Bruce Lee And Albrecht Pflueger. Albrecht Who?

With today’s post I’m really going to sound like an oldtimer.

But what has to be said, has to be said.

Albrecht Pflueger is probably THE karate master/sensei who (besides Bruce Lee, of course!) inspired me to start taking Shotokan karate classes in the first.

And like Bruce Lee, I have never met Sensei Albrecht Pflueger (yet).

It’s funny actually, because way back during the mid 70s while living in Germany, I stumbled across a paperback on “Karate – Jiu Jitsu -Judo /Modern Self-Defense” at a local department store. I thought it was pretty cool, never having looked at martial arts before.

I was more into soccer football and trying to date girls. Ha ha.

But I digress, sorry.

Anyway, I really had to scrape the money together to get me this book. Yeah, I know 2-3 bucks in those days was more than today.

Several days later on a Saturday I had the dough and off I went to the store that carried the book.

If you’re not that familiar with store hours in Germany in those days, stores normally closed at 2 p.m. on Saturdays.

I was running late that day, but I somehow made it just in time before they closed for the weekend to become the proud owner of mentioned paperback.

Whatever happened to that book anyway? Hmm, probably got lost in all the moving throughout the years.

To me that little paperback by Albrecht Pflueger made all the difference.

Albrecht Pflüger is in my humble opinion together with Juergen Seydel THE karate pioneer in Germany. Remember Juergen Seydel introduced karate to Elvis Presley while stationed on Germany in the late 50s.

Many consider Albrecht Pflueger also one of the first karatekas in Europe.

In 1957 Sensei Pflueger began studying Jiu Jitsu under Ago Glucker in Stuttgart.

He then switched over to Judo and in 1962 he attained 1st Kyu.

As a 23-year-old karate brown belt, he founded a martial arts club near Stuttgart and shortly thereafter in 1965 he became a 1st Dan black belt, certified by JKA-instructors Kase, Kanazawa, Enoeda and Shirai.

Sensei Pflueger has ever since been writing books, promoting karate in Germany in a number of functions in the karate associations as well as teaching at his local club (Karate TSG Leonberg) and countrywide seminars.

And after all these years come to think of it, Sensei Pflueger is actually a mixed martial artist in the true sense:

7th Dan Shotokan-Karate, 2th Dan Jiu Jitsu, 1st Dan Aikido as well as 1st Kyu Jūdō.

And there you have it: Albrecht Pflueger (along with Bruce Lee), the guy who ignited my interest and passion for martial arts.

Sensei_Albrecht_Pflueger