HAP-KI-DO: KOREAN FOR "THAT-FUCKING-HURTS"
"There are many forms of martial arts being taught, but Hap-ki-do is ideal for women. It requires no great strength nor does it take years of training to perfect the techniques - which are both sneaky and vicious"
So says the blurb on the back cover of
HANDS OFF! Hap-ki-do Self-Defence for Women by
Frederick Adams & Gillian Webster. Published in 1986, this paperback mainly consists of easy-to-follow, stiff but effective demonstration tableaux, featuring assorted ladies a-jabbin'-twistin'-gougin'-pinchin'-kneein' an-a-kickin' at the various body-parts of some unfortunate bloke who vaguely resembles Ian Curtis. The grimly comic ultra-violence is communicated through a lovely asymmetric layout, shot on what looks like
Technical Pan stock, with type - elegantly
filmset "solid" in
Raleigh - lending the text a "cookbook" tone-of-voice. The overall effect is of a fem-friendly instruction manual, full of semi-pornographic photo-stories showcasing the sadistic, barbarous talents of some badly-dressed receptionists who keep duffing-up the same poor knobhead.
All of which is testament to the slightly potty editorial policy at the now defunct imprint,
Jarrold Colour Publications. Jarrold & Son - founded in 1810 by
John Jarrold and erstwhile home to
Norwich's finest printers and book manufacturers - sold off this, their publishing arm, to the
History Press in 2007 thus ridding themselves of an increasingly unprofitable "mad aunt". Turning their hand to buying-up and managing swathes of the city's real-estate - while retaining a multitude of other concerns including East Anglia's only independent department store - their reputation as
the provincial powerhouse is now peerless. Ask anyone from Norfolk and they'll tell you, the
Jarrold family
are Norwich...
Content aside, heritage is the clue as to why the book's design and production values exhibit brilliantly skilled executions of such arcane techniques as
photocompositing,
paste-up and (non-Mac assisted) technical illustration - courtesy of
Parke Sutton Limited, a sadly long-lost
Jarrold affiliated art-studio. Just a few years after this project, the studio was itself subsumed into
Jarrold's expanding mega-brand as part of a streamlining/downsizing strategy during the
DTP revolution. From what I can tell, they briefly relaunched as
Jarrold Parke Sutton, going on to co-publish a handful of non-fiction hardbacks by the likes of the BBC's
John Timpson and, most notably, green-fingered shag-meister himself,
Alan Titchmarsh.
As well as the throw-down scenarios for empowered '80s laydees,
HANDS OFF! contains beautiful diagrams detailing the human body's multitude of "strike points", a paragraph or two of "in-depth" legal advice (just in case you
really do fuck someone-up) and two whole pages of long-winded, weirdly unrevealing author biogs:
Adams, a former British Army rifle champion, was the first European to be trained in
Hap-ki-do and a black belt in 16 other Korean martial arts.
Webster, who studied journalism at
LCP and wrote for
the Guardian and
Look & Learn, describes herself as,
"a participator, not a spectator(?!)
". Both shared a keen interest in archaeology and either would doubtless pulp any motherfucker who so much as gave their knee a friendly squeeze.
Selected wisdom includes:
"Remember, skin is more painful than muscle."
"By applying more pain you can walk him anywhere."
"If your attacker has a moustache, all the better."
"Try this on yourself and see how painful it is."
and my favourite,
"If his mouth is open, you'll probably dislocate his jaw."
Click on images to enlarge
