Memoirs of a Karate Fighter (12 page)

I did not fully appreciate then just what I was being drawn into. Blood, in this case my cousin Vernon's blood, had been spilt and I did not give my subsequent conduct a second thought. In the following weeks, despite several of them going into hiding, every gang member, whether they had been present in the club during the attack on Vernon or not, was found and dealt with – and I felt every action taken against these men was entirely justified. Years later, I read an interview with one of the country's most notorious football hooligans in a British national newspaper. It turned out he was the leader of the gang who had glassed Vernon. In proclaiming his toughness he omitted to tell the journalist of the time when he had finally been found by Ewart, how he had cried and begged for mercy – and how he consequently spent a lengthy period in hospital. I thought then that the reputations of men such as these were built up by people who were easily impressed, or intimidated.

THE ATTACK ON Vernon and its aftermath had some unexpected results: my cousin Clinton was back to his old self. It was as if he had never been away. In taking part in the tracking down of his brother's attackers and then delivering the beatings that were deemed appropriate, Clinton seemed to forget about his own troubles. He also, thankfully, seemed to forget about that old wreck he had bought, and now the evenings were drawing in, he was once again back to training in the
dojo
at every opportunity. I was now content that his health scare had been only a
temporary
aberration.

In a bizarre role reversal, I was the one who was falling into contemplative silences and he was asking me what was on my mind. We were in the changing room next to the
dojo
when Clinton asked me again about what was wrong. I had been struggling to tie my belt, which was something I had managed to do correctly for five years without too much trouble, when I took a deep breath and said, “Hilda. She's having a baby. Make that, she's having our baby.”

Clinton's face lit up and he shook my hand vigorously. “And there were rumours that you weren't up to it,” he laughed.

I did my best to join in with him but the laughter died in my throat. Hilda had called to my parents' house after I had failed to respond to the calls she had made to the factory – and they had guessed the nature of the news she had for me. They both liked Hilda very much and
thought she was a stabilizing influence on me, and my dad had made it plain that he hoped that once I became a father I would stop my karate training and live up to my responsibilities. When I met up with Hilda again, I was still unsure about how I should react to her news. I was barely twenty years old and had just made up my mind to finish working at the factory so I that could do some travelling. I had fantasized about going to Japan and training at all the top
dojos
and then perhaps heading to Hong Kong and finding work in a few kung fu films. They were only daydreams to get me through the day at the factory but Hilda's pregnancy had robbed me of even those harmless flights of fancy. There were big, life-changing choices ahead of me and I needed more time before I came to a decision.

The talk amongst the students before the lesson began was of the final installment of retribution that had been handed out by Ewart to the leader of the football hooligan crew. When Ewart had finally found him, he suggested that they go for a drive. Away from the glare of his comrades, the so-called hard man disintegrated into a flood of tears as he was driven out to a secluded wood; Ewart did not want the screams to be heard and risk having the terrible lesson he was about to dispense being disturbed.

As we lined up for the bow, Eddie Cox scrutinized all those who made up the front row. He did not seem happy and I got the feeling that he wanted the extra-curricular activities to end. He was initially sympathetic and was prepared to tolerate the odd incident but what had happened over the previous month had been a sustained litany of very public beatings – often in someone's front garden – involving members of the YMCA karate club. During the ensuing two hours he and Declan Byrne had us practising basic techniques and kata and made it clear throughout the lesson that we were not up to scratch.

With so many tournaments around the country – and invitations for members to attend British international squad training – there was a danger that the training in the
dojo
was becoming too competition-orientated. While both instructors had been successful as students, they had retired from competition karate at relatively young ages because they were not prepared to sacrifice what they considered the true essence of karate in return for success on the competition mat. In competition karate only a small percentage of a vast range of techniques is used, and the
most dangerous – and most effective – are banned, but in Wado Ryu that percentage is even smaller because it is a fusion of Okinawan karate and Japanese jujitsu, the locks and throws of which are totally forbidden in karate contests.

