Martial Arts Magazine Australia

By Colin Wee

I’ve done it. I’ve published a martial arts book! And boy, was it a journey. I thought I’d share my experience with you. Be warned: it wasn’t an easy ride.

I started writing before the COVID pandemic and finished most of the first draft of the manuscript that first year. While everyone else complained about being locked up at home and organising coffee sessions over Zoom calls, I took on this mammoth task. If I’d known how much work it was going to be, I might have reconsidered.

Writing the manuscript itself took about a year, and then came the task of submitting it to the publisher, re-writing, and editing the document. Plus, we had to commission cover artwork and arrange several photo shoots to gather images for the applications presented. Not to mention the back-and-forth emails with my focus group to gather their feedback on the developing material.

You may ask why I wrote a book. Well, it could have been I wanted approval from my teachers and seniors, or maybe I’d been pestered enough over the years to publish something. Or you could simply say I was ready to tell a story that really began a long, long time ago.

I’d actually written another manuscript around twenty years back tentatively titled “Fighting Heaven and Earth.” Heaven and Earth is the first of our Taekwondo forms. That manuscript started as a resource to map out applications within the Taekwondo pattern set. But, upon finishing it, I realised it was not the book I had intended to write. It prompted more questions than it provided answers. It was more like a lament of what I didn’t know.

Although it seemed like a waste of effort, that manuscript actually became a roadmap for us. It set us on the path to develop the distinct training methodology we use in our school today. We call this distinct training methodology the JDK Method. This is the foundation around which all else has been built. I say “us,” “our,” and “we” because the collaboration between me and my black belts is a fundamental part of the JDK training environment. Without their feedback and participation, the JDK Method might not exist.

When the idea of writing a book resurfaced in the spring of 2019, my school had just spent a year and a half focused on the practice of one kata: Bassai Dai. Even though we are a Taekwondo school, we incorporate legacy classical Karate forms into our syllabus, and we often do a deep dive on specific forms. Bassai Dai seemed like the perfect subject since a wide range of Okinawan, Japanese, and Korean stylists practice the pattern. The depth of material we had gathered and developed about the form seemed promising. We found the irony of a Taekwondo instructor publishing a Karate book as a chapter in the already compelling story of Bassai Dai somewhat amusing.

The various COVID-19 lockdowns in Western Australia and the hard border erected in 2020 were a blessing in disguise for the new book. I had plenty of time to write while keeping fit, working from home, cooking for my family, and enjoying game nights and movies. Putting my thoughts down onto a page had a lovely, meditative quality. Of course, it didn’t make up for the lack of training partners, but it was a fine use of that unfortunate downtime.

Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata is not your straight-up martial arts picture book. I initially contemplated illustrating the applications with the help of a manga artist. Manga has an amazing kinetic quality, and its ability to establish the presence of both the protagonist and the antagonist is next level. But the idea quickly fizzled as each page had to be drawn by hand and, since I have no real artistic skills, the cost per hour for an artist was more than I could afford. Although the idea was awesome and would produce a book most unique in the field of martial arts books, I had to put it in the “too hard basket.”

So, picture this: I have written a book. And I am feeling pretty chuffed with myself. I mean, writing a book is a big deal, right? But then, as always, reality came crashing down, and I realised that my book still needed some serious work. And by serious work, I mean I had no knowledge of the publishing process and needed someone else to help me cross the finish line. Enter Master Mike Swope, the man I contacted when I reached a point where I couldn’t continue on my own.

Now, let me just say, Mike is a pretty cool dude. We met through The Study of Taekwondo group on Facebook a few years ago, and we have been online buddies ever since. We’re both into martial arts, movies, and sharing life experiences, so it was a huge honour when he invited me to write a recommendation for his grandmaster’s book, Taekwon-Do: Origins of the Art: Bok Man Kim’s Historical Photospective (1955 – 2015). And to top it off, he even interviewed me for a cover story on Totally Tae Kwon Do magazine.

Anyway, I was hoping to just hand off the project to Mike, but he had other ideas. When I submitted the manuscript, I thought I was done with the hard work of writing. But Mike’s initial feedback was to consider re-writing the manuscript using my voice and telling my story. This would elevate the project and make it more interesting for the reader. Now, I am not one to argue with an expert, so I began contemplating an overhaul of the manuscript, even though I felt like there was no gas left in the tank.

But that was just the beginning of the process. We edited the book, not just for layout and flow, but for grammar and punctuation, blurred and missing pictures, and to ensure the accuracy of headers and sub-headers. And we did all of this right up until the final upload for the printer, two years after working together on the project.

Now, here’s where things get interesting. Mike needed to understand many concepts through the chapters, which were foreign to him and probably readers as well. The JDK training method seeks same-side and opposite-side solutions for every tactic wherever possible. Additionally, we have less reservations than other schools when reaching for either hard-style and soft-style solutions as we deep dive into traditional techniques.

