Memoirs of a Karate Fighter by Ralph Robb Read Free Book Online Page A

shiny Doc Martens.
    For a few moments we stared at each other. There was instantly a hatred between us that I could almost taste. The skinhead’s eyes communicated that on another day (most likely if he were with his gang) he would have tried to do me physical harm. I responded with a glare that conveyed that I was convinced that if he attacked me I would come very close to killing him. But this was not the right time for him. I wanted to drop the boxes and pummel him for what he represented because I had heard and seen too much about what skinhead gangs had got up to around the town. But they chose their victims well and a man like himwould rarely look for violence on a one-to-one basis, unless the victim was much smaller and frailer than I was. He was still staring at me as the lift doors slid shut and I renewed my vow that I would not be caught unawares again.
    *
    As he had done when I was living with my parents, after the fighting class on Saturdays my cousin Clinton would call during the afternoon and we would go for a run together. We ran for several miles, until we found a patch of ground where we could stretch and throw a few techniques before heading back. But because of my chest injury, after less than a mile I was struggling – more than usual – to keep up with him. Clinton was a superb athlete, whose long, supple legs could keep moving at the same fast pace for many, many miles. I too had made it into the school’s track and field team but four hundred metres was about as far as I could go competitively. There were many times when in keeping up with Clinton that I had developed severe stitches, but I had refused to halt and ran through the pain. But what I was suffering right then was far more painful than a stitch. Clinton had run another twenty yards before he realized that I was no longer at his shoulder. He looked back and saw that I was bent double before he jogged back to me.
    â€œWhat’s up?” he asked.
    It took a while before I could find the breath to answer. Finally, I gasped, “Kick … Jerome … nurse at work … says it’s a cracked … sternum … Don’t say anything … about it to anyone … at the club … Okay?”
    â€œDo you think it can heal in three weeks?” Clinton asked, his mind automatically turning to the British Clubs’ championships.
    â€œIt’ll have to,” I replied. Clinton wanted to go back to the flat but I insisted that we jogged to a nearby park to practise a few techniques. We pulled on our hand pads and started off by throwing
gyakuzuki
punches at one another’s bodies. I kept my non-punching arm fastened over my solar plexus, while Clinton allowed me to hit him in the stomach. When his turn came, his punches fell six inches short. I told him to hit my forearm as he needed to get his distance right and I needed to know if my arm would provide adequate protection. His first punches were light,too light to see if my arm could absorb fairly heavy impact. “Harder, Clint,” I growled at him, “you’re punching like a fairy.” The next few punches landed with a little more force but I still had to find out what I could take. “No wonder Trog was taking liberties with you,” I said to provoke him. His next punch had me shuffling backwards.
    â€œWas that hard enough?”
    I grimaced and told him it was.
    Back at the flat we discussed the merits of body armour. When karate was first practised in Europe there was little protection for the
karateka
while sparring. The Japanese instructors had set their faces against protective padding and said that any sort of barrier between the fist and its target made the art of focusing the blow (
kime
) much more difficult to master. In the early days, a few fighters used soccer shin pads tucked inside elastic bandages as it was quite common for a shinbone to come into contact with the bony, sharp end of an elbow while sparring.