Memoirs of a Karate Fighter Page 7
I returned to my line. My opponent rushed forward to finish me off. Overcoming my fear and the natural inclination to retreat, I pushed forward, determined to meet him halfway. Squeezing my eyes shut, I punched as hard as I could and felt the impact travel down my arm – while simultaneously I heard a sickening impact amid groans from the crowd. I opened my eyes to catch the last of his descent to the floor, blood oozing from his mouth and nose. The referee restrained him as he temporarily lost his composure, as well as his senses. He struggled to tear away the blood-soaked rag from under his chin and I swallowed hard at the thought of what he might do to me when the bout restarted, but to my great relief I was promptly disqualified. Walking from the area, I saw Eddie Cox laughing to himself and I knew then that he had probably lied about the political inclination of my opponent. I had lost, but defeat had tasted strangely sweet at that moment.
My eyes opened as a hum of excitement filled the building. Over the tannoy one of the officials called for the coaches to submit the fighting orders of their teams. As I got to my feet, Eddie Cox beckoned me over to him and that pain in my gut came back again. I anticipated that he was about to tell me that I had been relegated to the reserves of the second team because of the training sessions I had missed. “Ralph,” he said, “you’ll be fighting number three for the first team.”
The surprise left me barely able to talk. “Do you think I’m ready?” I mumbled, as the first feelings of self-doubt crept in. “Is Declan injured or something?” I had expected that Declan Byrne would retain his place in the first team upon his return from a year in Ireland, especially when he had joined in with the fighting classes. But unknown to me, he had told Eddie that he no longer felt the urge to compete. He had boxed with some success while he was away and had become even more disillusioned with the changes in the rules of competition karate which further restricted the amount of contact a competitor could make. Along with many others, he was of the opinion that these alterations were diluting the combat system’s effectiveness. Eddie Cox smiled. “No,” he replied, “he isn’t injured, he agrees with Jerome and Ewart that you’re ready for the first team. Just do your best.”
“And Clinton?” I asked.
“He’s going to be the first reserve, okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled, suppressing my urge to cheer out loud. This was the moment for which I had endured years of mental and physical discomfort. But there was no time for any celebration – now I had to prove to myself, and to others, that I was worthy to line up alongside some of the best karate fighters in the country.
As the day progressed, the team advanced much as predicted. With win after win, my confidence in my new role grew. Drawing strength from the others, I felt totally at home fighting at the number three position, as opposed to fighting as number one for the second team, where there was far more pressure to get the team off to a good start.
Conceitedly, I felt surprised that the second team had not only survived without me but were performing better, much better, than anyone had anticipated. Danny Moore, Don Hamilton, the Bryan brothers, Trog, Leslie and Flash were beating teams that were made up of far more experienced fighters. By the evening, both YMCA teams had progressed to the semi-finals. No one dared speak of the possibility of the two teams making it to the final for fear of breaking the spell.
Throughout the elimination rounds, Jerome and Ewart, fighting in positions one and two, formed a formidable opposition for any team. Neither of them lost a bout and it is hard to recall if any of their opponents even scored a point against either of them. That changed somewhat when the YMCA fought in the first semi-final. The opposition was a team coached by a man who had trained with Eddie Cox at the Temple Karate Centre in Birmingham. We regarded his team as our inferiors, a ‘competition’ club, whereas the YMCA trained for combat first and only later were students introduced to the idea of fighting within rules.
Jerome had already gone out and won his fight in his usual efficient, no-nonsense manner, when Ewart, in his overly confident way, strolled lethargically onto the mat. It was evident he regarded his opponent with disdain. His bout started with the less experienced fighter moving around and feinting attacks in order to draw a reaction. Ewart sometimes used a style of fighting in which he planted himself on one spot, head slightly tilted to one side, almost trance-like, like a gangly carnivorous insect waiting to strike at its prey with lightening speed. Suddenly, his opponent feinted another attack and when it again drew no response he followed up with a mawashigeri jodan (roundhouse kick to the head) that slapped Ewart hard on the side of his face. The referee could not award an ippon fast enough, such was his delight.
Ewart’s arrogance, on and off the mat, had won him few friends. There were many, even amongst his admirers, who wanted him taken down a peg or two. A great roar went up as the referee’s hand shot skywards to indicate a full point had been awarded. I began to worry that Ewart’s dented pride was about to get him disqualified as he sought vengeance, leaving all the pressure on me to re-establish the lead. From behind me I heard Leslie making no attempt to hide his amusement: he could tell what was to follow. The fight only lasted another thirty seconds. Ewart scored three full points, the last one an excessively powerful punch to the solar plexus that folded his opponent as if he were made of paper. He returned to the team still scowling and when he glared at me I understood his unspoken command: nothing but an emphatic victory would suffice.
I was to face their best competition exponent. He had won several tournaments and had a reputation for being cunning and cagey. In many ways he epitomized the nature of his club: point-scoring was everything. The contrast in the ethos of the two clubs was illustrated when he had once made the mistake of visiting the YMCA and asking Declan Byrne to spar with him; the competitor had no chance against a fighter like Declan and he never returned to repeat his error of judgment.
