20 Questions with Tommy Joe Moore

Tommy Joe Moore is one of the nicest blokes you'll ever come across. There are not many people who can shove a stick into your throat whilst wearing a smile on their face and give you a lesson in history at the same time — Tommy can!

Whilst I have known and seen Tommy at various martial arts events and seminars over the years and followed his online posts, it was only in February of this year that I managed to catch up with him while he was giving a seminar arranged by our friends at Adaptive Martial Arts UK & Ireland, in the historical city of Cambridge. The title of the seminar pretty much summed it up perfectly — ‘How To Fight Like Your Grandad’ using WWII combative techniques of spies and commandos, covering weapons and unarmed skills!

[Editor’s Note: I’m not going to go into the details of the seminar itself as a report will appear in the June issue of Lift Hands. Further, an article on the subject penned by Tommy appears immediately after these questions including a brief biography at the end]

Watching Tommy work was a pleasure and afterwards I caught up with the ‘fella’ for our 20 Questions. I must admit, this was one of my favourite. I won’t divulge any spoilers, but trust me, by the end you’ll have a smile on your face.

LH: So, we are here with Tommy Joe Moore and we have just finished a seminar on survival techniques from World War II.

Tommy, Thank you for giving us your time and welcome to Lift Hands Magazine’s 20 Questions. Okay, the idea here is to get your responses ‘off the cuff’ — the first thing that comes to mind — let us see how fast you are and for the record Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace has been the fastest to date!

TJM: [Smiling]… All right!

LH: If you could have personally witnessed anything, what would you want to have seen?

TJM: Ooh, personally witnessed anything? Hmmm…The Battle of Trafalgar — I love naval history!

LH: That’s interesting! I think it’s the first time that we have had such an answer to this question. Great! Ok… What would you do if you were invisible for a day?

TJM: [Smiles, claps and rubs his hands together]… Ooh, steal a load of money — I’m not going to lie! I’d take so much money from people who didn’t deserve it. I’d live the rest of my life a very wealthy man, giving money to a lot of worthy causes and looking after my mum!

LH: [Laughing hysterically] Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Why not, why not indeed — a modern day Robin Hood! As a child, what did you wish to become when you grew up?

TJM: A Power Ranger! Straightaway…always wanted to be a Power Ranger!

LH: A Power Ranger? Which one?

TJM: The green one because his name was Tommy and he had a dragon!

LH: What animal best represents you and why?

TJM: A fox! It’s ginger, sneaky, cunning, wisdom! These are the things I aspire to… I like foxes!

LH: Yeah! What is your greatest strength or weakness?

TJW: Greatest weakness… I’m quite flippant! So, I tend to be very breezy about decision making and sometimes I need to think things through better. Erm, greatest strength… probably communication! I find it easy to communicate and get my ideas across to people. I’ll probably fudge this interview now that I’ve said it! [Laughs]

LH: [Laughing] Ok, let’s see what happens. All right, so this one is probably inline with what you have just done What is your favorite memory of any one of your grandparents?

TJM: Favourite memory of my grandparents? Er… it is of my grandad Stan. He was a very poor man. We were going past a charity shop and it had a little green dragon in the window. The charity shop was closed. I cried and cried and cried! Two days later in the post came this brown packet with all strings tied [see image below] around it and there was the little dinosaur. It was really, really sweet of him, he probably didn’t have dinner that day to buy me that dinosaur… yeah!

LH: Wow, yeah, that is something special! How do you want to be remembered?

TJM: As a connector of people! What I quite like is when I teach seminars I get people from hard combat sports and combative, and traditional martial arts, and no martial arts, and I like to bring different people together. A proper cultural mix of people and what they do is important so, connecting people.

LH: Excellent! What have you always wanted and did you ever get it?

TJM: Yeah, happy! I always wanted to be happy and I’m a happy man! Things could be better and things could be worse , but I am happy in myself and what I do.

LH: Do you know your heritage?

TJM: Oh yeah! [Laughs] I’m from a big traveller background, which is not a very well written heritage as you can imagine [laughs again]… but it is ours! So, my mum was born in the caravans, I wasn’t and it’s a big, big traveller history! On my dad’s side a long military history, so it’s an interesting combination and it doesn’t make sense and no wonder they divorced to be honest — It’s complete opposites! But, yeah!

LH: Wow! That’s different! Are you still learning who you are?

TJM: Yeah, a mad world gypsy woman and a very organised and structured military man — it was always going to go terribly! [Smiles]… Oh, absolutely, you never stop learning and if you are not reinventing yourself every now and then, then what’s the point? You’ve always got to try, got to learn something new — like you said, a 100 year old woman wants to learn martial arts [refers to a conversation we had earlier], that’s living!

LH: Absolutely! What, if anything, are you afraid of and why?

TJM: I’m a huge hypochondriac… so diseases! So, any small itch, any scratch or bump, any ill feeling and I’m instantly diagnosing something horrible! [Laughing] I’m a chronic googler of illnesses! I don’t mind dying but I hate the idea of being ill!

LH: So, you get man-flu then? [Laughing]

TJM: [Laughing] Yeah, I get man-flu and start administering the last rites!

LH: I suppose you’re just like the rest of us blokes basically! What is the most memorable class you have ever taken?

TJM: It was a class with Eddie Quinn who used to be my Thai Boxing instructor. He’s a lovely man. It was nothing particularly fantastic but he just said at the end of the class, “If you go home happy and are a little bit safer, I’ve done my job!” That just really landed with me! I like Eddie’s teaching style — people are happier, they are a little bit more safer than when they came in… job’s done! And it really felt natural and organic when he said it.

