The Matter Horn

Physical training was still compulsory but in addition I started doing karate, the style was Kyokushinkai. Kyokushin is deeply rooted in the philosophies of self-improvement, discipline and hard training. In this form of karate, students all must take part in hard sparring to prepare them for full contact fighting.
Unlike some forms of karate, kyokushin places high emphasis on full contact fighting which is done without any gloves or protective equipment. This apparent brutality is tempered somewhat by the fact that you are not allowed to use a non-kick or non-knee strike to hit your opponent in the face, this greatly reduced the possibility of serious injury. Knees or kicks to the head and face, on the other hand, are allowed.
When I took up the discipline bare knuckle punching had just been banned.
I continued the training for many years even though club membership was not an option because of my navy commitments. I did however continue to do my training at sea when the opportunity allowed. On many occasions I would be found in the lotus position in an engineering compartment somewhere in the bowels of one of her majesty’s ships. One of the first times my wife met me I had been running along the cliff tops on the Isle of White in my Gi. I must have looked like I had escaped from HM Prison Parkhurst.

LOTUS POSITION

















Part two training continued at a pace, but lots of opportunities to play football, rugby, go swimming or even canoeing.
Adventure training is always part of every planned training period; it gives the divisional system a chance to assess leadership potential and participants to learn team work and leadership skills. Our class went to the New forest were we helped to refurbish an old farm building.
It was so cold that on the first night I put my sleeping bag inside a plastic survival bag, in the morning I was so wet inside my bag I thought I had wet myself, when I found out I wasn’t the only one who had the problem it was pointed out that it was because the body moisture had been unable to escape.
We slept in tents for the weekend; I shared with a Weegie called Ziggy, why Ziggy, I don’t know his second name was Barber normally that would give him a nickname of Ali. Anyway Ziggy was a laugh and was always telling jokes but he did have a habit of getting in the shit, to wise for his own good! He spent the weekend in the forest growing the most enormous zit on his chin; we actually started a sweep stake to see when it would burst.
We arrived back at the camp on Monday night and the zit was still holding out, it was massive and had deformed the side of Ziggys face but he was scared to go to the sick bay incase they lanced it.
Wednesday arrived and it was fanny night at the Collingwood club.










The Matter horn was now bright red and it looked as if there was more than one head but no peak, but it was yellow all around the tops, obviously full of puss.
Ziggy would normally hold the dance floor for the whole evening when he danced, he was good, it never mattered to him weather or not there was woman dancing at the same time.
Bye tea time he was in so much pain and the thought of not going to the club was so overwhelming he new that something had to be done, we tried a bread poltis, no, all he did was scream and kept taking it off.
In the end we tied him voluntary to his bed; he wanted someone to punch him, that didn’t seam an option, so we agreed that on the count of three I would squeeze it. Bye this team we had an audience, poor old Ziggy, we counted to two at least four times and he kept on backing out. In the end his head was held in a grip and I just grabbed it, it wouldn’t burst. Ziggy was screaming and I had to release him, it looked really angry now and had defiantly changed shape. Tears were running down his face, he wasn’t crying, it was the pain making his eyes water. I made a final grab squeezing as hard as I could between both my thumbs, it gave, not once but twice there was two separate heads, the relief on his face I’ll never forget, there was puss everywhere.
We all went dancing.