Before the final bow, Cox sensei announced that there was to be a grading in a little more than three weeks' time for the brown belts. Because of the regulations of Wado Ryu's governing body, examinations of grades above fourth kyu had to be taken with a Japanese instructor and so the brown belt gradings usually took place in the
dojos
of either Kuniaki Sakagami or Peter Suzuki – and I knew which one of the Japanese senseis everyone in the front row would have preferred. Mick Bryan could not restrain his curiosity. “Where is the grading going to be, sensei?” he asked – on everybody's behalf. A smirk twisted the lips of Eddie Cox. “At Peter Suzuki's,” he said, prompting an audible hiss of displeasure to escape from us.

On a rainy Saturday morning I drove to Peter Suzuki's
dojo
in Birmingham with Clinton. The other
karateka
who were eligible to take a grading examination had decided to opt out and wait for a later opportunity with Sakagami sensei. Sakagami was considered far more amiable and consistent than the mercurial Peter Suzuki. While the personalities of the Japanese instructors were factors for some, for others it was down to the lack of available time in which they had to rearrange their training regimes. Clinton and I agreed that the change in our routines had done us good. As with all constant
repetition
, there is the inherent danger that you may continually reproduce the same mistakes but the practising of a range of
kihon
and
renraku waza
(basic and combination techniques) and
kata
had made us more aware of how our bodies were moving as we executed techniques that we had neglected over the months.

As karate emerged from the 1970s, the tension between being a traditional
karateka
and a competitor had grown. I had read in one of Mick's magazines that Billy Higgins, a Shotokan instructor who had come second in the 1972 world championships, reckoned that you could be a good
karateka
and not be a good competitor – but you could not be a good
competitor without first being a good
karateka
. But as competition rules changed and it gradually became more about speed and touching an opponent rather than hitting him with a controlled strike, I was starting to understand Eddie Cox's view that the sporting side of karate was growing ever less relevant as a measure of how good a fighter you actually were.

The woman at the desk on the ground floor of Peter Suzuki's
dojo
took our grading fees and our licences – which were merely a record of our grades and not a means of registering lethal hands with the police, as commonly believed – before Clinton and I climbed the short flight of stairs to the changing room. The
dojo
was up yet more stairs and I entered it with a little apprehension.

I could not think of any karate student who actually liked Peter Suzuki; mostly he was feared and loathed in equal measure. He was a tall man for a Japanese and pudgy with it but it was his unpredictable character that had made him less than popular with a lot of the black belts in the area. The exception being Eddie Cox. Peter Suzuki also liked Eddie, ever since that first time he had knocked him unconscious in Sakagami's
dojo
. Eddie was only a green belt at the time, but already had a reputation for being a better fighter than any of the black belts. Suzuki had travelled from his school in Ireland and had watched Eddie train before saying that they would spar together. This was a great compliment but it put Eddie in something of a dilemma: Peter Suzuki, as with most Japanese instructors, hated displays of cowardice – or lack of spirit as they called it – and if Eddie held back during the sparring his restraint could be interpreted as an absence of courage. However, if he went in hard this would almost certainly provoke a response that would result in the student being put firmly back into his rightful place. Eddie Cox decided that he might as well go in hard and at least emerge with some honour. The green belt more than held his own against the fifth
dan
black belt until Peter Suzuki called ‘
Yame
!' and Eddie promptly halted, only to be knocked out cold by a technique that he never saw coming. When he was brought around, Peter Suzuki laughed, and gave him a lecture about
zanshin
and always remaining aware of an opponent, no matter what. Later that year Suzuki moved to Birmingham and started to teach at the Temple Karate Centre alongside Toru Takamizawa. Eugene Codrington, another world
championship runner-up and twice European heavyweight champion was a student there and undoubtedly the best competitor. He was the favourite of the slightly built and nimble Takamizawa; but for Peter Suzuki, the burly brawler Eddie Cox was the number one student. As far as an attitude to combat went they were kindred spirits, and when Eddie was awarded his first
dan
Suzuki had a specially embroidered, extra wide black belt sent to him from Japan.