Master Mike Swope, Author Master Colin Wee, Will Just, and Jeff Palm

As martial arts literature goes, little of what we needed to present is what you’d expect in a regular instructional manual. In the hard style “One Hit-One Kill” world view, many practitioners are taught to believe each technique comes with a guarantee of success. To assume the possibility of failure, to invite non-compliance from the opponent, to introduce workarounds, and then to share the recipe for this “secret sauce” is simply unprecedented, to our knowledge. We believe this makes Breaking Through unique and valuable in the field of martial arts books.

But let’s be real here: it’s not always a smooth sailing journey when it comes to writing. Mike believed we could create a book that was the next best thing to sliced bread. He went above and beyond to ensure my writing was in line with my beliefs. I was happy to jump into that rabbit hole with him. I was happy being brought to the edge of my ability. This has to be part of the journey too, right?

It was difficult enough trying to make progress despite facing challenges from a global pandemic, time zones differences between author and publisher, and the goal to represent 3-dimensional concepts on 2- dimensional pages. A minor stumbling block was the various photo shoots we had to organise to represent the material in the book.

We had done the first photo shoot with the initial draft of the manuscript in 2019, but two years later we needed additional photos for expanded explanations and re-takes on some of the originals. And we booked yet another photo session at the end of 2022 to redo some photos.

Eventually we found ourselves some ways into the first quarter of 2023, feeling the time pressure from the release date of March 23, 2023 at the American Karate and Taekwondo Organization Annual Seminars in Dallas, Texas. We still had final edits to make, e-proofs to closely review, and pre- order web pages to set up. Plus, I had been invited to teach several sessions for the event, as well as several seminars at various schools near and around Dallas.

I was excited about the AKATO event but had trouble getting time to develop my teaching plan until I was done with the book. The seven sessions I would teach, I decided, would present combative insights from various Karate and Taekwondo combative forms, and how they can be applied in specific scenarios. I intended to share with seminar attendees JDK’s insights, our journey of discovery, snippets from Breaking Through, and a good dose of humour which included several dad jokes.

As I shared news of the seminar and book launch road trip on social media, two black belts associated with me and JDK online were so inspired that they scheduled flights to join us in Dallas.

The first black belt, Jeff Palm, trained with my school in Australia 10 years ago and found our practice complementary to his own training. And the second black belt, Will Just, found my blog 5 years ago, has been in contact with me through email since, and in a leap of faith, came to Dallas to be my seminar partner.

Now, my school is not about inflicting pain and suffering. But there is something to be said for feeling traditional tactics firsthand. I admit that Will, as my seminar partner, was practically tortured during our training sessions. But he didn’t complain, smiled through the discomfort, and made huge strides in understanding as he experienced receiving traditional concepts first-hand. This is the empirical knowledge he needed, making him a better all-round practitioner.

The road trippers, once shown our practice, came to be extremely helpful to other seminar participants. Moving between roles as demonstration partners to assisting with the participants, they were an unexpected blessing to help me communicate concepts and techniques.

Around 170-180 martial arts practitioners attended those seven seminars in and around Dallas. I expect the enthusiasm they displayed, the positive feedback to the material presented, and the buzz of energy I felt throughout the sessions will feed my very soul for many years to come.

I wrote Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata because I wanted to express my gratitude for my teachers and share my unique insight after 40 years in martial arts. To be absolutely honest, I have felt self- conscious as people ask for autographs and praise the book. I mean, it’s not like I’m some sort of celebrity. I’m just a humble martial artist who knew to reach out to a team of people to help me get several things off my chest.

All joking aside, this whole experience has been amazing. From writing the book to finally holding the finished product, it’s been a journey I’ll never forget. And who knows, maybe I’ll write another book someday. [Someone please stop me!]

You can purchase Colin Wee’s book here.

In the award-winning Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata, Master Colin Wee explores applications and concepts extrapolated from Bassai Dai kata. Bassai Dai is one of a group of forms which transcends cultures and styles through traditional martial arts originating from Okinawa to Japan to Korea. Inspired by this kata, Wee’s twelve combative applications are compelling and practical as lessons for martial artists who train using fixed set patterns. More than 200 photos clearly illustrate not only hard-style striking but also effective, soft-style principles, traps and takedowns generally overlooked in modern martial arts training such as Karate and Taekwondo. The insights gleaned from Breaking Through encourage readers to explore body structure and mechanics and demonstrate how picture-perfect techniques become combat-oriented defense strategies. Masters of old depended on these principles, strategies and wisdom for their very lives, and transmitted them to their students through kata. As a student of the martial arts for more than four decades, Wee accepts the responsibilities of the originators of Bassai to pass this knowledge to all who would study it with him. Readers need not know Bassai Dai, as Wee’s methods can be applied to any form in any style to inspire and enrich patterns training beyond simplistic rote, choreographed routines.

Colin Wee is the Principal of Joong Do Kwan in Perth Western Australia. Colin has recently published a book titled Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata. He has practiced three systems in three countries for four decades. Formerly an Assistant National Coach in Archery, Colin is now known as a traditional applications specialist amongst his friends.