We never laid a glove on him
Published: Wed, 04/09/14
Many years ago, in the early 1980s when I was young and still
living in London, I used to train in a kickboxing style under an
instructor called Joe Holmes. He called his style Shaolin Kung Fu
but it wasn't, as I recall Joe had a 2nd Dan in Tae Kwon Do and
had added in some boxing practice so that his students could
compete in the kick boxing competitions which were becoming highly
popular at the time. (Kickboxing was the MMA of the 1980s).
Actually Joe was a very good instructor and I enjoyed training at
his classes, in fact I got to brown belt and failed a Dan grading
and life moved on before I was able to get stuck into retaking it.
Joe's marketing was slightly dubious but I guess he had to call
his system something, since it wasn't Tae Kwon Do any more and
it was much more than just kick boxing training since we did do
kata and self defence training. Thanks to Bruce Lee the terms
'Kung Fu' and 'Martial Arts' were pretty much
synonymous in the minds of the public in the 1980s anyway so enough
said.
Joe had several classes around London including a big one in
Brixton which I attended regularly when I was at college in
Wimbledon. A lot of the other students were of West Indian origin
and most of them were pretty keen on taking part in competitions.
There was one particular young man who was, as I recall, called
Delroy and he was already a successful Kick Boxing competitor. He
was taking his brown belt grading and this required him to spar
with two opponents at once, I was a blue belt at the time and I
and another student of the same grade were asked to be the two onto
Deleroy's one. The bout was to last two minutes and we did our
best to duff up Delroy. Delroy put both hands behind his back and
took the opportunity to practice his footwork. Two minutes later
neither of us had laid a glove on him and neither had our victim
broken sweat. We were both on our knees gasping for breath, we
really had been trying, honest. It wasn't that I wasn't
pretty fit or that I didn't train regularly, I did at least two
classes a week and running and other fitness training in between.
I was a good club student but completely outclassed by a
competition level Kickboxer.
As a child I was dispraxic and always short of breath. I could
never catch, hit or kick a ball and walking any distance would
cause a painful stitch. A bit unfortunate since my parents were
keen tennis players and loved hill walking. Martial arts has
transformed my life in terms of getting me as fit as I am likely to
get and done wonders for my balance and coordination. However
competition has never been my thing or likely to be now. I train
for my own benefit, not to try and beat anyone else. For many
people though the excitement of competition, from when Judo came
into the Olympics in 1964, through Kick boxing in the 1970s and
80s and Ultimate fighting Challenge (UFC), Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
and Cage Fighting more recently. As with the movies, it is good
that people get interested in Martial arts for any reason. Again,
as with the movies, people can get the wrong idea. Competitive
martial arts are sports and amazing levels of skill and athleticism
are often achieved by participants, but this may put off the less
athletically inclined and fighting according to rules under
competition conditions does not cultivate self-defence reflexes (or
not unless you don't mind being disqualified on a regular
basis.) So fighting sports may be great hobbies and they do
attract people to a form of martial arts training. But as with
theatrical martial arts sport is just one expression of Martial
Arts and there is much more to be discovered.
regards
Graham
P S I am still trying to find the right format for courses at the
Stav Centre in Crewkerne. I will be holding day courses for people
who want to learn how to train in Stav, how to do the stances and
which exercises to focus on in private training. The first one of
those will be on the 17th of May in Crewkerne. It will be full day
training and limited to six people, more details tomorrow.