Memoirs of a Karate Fighter Read Online Free PDF Page A

some face by not collapsing onto the concrete floor as they had expected. As we made our way to the changing room, Clinton came over to me. He looked me over for a second and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Ralph,” he laughed, “that was one bitch of a kick, man.”
    I responded with a wince. The road to the first team was going to be a hard and painful one to travel.

– Chapter Three –
    Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.
    Miyamoto Musashi –
The Water Book
    THE EARLY MORNING routine within the factory where I worked had not changed since my first day there. Harold, as always, arrived before anyone else, at least three-quarters of an hour before the buzzer that would sound for the shift to begin. After opening up the maintenance department he proceeded to make the tea in a huge, unwashed enamel teapot. It was hardly a ceremony, but Harold had his own peculiar way of doing things and to give the pot’s encrusted brown interior anything but the briefest of swills in cold water was something approaching sacrilege. Editions of tabloid newspapers, the most intellectual reading matter in the canteen, lay waiting on the long table while faded pinups from the older editions adorned the unpainted cement block walls.
    I had not had a decent sleep in the two days since my bout with Jerome. The pain in my chest was worse at nights as the darkness served only to amplify the pain. In desperation, I found lying on my back on my hard bedroom floor did offer a modicum of relief. Breathing was the main problem because my chest could not expand without causing me intense pain.
    Mick Davies, a fellow maintenance fitter, could see that I was not my usual self. When I told him that I would not be turning up for our fifteen-minute training session during break time he asked what was wrong. I told him that I had a bit of a muscle strain, rather than that my chestwas feeling so tender that if he so much as touched me, he would for the first time see me howling in agony. He voiced his disappointment and playfully punched me on the arm. The tiny shockwaves travelled to the centre of my chest and had me grinding my teeth but I somehow managed not to show my discomfort until he had headed off to the canteen.
    Mick was a few years older than I was but he had uncontrollable mousey-coloured hair and a cherub face that made him look more like a schoolkid. He was also well known around the factory for his prowess as a Shotokan karate black belt. When we had first met, I refrained from letting on that I also studied karate, but as we got better acquainted I confessed that I was a fellow exponent. Initially, my revelation was met with a hint of condescension when I mentioned the colour of the belt I wore but that quickly changed to almost overwhelming admiration when I told him that I trained at the YMCA.
    It did not take long for our working relationship to turn into a friendship. Mick was born, bred and still living in an area that had a completely different ethnic make-up to the one in which I had been brought up. He once commented to others that I was the first black person with whom he’d had a proper conversation. At first I couldn’t make out whether this was an expression of guilt or pride. But, as I later learnt, for Mick it was a simple expression of fact. My first encounter with him took place during my second day as a fresh-faced apprentice when he had ordered me and another new recruit to go to an isolated area of the factory. As we entered the large assembly room and made our way to report to the foreman, I sensed something was wrong. A group of hard-looking women began slowly encircling us, but a well-honed instinct for survival had me turning and running for the fire exit. I was only just through the doors when I heard the screams of the other apprentice. I later learnt they had stripped him of his garments and rubbed black grease over his private