Last Updated Wednesday 23rd June 2016
Talk given to the Royal Marines by Owen Murray
Northumbria URNU members were very honoured to have Owen Murray M.B.E 6th Dan come in as a favour to his comrade in karate Colour Sergeant Mick O’Donnell to give them a talk during Drill Night. A very charismatic character that led a particularly colourful life, his relaxed style of talk captured the attention of the Unit as he described his journey from losing his hand at an early age in a factory accident, through to a distinguished career representing Great Britain in the Karate squad and has been a member of KUGB for 44 years and started his own self defence company alongside numerous other ventures.
With the aid of some pictures on a slide-show, Owen led the Unit through the trauma of losing his hand as a young man in a factory accident, the injury exaggerating an already shy persona. However Owen made it abundantly clear that after a short stint of alcoholism directly after the incident, his life altered dramatically after beginning Karate training. Setting a standard that remained through his life, after asking an instructor at his first training session, “Is it a problem for you?” holding up his prosthetic arm and receiving a resounding “no”, Owen demonstrated that he was just as able in fact more so than most people. “No one saw Owen as being disabled because no allowance was made for it.”John Holdworth, his first instructor.
Owen's passion for Karate and self defence was obvious. Humbly detailing his achievements that include winning gold at European championships, and captaining the team that won gold at the British Championships amongst many, he was clearly at the top of his game. By this point you had to remind yourself that this champion was short of a hand. It put any of your own ailments firmly into perspective, particularly as Owen talked of how intense his training regime was, the amount of students who tried and failed to keep up with him as he trained relentlessly numbered many, whilst those who stuck it out, including our COXN were the few to make the elite team that Owen selected for Sunderland and Team GB. Even now Owen's training regime of sixty sit ups and twenty press ups ten times a day as well as his normal training is intimidating. However it was made evident by the detail with which Owen talked about his various team mates that he respected all of them, as they shared his passion, and despite his very obvious success, had remained very humble and down to earth.
Whilst it was karate that gave Owen the confidence and fine tuned his fighting spirit, he put his fight to good use in other areas; a surprising twist to his talk was about his trip to Sierra Leone. Travelling to Sierra Leone in February 1993 to join Paul Jenkins, a member of Newcastle Dojo to assist him in charity work. It was news to Owen to discover that he had gone to volunteer in a country that was in the midst of a violent civil war as he had agreed and set off on good will. Owen spoke vividly about the shocking poverty which these civilians lived in, life expectancy was down to 42 years, people were visible starving, polio was rampant as there were very few safe supplies of drinking water and there wasn’t even an electricity supply to Freetown. However Owen focused on the positives of his time with the Christian Brothers, which included teaching karate at the dojo there, creating some stability and giving some discipline to the youngsters in the area in particular. This stability and safety his teaching provided was sorely needed, one of Owen's most chilling tales was about a young man, who after witnessing his classmates beheading by guerrilla fighters, retrieved the head, kept it, and turned it into a lamp. A shocking memory for any crowd. His experiences with the Christian Brotherhood also brought him into contact with Brother Sneider, a German limb maker, who’d spent 18 years there making wooden limbs for the many polio victims and lepers. This led Owen to talk avidly about the children he had encountered at Freetown Cheshire Home, who had been disabled by Polio, yet they were still playing football and amazed by the fact a white man could be disabled also. Whilst Owen had clearly spread himself very thin, describing that his work rate, lack of food and water and extreme heat rendered him very ill on multiple occasions, he had remained dedicated to his students and lead them through multiple grading during his time there. It was clear that Owen’s time in Sierra Leone had a profound impact on him.
In his typically laid back manner, Owen downplayed all the charity work he had done over the years, both individually and as part of his company Remploy. One particularly awe inspiring method of fundraising was doing 3,760 sit ups in an hour outside a pub to raise money for a friend at another dojo who had cancer. This was one event in many that displayed Owen's enthusiasm for a challenge, particularly if it was for a good cause. After many years of fundraising, Owen was awarded and M.B.E was his services to the disabled in 1994, he recalled with good humour about how the Queen pushed his hand away after pinning his medal on as a method of keeping schedule. Fortunately we were able to see this as Owen had a video, as he hailed this understandably as one of his proudest moments.
It was just karate and charity that Owen has succeeded in however, after working at Remploy for many years, alongside being the security for multiple Sunderland clubs, he set up his business Sure Safe in 1996. This company uses all of Owen's skills, teaching self defence in a practical manner to individuals and businesses. As some students later encountered as they were volunteered to participate in examples in the bar afterwards, Owen combines his skills at de-escalating a situation verbally whilst using his karate skills in a practical manner to deal with some very real life situations. His teaching style was very motivating and no-nonsense, but all the students left with a better knowledge of how to handle themselves than what they’d arrived with.
Throughout his talk, Owen welcomed the NURNU members to get involved and ask questions, of which there many, ranging from how he had first coped with losing his hand, if he would return to Sierra Leone, down to what was your proudest victory in karate, he answered all of them with real honesty and humour, making it hard to believe that this was a man who wasn’t keen on public speaking.
We at Northumbria URNU were very grateful to Owen for coming in to talk to us, sharing his interesting and inspiring experiences, leaving us with an impression that if you’ve got enough fight in your belly there’s only your own discipline and work ethic standing in your way. That and you should always have another beer, even if you’re about to crack out close to 3760 sit ups outside the pub.
Much obliged to Owen Murray and we hope to host you back at HMS Calliope in the near future.