My opponent started the bout by moving forward aggressively to intimidate me. I immediately reacted with a counterpunch that he just about evaded. As my fist brushed the side of his head, his eyes betrayed a sudden hesitance. I pressed on, combining feet with fists in my attack. In desperation he lashed out with an open hand and caught me squarely in the mouth, pushing my upper lip against the sharp edges of my teeth. The referee halted the match and called for the doctor to examine the small gash at the edge of my mouth. The doctor placed a plaster on the wound as he announced that the cut would have to be stitched but it could wait until after the bout. The referee asked if I was okay to continue. I nodded, as I was sure I would have my opponent’s measure once the bout restarted. The referee turned and gave a private warning about proper control to my opponent who then raised an apologetic hand in my direction. I merely glowered at him in response.
The delay in the resumption of the bout was agonizing for me. I felt embarrassed that I had been caught out by a technique that had caused me a disproportionate amount of damage when compared to its feeble execution. All I needed was the opportunity to make amends.
Sweating profusely, I worked hard, perhaps too hard, to land a technique, but he wouldn’t stand and fight me and I failed to register a score. A bell sounded and a disembodied voice announced that there were thirty seconds remaining. Again I attacked and he retreated. Determined to win, I sprang forward and delivered a solid punch that landed just below his throat. He yelled out and confused me as I was sure the blow had landed away from his windpipe. Holding his fist in the air, he raced back to his line. The referee at first appeared confused, before he awarded a half point – to my opponent! Shocked, I looked back to my team, having no idea of what technique he was supposed to have landed on me. With only a few seconds left, he easily avoided my desperate attacks and won the bout.
The two remaining YMCA fighters, Hugo and Chester, won their fights, giving us a four-to-one victory but as I made my way over to the doctor to get my mouth stitched I felt deflated. Declan Bryne took the time to give me a few words of encouragement. “You learn more from your losses t
han you do from your wins,” he said, slapping my shoulders and drawing an admonishing glare from the doctor. “Don’t worry, you were the better fighter, but he conned the referee. That kind of carry-on is why I packed up competing. When you’ve finished here, Ewart wants to see you.”
He wandered off to watch the other semifinal in which our second team was facing the Shukokai club coached by Eddie Daniels. When the doctor had finished with me, I hesitated about going over to see Ewart. The feeling of dejection brought on by my defeat remained and, as I walked toward my cousin, Declan’s words repeated over in my mind: “You learn more from your losses.”
To my surprise, Ewart was more reassuring than critical and told me that I had fought well all day. Like Declan, he thought my more experienced opponent had kidded the referee. It was approaching midnight as we went back into the almost empty arena for the final. Most of the spectators had already started their long journeys home, back to towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales, as their teams had been eliminated. In the final, we were to face the Shukokai team, which included Livi Whyte, another Jamaican fighting for Britain, who had been a runner-up in the 1980 world championships. He was a popular man with the YMCA: tough and uncompromising, but always fair. By the time the teams lined up for the final I had already worked out where I had gone wrong in my only loss of the day. I knew my opponent but I had failed to block that out from my mind and unwittingly I had made allowances for his style – but that meant he had gained a psychological advantage and I had not fought in my usual way.
The next few minutes were a blur because I fought my final bout of the tournament in exactly the way I had been trained to do: without conscious thought and thereby allowing my body to react in the manner in which it had been conditioned over many years of practise. At the end of the bout the referee raised his hand in my direction and with that the YMCA had an unassailable lead.
Warm water cascading from a showerhead was the next thing I remembered. The banter in the changing area centred around Jerome’s fight with Livi Whyte. It had been the fight of the championships. Jerome and Livi were friends and colleagues in the British team and knew each other very well. The Shukokai champion was a large man of immense strength and deceptive speed, and the fight had ebbed and flowed until a superbly timed front-hand punch from Jerome had upended the oncoming Livi and put more than two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle onto the flat of his back. The YMCA teams had come first and third in the British Karate Federation Clubs’ championships and even our fiercest rivals now had to concede that we were the best karate club in Britain.
– Chapter Seven –
Know the smallest things and the biggest things; the shallowest things and the deepest things.
Miyamoto Musashi – The Ground Book
THE MAIN BOILER lay dormant and awaiting its annual summer repairs. It stood, mostly obscured by shadows, in a small, isolated building that was a small distance from the main factory. An old mattress positioned on a mezzanine above and to the back of the boiler was the ideal location for what Mick Davies called ‘the retreat’. Impossible to see from the front of the boiler house, it was a site where a select few who knew about it recovered from a night out at a party, or rested bruised and aching limbs, or simply evaded work. I intended to stay right there for the afternoon after what had been a very tiring morning.