LH: I understand what you are saying. Eddie is a lovely bloke and one of the best in British martial arts, I’ve seen him teach on many a occasion and he is special. Ok, onwards… What book has influenced you the most?

TJM: Hmm… It’s probably not going to sound particularly great of me as a human, but it is called ‘The Way of the Wolf’ by the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and it’s how he communicates with people, and convinces people while he does stuff. Whilst morally he is not the best of people, but what he is, is an expert communicator and that has really helped me with the way I teach and how I do my normal job in life as well! You can take stuff from anybody, no matter how weird or mental they might be and that was his skill!

LH: That’s an excellent point and ultimately if we can’t communicate we’d struggle doing anything! Right… What ridiculous thing has someone tricked you into doing or believing?

TJM: Oh… [laughs]! Doing or believing? Erm… I had a friend once who was Chinese that told me his brother was Michael Jackson and I believed it for 2 years! I don’t know how my family let that continue or how he thought that would land but I did believe it!

LH: [Disbelief]! That’s, that’s just…

TJM: I mean, I was seven but still old enough… I should’ve known! [Laughs sheepishly]

LH: Yeah, you should’ve! Who or what has been the greatest influence in your life?

TJM: My mum! My mum’s a fantastic warm mum. My mum’s the bar with which I judge all mums and human beings! She’s just a lovely, lovely person in every respect and yeah, I always think of my mum. She’s not too well at the moment but she’s still hilarious, she pretends to be dead — she’s dying of cancer — she’ll lie there pretending to be dead and make us all laugh! You can’t get better then that!

LH: [Laughing] No, no… you can’t get better then that! I often see your posts on FaceBook regarding your mum and it comes across in the posts that she is a lovely warm person… you can see it and you can see the closeness between you!

TJM: She was in critical care once and someone had died next to her, and a big gospel group were singing around their bed, and my mum thought they were singing for her… she was like, “Get lost! I’m not dead yet! Go away!” Which was both awful and hilarious at the same time! [Guffawing — See below]

LH: [Laughing hysterically]… you can just imagine that! What is the craziest thing one of your teachers has done or made you do?

TJM: [Thinks briefly]… Ooh, that’s a tough question! Erm… I had an instructor that had a van — like a minibus for students — and I hadn’t taken my driving test yet but he thought it was ok for me to drive them because it was just up the road. But, I remember driving about 10 or 12 year old kids in a van and I had only done two driving lessons! Some might say it was crazy, immoral or unwise — all of those things count but yeah…!

LH: Really?

TJM: A little bit illegal driving with minors, but yeah!

LH: Right… let’s move on swiftly! We are nearing the end… When did you screw everything up, but no one ever found out it was you?

TJM: Oh, God! I work in advertising… billboards and buses, and tv things, and the amount of spelling mistakes I’ve made in tv adverts for big proper corporate brands that no ones’s noticed, and I get away with it all the time!

LH: Seriously?

TJM: Yeah, and I’m watching them saying shit that’s all gone horribly wrong and not a single person has noticed!

LH: No way! You’re going to have to tell me which ones?

TJM: I’ve gone past spelling mistakes which have been on buses and I’m like how has no one spotted that?

LH: That’s just nuts! Ok… If someone made a movie of your life would it be a drama, a comedy, a romanticcomedy, action film or science fiction?

TJM: It’d be a comedy! It’s all fun, it’s all laughs and giggles until you shuffle off the coil! You can’t take these things too seriously, especially martial arts, people take it far too gravely!

LH: If you could select one person from history and ask them one question, who would you select and what would the question be?

TJM: Oooh, that is a marvellous question! Awful question as well because I would have to think about it on the spot as well! Er, single person from history… [pauses] — I would ask, this is going to sound crap because he was a morally awful person, but I would probably speak to Winston Churchill… and I would ask him for his secrets of public speaking. How did he deliver those public speeches and turn the tides of war that rallied people together? So, whilst there’s not a lot of great things about Winston Churchill, there were some many great things you could learn from him. Off the cuff I would say him… how very generic, I apologise [Laughs].

LH: Hey, no need to apologise! I mean if you want to talk about awful people, let’s take Hitler — evil man, a great orator, he got people riled up behind his crazy ideas! Right, last one. This should be nice and easy for you. How would you describe your art in ten words or less?

TJM: Describe my art? Effective, retainable, historic and heart-warming! It has to be effective as WWII piece of material. There is no art — just martial for it to be effective! The retention of it has to be at peak because you are learning it for a very short period of time, so what you soak in needs to be absolutely memorable [clicks his fingers repeatedly]! Historical, because it helped connect people with their past and their ancestors, and people love to do the things that their grandparents, their grandmothers did. Today we are at an Adaptive Martial Arts event and there are people you know with all sorts of physical abilities and disabilities that all did this stuff — so everyone can find someone to connect with and I think that in itself is heart-warming because it is good to connect with your ancestors.

LH: Absolutely! Brilliant! Well, that was your 20 questions with Tommy Joe Moore and we will be seeing more of him in the magazine. Great to have you with us Tommy… cheers!

TJM: Cheers buddy!

My thanks to Christine for once again helping record the interview and for her superb videography which allowed me to capture and edit stills from the video.

All images edited and copyrighted © Nasser Butt 2022 Videography: Christine Batcheler.