There are many words and phrases that have become important to the art form but none as important as the physical attributes that defines it. Ghamjitsu begs of the practitioner to accept that all in his environment is a given and it cannot be changed so the practitioner must work with what is given to him. For example I have no gun so I must retaliate with the knife, I have no knife so I must retaliate with a stick or broken bottle, I have no weapons so I must become the weapon. Resourcefulness is of ultimate importance. This was always evident in the way the gham fighter carried himself. He was master of his world but a rock will always be a rock in his world and he could not change that but if he had to move it he would do so by any means necessary and nothing would stop him. Within the Special Forces ethos this is known as the mission above all else. He would never give up until the fight was won and he would not allow himself to be taken down without a fight because he would have to walk the street tomorrow or his memory would be that of a coward. The weapon does not make the fighter rather the situation and the outcome of the confrontation will define the fighter. Fighting holds glory and honour in high regard and although self defense is movement two in any confrontation as movement one is the initiation of the attack, Ghamjitsu teaches that we must make our defensive action movement one. Know enough about your surroundings and the people you are with to be confident that you will see the attack happening before it happens allowing you the time to take defensive actions rather than reactions.
Understanding which state of readiness to be in is one of the first and foremost lessons to learn. You must learn how to react when alone. For example knowing that your friends will help you when you are attacked is invaluable information and will help you to decide up until which point to pursue teh defensive action. Now if you think that the group of people you are with are more inclined to run even when all the odds require them to turn and fight is even more important because this information could save your life. What is more dangerous is to be around untrained individuals who allow emotion to determine the rules of the engagement. The gangs use someone in a gang fight known as the Ougatjie which is pronounced die ougaachi. His job is to sych the opposing gang out to get them so worked up that they will forget their battle plan and attack with raw emotion. This works very well for them but not in a defensive situation.
You want to strive for relevant, appropriate action in the shortest amount of time. You want to stay as calm as possible because as much as adrenalin is your friend it is also your enemy. It goes hand in hand with tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time laps syndrome etc. The physical effects are even worse. Tightening of the muscles, dry mouth, irregular breathing patterns, problems with depth perception and irregular distribution of oxygen to the muscles which can cause dizziness or a lack of will power to see the engagement through after it is too late to run. Your first decision should be to cross the street, turn around or to run away this is called evasion and if this is not an option and you decide to stay and see the engagement through then you must be prepared to go the distance.
I will talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. First a little history. In the mid seventies we saw the proliferation of a new breed of gangster who was more into organized crime this was the way of the Hard Living Kids but the Americans who had walk a line of fire by way of the Skull Busters, with a break away called the Yanks with and a breakaway called the Stars and Stripes with a further split to form the New York Yanks, the Young Americans and the Ugly Americans who all later became known as Atchas. Now the names and adoption of North American Nomenclature was a natural progression because it was a way of paying homage to the first Skull Busters who were seven brothers who lived in Bloeme Flats District six and they were of Native American descent. The Skull Busters found it hard to change with the times and when workers from the Karoo came to work in Cape Town they started a new trend and a new enemt for the Skull Busters. People from further inland but not as far as the Free State were called Booee Jongens which is slang for a Boer Jong a Coloured version of a boy, (regardless of how old the person was). These people were obsessed with looking good and dressing nice because in their pre Cape Town Lives they had nothing. They started wearing the dress shirts with the silk scarf around the neck and the original golf hat known then as the sewe naat aya because the hat had seven points on it which all had very definite meanings. These meaning read from left to right, loyalty, understanding, brotherhood, respect and discipline, station in life which later became the number with the advent of the numbers gangs, and blood. They brought the swagger stick to Cape Town. They always walked with their Kirrie as it was known and they carried a very distinctive Tiger land Jacket either in RED or Black. The jacket would be rapped around the left arm like a shield and the silk scarf around that hand to protect against cuts. It is for this very reason that the Skull Busters stopped using Kalp which essentially was to scalp but came to be known as to cut, as a method of attack and started using stabbing and gutting because they found that sharp blades could not penetrate the silk material. This was the defining moment for the Skull Busters, this is when they became Atchas or Apaches. They even gave their new enemy a name. In slang the word joss means to make beautiful. To look Jchos was to be dressed nice. Because the Booee Jongens always went out of their way to look good they became known as the Jchosters. This brought a new era of the gentleman gangster very different to the Atchas and the Globe Gang.
