Did James Bond know REAL hand-to-hand combat?
Whenever an action movie becomes a huge success, there is always a rush to emulate the heroes of the movie. Whether it’s buying movie merchandise or real-life items like cars, firearms, and clothing, people enter a movie wholeheartedly. Martial arts movies are no different, as people rush to the local dojo to train in the art that helped the hero save the day. Most honest martial arts instructors will explain that it takes years to learn a martial art and that those movies are rarely a good example of how a martial art actually works. Filmmakers are rarely satisfied with reality and feel the need to improve on even the most impressive real-life situations. However, the exception is when knowledgeable people are involved in a project and its creation and reality become part of the fantasy.
The James Bond series is a good example of a mix of fantasy and reality. The fantasy side of James Bond is that he is able to pull off what it normally takes to make a full squad of agents on real life spy assignments. You don’t have to deal with any of the messy or boring parts of information gathering (read sitting in an awkward place, drinking coffee, and waiting for extremely long periods of time). Many CIA and British MI6 agents will tell you that much of what they do is boring, but it can still become extremely dangerous in the blink of an eye. For many agents, a task involves traversing the mud of some third world hell without dining at the best restaurants in some of the most beautiful cities in the world.
What the fictional 007 pulls out of reality are its martial arts forms. With the exception of one movie, You Only Live Twice, where 007 learned Ninjitsu (taught to Sean Connery by real-life martial arts expert Donn Draeger), the martial art of choice for the British spy in over 20 movies is combat judo. The martial arts form allows Bond to take on much larger opponents and use his weight against them in personal combat. In From Russia with Love Bond he was able to take on a well-armed assassin and turn the tables thanks to his Judo training. For a spy facing an ever-changing battlefield, pre-WWII judo is the perfect choice as it allowed him to be flexible and different techniques can be seen scattered throughout the movies. This form of Judo is nothing if not practical and for a spy who operates alone in the field there are no second chances. Bond was able to quickly defeat the enemies and move on with the mission.
The reality of the world of James Bond comes from its creator Ian Fleming, who was based on his many adventures and experiences in the world of espionage. Before Fleming wrote twelve novels and nine short stories with James Bond, the secret agent 007, he would have many adventurers of his own. Educated at Eton College and Sandhurst Military Academy, Fleming would also learn languages and work as a stockbroker and journalist. Like Bond, he enjoyed many activities such as diving, mountain climbing, car racing, as well as smoking and drinking. When World War II began, Fleming was an army reservist who was part of the famous Black Watch regiment, but was transferred to the intelligence branch of the Royal Navy by its director, Rear Admiral John Godfrey. Like his favorite character, he would rise to the rank of commander and participate in the planning of many operations in the European theater of war.
Many of the code names for these operations would later become names from Bond novels, and several of the characters in his books are said to be based on real people Fleming met while working in the British intelligence community. No one is exactly sure who Bond was based on, but it is believed that he was a combination of several colorful characters that Fleming knew. He also helped shape the structure of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that would later become the CIA. During this time he was exposed to the many commando units that used Judo as part of their unarmed combat training. Fleming would command his own raiding unit and made sure to include judo as part of his training.
Although Fleming is only rumored to have trained a secret Camp X in Canada that trained spies and commandos in hand-to-hand combat, assassination and sabotage techniques, a recent book says it is more likely that he just visited. However, what is clear is that Fleming learned well from what he saw, and brought it to his writings. Fleming, who helped create the modern intelligence agency, would spend the postwar years creating a fictional world of spies and terrorists.
Although Bond’s preferred fictional martial art is still taught to intelligence agents and remains the best option some 50 years later. Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) The UK Special Forces branch still uses many of the command tactics learned today in WWII. World War II fighters including Judo have stood the test of time on screen and on the battlefields of the world. Fleming and his companions couldn’t afford to look good on a mission. They needed what worked against the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, and judo was the choice of the founders of modern espionage.