The floor of Peter Suzuki's
dojo
was not of the traditional sort. Instead of the polished wood associated with Japanese
dojos
it was covered with a green carpet, and while the soles of the feet could cope, it often burnt any softer skin that rubbed against it. It looked much larger than it actually was because two walls were covered from floor to ceiling with mirrors. While seeing your own reflection is sometimes useful while practising a
kata
, I found it disconcerting – Bruce Lee entering the mirrored maze in
Enter the Dragon
came to mind. Clinton and I got on with our stretching exercises as more and more students came into the cramped
dojo
. We were wondering just how many more could get in when Peter Suzuki arrived just behind a flustered young man wearing a white belt.

The
dojo
fell silent as we saw Suzuki's expression: he was in a foul mood. I was busy looking at his arms as there was a rumour that one was a good deal shorter than the other. The story went that the teenage Suzuki was continually getting involved in brawls in the rougher parts of his hometown in order to test out his techniques. One day his instructor decided to teach him some humility, and once the rest of the class had held down the young braggart, the instructor promptly broke his arm. I did wonder if it were true – but one of his arms did look shorter. We were called into lines: brown belts at the front, purple and green in the middle rows and white belts at the back. It was an example of inverted logic as it seemed more sensible to me to have the beginners at the front so they could see more of what the instructor was doing. With our heels together and hands by our side, we stood to attention and waited for the command to kneel, but Suzuki had some other business to attend to first. He called the young white belt who had bustled in ahead of him to come to the front of the class and ordered him to stand to attention. Without another word, Suzuki slapped him across his face. The young man stood there perplexed: was this some sort of test? The second slap was even
harder and almost spun the young guy around. Again he looked at his sensei with confusion: was he supposed to block the strikes? The third slap had so much force behind it that it even made me wince and now the befuddled novice had tears streaming down his reddened cheeks.

“You cry!” exclaimed Suzuki. “You crybaby! I don't teach crybaby. You go … Go!”

As the crushed and blubbering man hurried out, Clinton and I exchanged bemused glances as we silently wondered what was going on. It turned out that in the young man's rush to get to the
dojo
, he had brushed past his sensei on the stairs – but in his haste he was completely unaware he had done so. The absence of an apology was viewed by Peter Suzuki as evidence of a lack of respect that needed correcting but I was of the opinion that Suzuki's method of reminding the novice of his manners was more reminiscent of a Japanese POW camp guard, rather than a man who made his living by teaching karate to students who paid him rather well.

Finally, Suzuki barked, “
Seiza
!” We went down onto our knees and then heard the word most western students hated to hear when in that position: “
Moksu
.”

Moksu
is supposed to be a period of meditation in which the mind is prepared for the exertions that lay ahead. For a Japanese person, kneeling is a normal position but after a few minutes most
gaijin
students find themselves struggling to retain a calm facade as pain shoots through the lower limbs, and at the YMCA we were only kept in that position for a short time. Peter Suzuki, on the other hand, kept us kneeling for fifteen long minutes, and there was a common exhalation of relief when we heard: “
Yame
.” For the next twenty minutes we went through a farcical attempt of going through some basic techniques. Combinations of kicks were almost impossible because of the lack of space, especially when a back-kick was involved. Those in the middle row risked getting their teeth knocked out by the
karateka
directly behind them. What was
happening
in Suzuki's
dojo
epitomized for me what could go so wrong with clubs that were run for the profit of the instructor: while having so many students at a grading was good for commercial reasons, it did nothing for anyone's karate.

Eventually, as the exercise became so obviously untenable, Peter Suzuki
called a halt and told the brown and purple belts to take a break outside while he examined those who were taking grades up to fourth
kyu
. For over an hour we waited in the changing room, doing our best not to let our muscles stiffen. Glum-faced green belts were making their way downstairs as we ventured up to the
dojo
. Peter Suzuki was seated at a small desk scribbling on grading forms until he looked up and dismissively gestured for us to stand to one side. The woman who had taken our money and licences was now in a
gi
and called out our names. There were twelve of us in all: four purple belts taking their first brown belt grading; four third
kyus
taking their second brown; and Clinton and I with two others taking first
kyu
, the final examination before first
dan
, black belt.