Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [23]
The European grandmaster Sensei Enoeda had come down to adjudicate. I was both excited and terrified – again.
The fight started.
My opponent (a rugby ace from a nearby college), and I, traded punches, blocks and kicks, but there was no real breakthrough.
Suddenly, I found myself being backed into a corner, and out of instinct (or desperation), I dropped low, spun around and caught my opponent square round the head with a spinning back fist.
Down he went.
Now this was not good news for me.
It was bad form, and showed a lack of control.
On top of that, you simply weren’t meant to deck your opponent. The idea was to win with the use of semi-contact strikes, delivered with speed and technique that hit but didn’t injure your opponent.
So I winced, apologized and then helped the guy up.
I then looked over to Sensei Enoeda, expecting a disapproving scowl, but instead was met with a look of delight. The sort of look that a kid gives when handed an unexpected present.
I guess that the fighter in him loved it, and on that note I passed and was given my black belt.
I had never felt so proud as I did finally wearing that belt after having crawled my way up the rungs of yellow, green, orange, purple, brown – you name it – coloured belts.
I had done this on my own and the hard way, and you can’t buy your way to a black belt.
I remember being told by our instructor that martial arts is not about the belts, it is about the spirit; and I agree … but I still couldn’t help sleeping with my black belt on that first night.
Oh, and the bullying stopped.
CHAPTER 20
By the end of my time at Eton I had become one of the youngest second dan black belts in the country, a rank one higher than black belt.
I had started training also in aikido, which I loved, as a more lock and throw martial art, in comparison to the more physical punches and kicks of karate. But as a teenager I thrived off that physical side of karate.
After school, and during my time in the army, I stopped training in karate every week, mainly on the grounds that I was always so tired by the time I got back from some army exercise. The prospect of another additional ‘beasting’ session became a bridge too far for me to maintain at that level.
Instead I have kept up my martial arts ever since by practising in either ninjutsu or aikido, as well as yoga, as often as I can. All of these are less physical than karate, but feel like more of a life-journey to master as an art form. And on that journey I am still at the very beginning.
But it all began with the foghorn and those relentlessly physical Sunday-night training sessions.
The only other karate story worth telling from school days is my dubious claim to fame of kicking a mass murderer in the balls.
The Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal was a pupil at Eton at the same time as me, and he also loved his karate. We would often train together, and he became a good friend in many ways, despite being quite an unusual character at times.
Fighting with him did, though, require a degree of respect, as he was, after all, royalty and a semi-deity in his home country.
Having said that, he was also pretty wild, and was not only older and stronger than me, but also a terrifying fighter, with his deep black moustache and ponytail. So I felt quite free to give it my all.
On one occasion, a hard front kick from me, aimed at his stomach, ended up ricocheting off and planting itself firmly in his groin.
Ow.
All my apologies didn’t help the fact that he couldn’t walk properly for a week.
Some ten or so years later, back in his home country, he went completely insane and, in a fit of drug- and alcohol-induced rage, driven by some family dispute, he shot dead almost the entire royal family as they sat at dinner.
It was the Kingdom of Nepal’s darkest hour.
CHAPTER 21
The karate gave me a great avenue to be able to push myself physically – and I thrived on the challenge.
I wanted more.
I started to run, but not normally. I would load up a backpack with weights and run at night for long distances,