The day had started badly. A charge of adrenalin and the visions of victory had kept me awake for most of the night and I had only nodded off in the early hours. My alarm clock woke me with a jolt, and for the first time, I felt exactly where my opponents’ blows had landed on my body as I eased my way out of bed. It was a small source of consolation that my sore mouth distracted me from the dull ache in my chest. But as the adrenalin had dissipated, I was left not only feeling pain but also drained of any enthusiasm for work; it was if I had awoken from an exciting dream and then stepped into someone else’s drab and mundane life.
Mick couldn’t get enough of the stories of the championships, including the one about how I got the stitches in my mouth. He found that one to be a great source of entertainment but he was bewildered by how little I made of such an achievement and he constantly scolded me for not bringing in the winners’ trophy for everyone to see. It was a tradition in the factory for the workers to bring in any sort of award they had won – usually they were for fishing or pigeon racing – and put them on display in the canteen. Finally, I had to put his mind at ease by revealing that it was more than likely that the local evening newspaper would publish a photograph and report of the YMCA’s victory during the week. It was a source of irritation for Mick that the YMCA had shunned publicity for so long, and he had often commented that if his club had achieved a fraction of our victories the local newspapers and the various martial arts magazines would have been bombarded with reports of their triumphs at almost every major karate tournament in Britain. But it was not the way of the YMCA to court publicity. I did often wonder about the wisdom of such a strategy, especially when it seemed that every week I was reading of boastful karate instructors whose egos were only matched by their inflated, often self-awarded, grades in a magazine or local newspaper. From very early on, Eddie Cox and the other senior members had decided on a course that relied on actions speaking louder than words. At the YMCA, victories were accorded the briefest of handshakes when back at the dojo – although a first win by a junior member was usually given a mention at the start of the following session – and then it was on with the training, the grinding and repetitive training.
“That means everyone will see you,” said Mick, on hearing of the probable visit by the local press.
“Only if they buy the newspaper,” I said.
“Well then,” he said, as though I had just proved his point, “you might as well bring in the trophy tomorrow and give us all a look.”
I refused. The last thing I needed was questions regarding the ‘karate chops’ that featured in ‘Hai Karate’ aftershave adverts, or the supposed martial arts expertise of David Carradine, star of the Kung Fu TV series. By lunchtime I was struggling to keep my eyes open, prompting Mick to suggest that I should spend the afternoon in the seclusion of ‘the retreat’ while he covered for me.
Once I lay on the grimy mattress I found it hard to doze off. As I had done in my own bed, I replayed the fights of the previous day. It was only the cut in my mouth that caused me to feel anything less than total satisfaction about how the day had gone: I had fought with – and against – the cream of karate competitors, not only in Britain but possibly in Europe. And I had acquitted myself well, although I knew that I still had a way to go to be ranked along with the very best. Next to the mattress was a stash of Mick’s ageing martial arts magazines. I found one from 1976 and again read over an article that then rated the YMCA only joint third in a subjective league table of the top fighting clubs in the country. The victory at the British Clubs’ championships was the culmination of five years of hard work to prove that we had been the number one club all along.
There was also a magazine that contained an article on ‘race’. Because of the proliferation of black champions in the martial arts, it tried, in pseudoscientific terms, to explain why black fighters were more suited to karate than their white counterparts; citing everything from longer black limbs infused with twitch fibres, to eyes being spaced further apart to give better peripheral vision. As far as I was concerned, it was an article riddled with backhanded compliments which were calculated to reinforce racist stereotypes.
In the past, the question of race had periodically cropped up between Mick and I. He was inclined to believe the not-so-natural selection explanation, claiming the slave ships sailing across the Atlantic had weeded out the weak for shark food, leaving the slave masters to increase their chances of breeding physically superior beings by cultivating stronger specimens from those who had survived the arduous voyages. I told him it sounded like he had got most of that stuff from the ‘Roots’ TV series. But I did not tak
e offence at Mick’s views, as I had heard similar arguments raised by black people I knew. I countered with the argument that it was more nurture than nature, and that the environment played a large part in why, like so many of their boxing counterparts, many karate champions were black. After all, teams from the Caribbean or Africa were not winning world championships; the top teams in international karate competitions were Britain, The Netherlands and France, all of which contained a high proportion of black men who were now living and training in Europe. To me it was about the opportunity to train with the best teachers, as well as the circumstances in which they had grown up, that had led to the proliferation of so many great black fighters, whether in martial arts or boxing. Declan Byrne was a case in point: although his skin colour was different to that of his colleagues, he had a lot in common with the rest of the YMCA in that he was of immigrant stock and had spent most of his life in one of the roughest council estates in the town. A big factor in Declan’s success at karate was the attitude that such an upbringing can create – but he was the first to admit that for many young black men there was also the added factor of racism which could be manifested in anything from daily name-calling to random physical attacks. It was in this kind of hostile atmosphere that many people were forced to confront aggression and think about defending themselves. It was the added dimension of racism that propagated a mind-set which must have been similar to the one that was found amongst the young men who had trained in Japan’s dojos before World War Two: a martial art for them was not a sport, nor merely a method of keeping fit, for some it had become a matter of life and death.