One thing does become evident as I dig into the history of the Cape Coloured Soldaat, there was a very good reason for the police and the uninitiated to be scared to go into district six.
Understanding which state of readiness to be in is one of the first and foremost lessons to learn. You must learn how to react when alone. For example knowing that your friends will help you when you are attacked is invaluable information and will help you to decide up until which point to pursue teh defensive action. Now if you think that the group of people you are with are more inclined to run even when all the odds require them to turn and fight is even more important because this information could save your life. What is more dangerous is to be around untrained individuals who allow emotion to determine the rules of the engagement. The gangs use someone in a gang fight known as the Ougatjie which is pronounced die ougaachi. His job is to sych the opposing gang out to get them so worked up that they will forget their battle plan and attack with raw emotion. This works very well for them but not in a defensive situation.
You want to strive for relevant, appropriate action in the shortest amount of time. You want to stay as calm as possible because as much as adrenalin is your friend it is also your enemy. It goes hand in hand with tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time laps syndrome etc. The physical effects are even worse. Tightening of the muscles, dry mouth, irregular breathing patterns, problems with depth perception and irregular distribution of oxygen to the muscles which can cause dizziness or a lack of will power to see the engagement through after it is too late to run. Your first decision should be to cross the street, turn around or to run away this is called evasion and if this is not an option and you decide to stay and see the engagement through then you must be prepared to go the distance.
I will talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. First a little history. In the mid seventies we saw the proliferation of a new breed of gangster who was more into organized crime this was the way of the Hard Living Kids but the Americans who had walk a line of fire by way of the Skull Busters, with a break away called the Yanks with and a breakaway called the Stars and Stripes with a further split to form the New York Yanks, the Young Americans and the Ugly Americans who all later became known as Atchas. Now the names and adoption of North American Nomenclature was a natural progression because it was a way of paying homage to the first Skull Busters who were seven brothers who lived in Bloeme Flats District six and they were of Native American descent. The Skull Busters found it hard to change with the times and when workers from the Karoo came to work in Cape Town they started a new trend and a new enemt for the Skull Busters. People from further inland but not as far as the Free State were called Booee Jongens which is slang for a Boer Jong a Coloured version of a boy, (regardless of how old the person was). These people were obsessed with looking good and dressing nice because in their pre Cape Town Lives they had nothing. They started wearing the dress shirts with the silk scarf around the neck and the original golf hat known then as the sewe naat aya because the hat had seven points on it which all had very definite meanings. These meaning read from left to right, loyalty, understanding, brotherhood, respect and discipline, station in life which later became the number with the advent of the numbers gangs, and blood. They brought the swagger stick to Cape Town. They always walked with their Kirrie as it was known and they carried a very distinctive Tiger land Jacket either in RED or Black. The jacket would be rapped around the left arm like a shield and the silk scarf around that hand to protect against cuts. It is for this very reason that the Skull Busters stopped using Kalp which essentially was to scalp but came to be known as to cut, as a method of attack and started using stabbing and gutting because they found that sharp blades could not penetrate the silk material. This was the defining moment for the Skull Busters, this is when they became Atchas or Apaches. They even gave their new enemy a name. In slang the word joss means to make beautiful. To look Jchos was to be dressed nice. Because the Booee Jongens always went out of their way to look good they became known as the Jchosters. This brought a new era of the gentleman gangster very different to the Atchas and the Globe Gang.
One thing does become evident as I dig into the history of the Cape Coloured Soldaat, there was a very good reason for the police and the uninitiated to be scared to go into district six.
Thank you to Araminta De Clermont and Preik for the images you are trully helping to document a very scattered difficult history.
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