjustments in order for the average person to learn a less complicated system. During his years in the UK, he was considered one of the leading lights of practical karate (he named what he taught "Applied Karate"). During Michael Jackson's 1988 UK tour, Gary Spiers was given the security contract for the Liverpool concert.There is a story that after the finished, Gary approached the promoters who had promised him and his crew payment when the concert ended. When the promoters said they will settle payment in a few days, Gary told them that if he isn't paid right away as they agreed, Michael Jackson will not be boarding the helicopter that had come to take him away. No surprise, the promoters settled payment right then.
A personal student of Gary Spiers recounts the first time he met him. - "It was at a seminar that Gary was conducting, we walked into the training hall, we didn't know what to expect. In came this huge Maori warrior, with a long mane of hair, a nose that had been broken so many times that the cartilage had been removed and a faded but visible scar from an old knife wound running across his face. I can tell you there was definitely a feeling of apprehension that day, even among the most gung ho students in the room" (Richie Hubert, student of Gary Spiers).
One story about Gary is that not long after he arrived in the UK, he was doing door supervision and was confronted by an individual who picked up a pool cue. Gary picked up the other cue, threw it at the feet of the individual and said "You're gonna need two of them, mate." The guy just backed off. This story sums up the spirit of Gary. Perhaps in some way it also explains the ability to "fight without fighting".
He was way ahead of the game when it came to effective street combat way ahead of his time and at the time the traditional quarters were against his ideas that have now been embraced by forward thinking people. Despite being so far ahead of everyone else when it came to violence and how to deal with it ,yet he wasn’t a bully. At some point he decided to develop his own system called Applied Karate from his vast experience in actual street altercations yet he still practiced his Goju kata saying everything was in the kata you just needed to know how to interpret it. He was a very intelligent and articulate man who was forever gathering information from every aspect of life and he would incorporate that into his journey. He was way ahead of his time when it came to getting it done in the dojo they call the streets, none of these silly 20 moves combos just getting straight to the point then on to the next problem. When it came to "Reality Ryu" (a phrase he coined to refer to what works in reality), he was in a league of his own. He would say tongue in cheek that he was "in public relations" and would "bash the public" and if their relations fancied it, he would "bash them too'. Rather than saying he did door supervision, he would jokingly say he worked in "the attitude adjustment industry". Yes he was on point when it came to fighting but he was also a highly intelligent, compassionate and generous man.
Gary Spiers died on 17th February 2001 in the UK following a 3 year battle with diabetes and pancreatitis, he was 57 years old. Gary's body was returned to New Zealand for a traditional Maori burial, a ceremony which lasted 5 days. He had led a very colorful and eventful life. A trailblazer, gentleman, scholar, intellectual and a man of substance. He was a legend both working on the doors, on the streets and in martial arts circles.
INCLUDES:
One on One Interview * Seminars footage - Training methods, elbow strikes, chokes, knee and kicking strikes, grips, locks and much more!
Item em3-84-1 - TRT 77 minutes - ISBN: 0694536341548-DVD
