Jon Bluming
Johannes Cornelius Bluming (born February 6, 1933) is a Dutch instructor of Judo, Kyokushin Karate, and mixed martial arts. He was the coach of two-time Olympic champion Willem Ruska.
Born in Amsterdam, he was 16 when he applied for the Marines and was accepted to the bootcamp in Doorn in July 1949[citation needed]. In the summer of 1950, the Korean War started, and he applied as a volunteer in the van Heutz regiment. When he was wounded, he was transported to a Japanese hospital in Tokyo. There he saw Judo for the first time when he visited the Kodokan in March 1951.
Martial arts career
In 1957, he was invited to train at a police dojo in Berlin, Germany and at a private judo club. In January 1958 he arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He started his career as a professional judo teacher at Dalhousie University.
Back in Tokyo, he started under the guidance of Donn F. Draeger. Weight training for judo and karate allowed him to achieve the transformation to heavyweight at 102 kg from his previous 79 kg.
In April 1959, Dreager invited him to the police dojo and to train under Takaji Shimizu and Ichitaro Kuroda in jōdō, kendo, and iaijutsu. Bluming did an examination for Kuroda in iaijutsu and got his third dan from the JKF.
In May 1960, he defeated Akio Kaminaga with a strangulation hold. During the Olympic training summer of 1960, he threw Isao Inokuma, his friend and training partner with an uchi mata makikomi. He also received his 4th dan from Kodokan.
In 1961, Bluming was invited to make a gonin gake (a match against 5 third dans) instead of Inokuma. Draeger said to him, "Do it, that’s good for your name."
Back to Holland
Bluming received a letter from Holland in which Opa Schutte asked him to come back and teach at the old dojo and the Amateurs Association for a year on contract. Bluming, who by then had a reputation in Japan and was unbeaten in Judo and Karate, went back to teach his old friends, make some new ones, and participate in the 1961 World Judo Championships in Paris in December. It went very differently than planned.
Bluming became coach of the Dutch Amateur Judo Association. He made his name throughout Holland and Europe solely because of his fight against the Judo Union of Anton Geesink, who told tales to the press about Bluming but refused several times to meet Bluming on the tatami. Bluming, under false accusations, was not allowed to participate in the Paris competitions. The press was amazed, especially when Bluming was introduced to the black belts of the NAJA as the new coach in the first week of December 1961 in Bloemendaal. He made a match against all comers, some 80 judoka from 1st dan to 4th dan, and threw them all within about four seconds in full view of the press.
Reporters wrote the next day that Holland would be first and second in Paris and that Bluming must be allowed to fight. This did not help, and Bluming watched the victory of Anton Geesink in Paris. It made him so miserable that he stopped competing and focused only on teaching instead.
In his career as a teacher he has coached several champions, such as:
- Chris Dolman (four-time world champion),
- Willem Ruska (double Olympic champion in 1972)
- Ottie Roethof (world champion in soft style karate and the team world champion, three times world champ judo),
- Semmy Schilt (at the top in K-1 and free fight winner three times in the daido juku and three time King of Pancrase),
- Robert Kool (1964 New York Cosmopolitan heavy weight champion)
- The students of his students like Jan Plas (who fought well against Ernesto Hoost and Peter Aerts), Peter Adelaar and Jan Kallenbach.
Bluming traveled throughout Europe and founded the European Kyokushin kai kan. The first karate union in Europe was founded by Bluming in January 1962. The first-ever karate championships were held in the Krasnapolsky Hotel Amsterdam in 1965. The first international match was held against the team of Steve Arneil (a student of Oyama and Bluming in 1967) and was won by the Budōkai dojo.
Kyokushin Kai Karate
On January 15, 1965, Bluming was the first foreigner awarded the 6th dan in Kyokushin karate from the Kyokushinkaikan Honbu by Mas Oyama. The karate world, which was not big in those days, was shocked. Oyama put a classical samurai end to that spectacle and told the karate world that they could fight Bluming man-to-man without any rules in a boxing ring. The one who could beat Bluming that way would win $100,000 from Oyama, who would stop karate and take away Bluming's 6th dan.
In the period after this, Bluming delivered a lot of teachers who sometimes went their own way. One example is Loek Hollander, who was at odds with Bluming. The animosity reached such a level in Japan and Europe that the Japanese organization eventually sided with Loek Hollander. The Dutch Karate Organisation (NKA), an initiative of Bluming, grew larger under Hollander and split in the 1980s when several teachers left Hollander due to "irreconcilable differences".
In January 1989, Bluming received his 9th dan in Kyokushin karate from Japan. The same year he also got his 9th dan in Judo from Japan; he was the only one in the world who had both of the highest grades in martial arts from the Japanese organizations. In November 1989, he received a visit from Akira Maeda, 8th dan of the Budōkai. He told Bluming that Mas Oyama had sent him to talk to Bluming and that he wanted Bluming back in the Honbu and to make him President of the World Karate Kyokushinkai-kan. He wanted Bluming to teach the karateka of the Honbu who were keen on fighting professionally in all-round karate, especially in the fight organization “RINGS JAPAN“, of which Maeda was then President. Bluming said that he would do so only if Loek Hollander was out of the Honbu. Maeda said that Mas Oyama was aware of the problems but for several reasons could not agree with that.[citation needed]
In April 1994, Bluming received word that Mas Oyama had died suddenly. Devastated, he went to Tokyo to pay his respect and say goodbye to his teacher.
On September 4 of the same year, he received a fax from Kenji Kurosaki that he was awarded with the grade of his teacher Mas Oyama and received his 10th dan signed by 5 big organizations of Budō in Japan.
