High life
Fight fright
Taki
Athens
Ihave a sneaking suspicion that my time 1. has come. It will have by Sunday anyway, and in Zurich of all places. I'm fly- ing there on Friday, accompanied by nine other Greeks but I shan't be seeing my banker — only a doctor if I'm lucky. Anyway, I'll know by Sunday afternoon.
Like a stubborn old man I've once again decided to compete in the European Karate Championships. Like a fool, I shall be by far the oldest competitor. Unlike the Japanese masters, however, this time I am scared half to death. I have a premonition that something awful will happen to me, and it has been my observation in the past that those who want to compete, but are afraid of getting hit, invariably do. But it's too late to pull out. For the last month the team has been assembled and qualifying matches have taken place. The first five make the team, the other four become reserves. I was the third man to qualify, mostly because my teammates believe in the ancient Greek axiom of respecting their elders. I used to think of my countrymen as small, oily, dark and rather effete. This year's team looks like a South African rugby group: smashed noses, cauliflower ears, pumped-up arms and scarred eyes are the rule. Among them I look like a male Marguerite Gautier.
The main reason I started learning karate 20 years ago was that too many bullies had kicked sand in my face. Every time my first wife and I went out she would make eyes at someone and I would get up and tell him to step outside. Nine times out of ten he would return while I remained horizontal and out- doors. After ten years of hard training my success ratio had improved to about five out of ten, but by that time it was im- material: there was nobody around to fight over. The present mother of my children abhors violence, so I get it out of my system by fighting in the dojo, which is Japanese for gym.
There are two ways of fighting in the martial arts: tai no sen and yu no sen. The former way is by attacking kamikase-style, head-on, using one's favourite technique. In tai no sen, there is no faking, just frontal attack followed by more attacks. The yu no sen way is best explained as a counter-
`That's known as a Freudian slip.'
punching method. It means waiting for one's opponent to commit himself and then trying to beat him to it. I have always fought yu no sen. The trouble is that In order to fight my way you need good reflexes. I used to have great ones, mostly out of fear, but too many neon nights have made them as reliable as Charles Benson's cheques.
In tournament competition one gets as close as one will ever get to actual street fighting. The noise, the pressure, the inten- sity of one's opponent and the crowds all combine to approximate the conditions that prevail in a street fight. My problem is that ' when I get into street fights — which is very rare these days — I am always drunk. Now don't get the wrong idea. I am not at all .a mean drunk, it's just that I happen to be la places where a lot of mean drunks hang out: like night clubs and bars. Fighting when drunk is not as frightening as fighting sober. Until 1977 I used to take a nip or two before each match while competing in tour' naments. In '77, however, I went through the repechage to the final, having fought over 12 matches in the afternoon, and by the time the final came I was in the state I'm usually in when I'm at Annabel's about three in the morning. I took a frightful beating and decided never to drink again. What followed, however, has been worse. For the last four years I have en" dured extreme agony for months before a competition. Last year I decided to fight for the last time only because Jeff Bernard came up to Manchester to see me have ago
_.'
This year I got trapped into it. Yes, 7°1" guessed it — a young girl came to watch aid' practice, asked me if I was on the team I said yes. I qualified, and now I find out that she's left Greece and gone to London' When they carry me out on a stretcher this Sunday my blood will be on her hands.
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