Development of the art

The history of Sanjuro
It starts for different reasons, but always ends up in the same place. Absolute avoidance of violence.

Glenn Delikan, chief instructor of Sanjuro

Sanjuro is as much a way of life as it is a martial art style. Like life, Sanjuro has evolved over time, and with good reason.

It began at a Wado Ryu Karate dojo near Kings Cross in 1981 where a skinny 17-year old went to look for a way to protect himself and the people he cared about. The style of Wado Ryu karate appealed to him because at that time it had the reputation of being the fastest martial art style on the planet.

Glenn and his family then moved to a notorious estate in Stonebridge Park – one of the most dangerous parts of London at the time. He befriended other teenagers who didn’t want to get involved in the street fights and violence of youth gangs.

After 3 months of training, Glenn decided to teach his friends what he was learning. Word got out and before long he was running a club of his own!

Because of his lack of actual martial arts knowledge, the only way the class could work was by running it as a ‘fighting club’ where everyone brought what they knew from the different styles that some of them had previously trained in. What Glenn discovered through constant sparring in this way was that he would be hit by one of the guys with a technique, not only because they were better than him – but also because he simply didn’t know the technique.
Glenn’s experience at his own club made him begin to question the traditional teaching methods. If asked how to improve a technique the standard reply was ‘keep practicing’. If asked how a particular technique worked, he would be given a very painful demonstration. Even worse than that was the way the knowledge was structured into grades, effectively requiring years of commitment before an individual would get shown anything of interest to them.

After 10 years of training at the Kings Cross club, he made the decision that it was time to train with different instructors in different martial arts styles.

Glenn went to numerous clubs and classes but did not remain at any of them for long, as he had come to understand that it was the journey itself that was important. For him, seeing how each style of martial art approached the same subject (self defence) and the respect and support that the students and instructors had for each other was just as important a lesson as the actual techniques themselves.

By 1999 Glenn had learnt the good and the bad from many forms of martial arts styles and with over 15 years of experience the time was right to launch Sanjuro.

Glenn took the simplicity of kickboxing, incorporated the footwork of Latin Dance (which he had also been doing for many years) and added many of the combat techniques that he had learned over the years as a starting point. These 3 elements gave Sanjuro the foundation stones of simplicity, movement and effective application.

Since then Sanjuro has grown and is now practiced in five countries.