Page 76 - Pat O'Keeffe Combat Kick Boxing

Combat Kick Boxing

Finally, just to make the point:

In 1966 I joined the army as a junior leader at a camp in North Shropshire. During
my two and a half years there I joined the battalion judo club and after training
hard, got into the judo team and went on to become team captain.
Unfortunately, when I was due to go into full service at eighteen, I had double
surgical fractures of both legs just below the knees and was consequently held
back while my friends went off to the depot. Some weeks after being discharged
from hospital and only two weeks after coming off elbow crutches, I went into
town for a drink with another soldier.
We had a few drinks, were neither drunk nor too loud and met a couple of girls
who we agreed to walk home – innocent times! As we got outside the door of the
pub, my friend, a small man, took off his jacket to put around the shoulders of
one of the girls as it was cold. This innocuous gesture started an incident which is
forever burnt into my soul.
One of the pub bouncers stepped forward and said, ‘Who are you taking your
jacket off to?’
Before my friend could reply he was grabbed and thrown against the plate glass of a shop
on the other side of the alley to the pub. It was so off the wall that I just stood there. Fortunately
the glass didn’t break. At that point I called out to the bouncer to leave him alone. (I said I
was innocent!)
The bouncer, around thirty, taller than me and twice as wide, responded by
turning and throwing a right hook that, had it landed, would have done serious,
and I mean serious, damage.
At that point training took over. Without thought – or sense – I sidestepped the
right hook and performed a sweeping hip throw on him. He sailed through the
air and landed with a satisfying thud, or at least it would have been satisfying had
he stayed down.
Holding his shoulder, he got to his feet and rushed me in a crouch. Again,
without thought, I performed a stomach throw on him (á la James Bond!) and
again he hit the concrete with a truly impressive sound.
At this point in the story it might be worth considering that for James Bond
the fight would have ended there and he would have gone someplace to make
love to a woman of jaw-dropping beauty. Me? I was still in a fight that was about
to get very nasty.
Although I had thrown him successfully with the stomach throw, the bouncer
held on.
I got to my feet before him, but he spun onto his knees in front of me and took
a tight grip on my collar, which he refused to release. I gave him several extremely
good reasons to let go – a double knife-hand to the ribs, knee to his face and a
roundhouse elbow of which I am still proud of today – but, and this really is the
point of the story, he still wouldn’t let go!
That’s when the two other bouncers joined in. My arm was twisted up behind
my back and I was punched and kicked from every angle. Unable to escape,

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