Masterton: Fighting pharmacist

Kuripuni pharmacist Simon Ogden has a twin called Mark working as a radiochemist in Idaho.
Each brother took up martial arts years before studying the chemistry of matter, and training blows during their childhood were always traded as equals. Things are different today.
"Training back then was just a legitimate way of getting my hands on my brother, and there were four boys in the family after all so there was always going to be bedlam.
"I'm pretty sure I'd be the one to walk away, unfortunately, if push came to shove between us now," Simon says.
The confidence of the 35-year-old Masterton father is voiced quietly, but with a conviction that is not misplaced.
Simon has paced his study and career in pharmacy with 17 years of training in jiu-jitsu and judo, peppered with frequent "dabbling" in other disciplines.
Sensei Simon Ogden today holds a second-degree black belt in shorinji kan jiu-jitsu and after shifting to New Zealand in 2002 co-founded Jitsu Australasia.
He opened an academy in Wellington that year and last year opened in Masterton a second academy teaching the style in New Zealand.
Simon also holds a brown belt in judo - the first discipline he and his twin Mark took up when they were 5 - which is taught alongside Brazilian jiu-jitsu at the Masterton academy as well.
His two other brothers, Leonard and Michael, have likewise studied martial arts; their father, Steve, was a glazier who had been a boxer; and the shared family pursuit was supported by their mother, Joan.
Simon boxed and fought several amateur bouts with the Kingfishers Club during his early school years and trained for about a year in jiu-jitsu and wado ryu karate as a teenager.
His parents also encouraged academic achievement that their working lives had denied them and after a family shift to Great Yarmouth, Simon targeted the School of Pharmacy at University College of London (UCL), "because I was too lazy to do medicine and stupidly thought I was taking the soft option".
To pay for his tuition, which eventually yielded an honours degree in pharmacy, Simon worked a 5am job placing sea-front deck chairs, a lunch and dinnertime position at a restaurant and late nights as a doorman.
During his few spare hours he returned to jiu-jitsu at the UCL Jitsu Club and trained alongside qualified philosopher and co-instructor, James Garvey, who also passed on an easygoing and informal instructional style.
"That's the good thing about martial arts. Once you've bought the uniform, you can leave and go back again at anytime because it never really goes out of fashion.
"Actually, I don't think I've ever taken time out from training since varsity, even when I've travelled.
"I came here with my gi (uniform) in my suitcase so I could train on my stopover. Everything else went in the hold."
A shorinji kan brown belt must in Britain teach for two years before advancing to black belt, and his perennial "hobby" took a new turn after walking into a jiu jitsu club in Wellington nine years ago.
"None of the instructors were there that night, so I offered to take the class instead. I was asked to stay on and that eventually led to the academy opening here in Masterton.
"You see, I believe it's not what's on the syllabus that keeps people in jiu-jitsu - it's the instructor.
"That's probably the reason I've stayed in for so long myself.
"Besides essentially being an art of self-defence, not competition, that has something to offer to everybody, for me it's not just mat time that matters. It's the social time afterwards that's just as vital, the camaraderie."
Simon holds to his original plan to embrace other disciplines at the Masterton academy and create a place "where people can pay their monthly fee and learn whatever they want whether it's jiu-jitsu, judo, karate, aikido or whatever".
However, he and wife Anya draw the line at forcing their sons - Flynn, 6, and Cade, 9 - into fight training.
"I don't really want to push what I've done on my boys; only if they want to learn.
"And even then, I think I would send them to my senior instructor. That would be the right thing to do."
- The Masterton Judo & Jiu Jitsu Academy is located at 149 Queen St in Masterton and training is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Kids' judo (4 to 13 years) runs for an hour from 5.30pm and jiu-jitsu (14 years and above) runs for two hours from 6.30pm. For more information, call Simon Ogden on 021 248 6111.
- Jiu-jitsu is a Japanese martial art that manipulates the force of an opponent against himself.
The discipline evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a way to combat armed and armoured opponents either barehanded or using only a short weapon.
Practitioners learn techniques developed around the principle of using an attacker's energy against him, rather than directly opposing it.
- There are many variations of the art, which uses all forms of grappling techniques including throwing, trapping, joint locks, holds, gouging, biting, disengagement, striking and kicking.
Some schools also teach the use of short weapons.
- Today, jiu-jitsu is practised in traditional and modern forms, from which the martial art and Olympic sport of judo was developed by Kano Jigoro in the late 19th century.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu was in turn derived from pre-World War II versions of Kodokan judo.