Page 94 - The Circle of Life

anymore and serious damage likely. Usually though the trainer throws the towel

into the ring which should stop the fight. You will note the referee will then
physically jump between the fighters to protect the weak. He sometimes taking
a few punches for the cause and the law is quite clear on this. If he does not

stop the fight he will be held responsible afterwards.

I will never agree with women boxing. Probably because they will kick my (you
know what) though I boxed a bit in my life. It was part of our training as

policemen and I quote from my book Mean Streets - Life in the Apartheid Police
how that went: "The one thing which boxing did teach us was hate and to be

fearless in a punch-up. We used to knock each other around and then be pitted
against another platoon. Now that created a free for all of note which some of us

looked forward too because of the misunderstanding at the mess hall regarding
beetroot!

We would line up across each other and two cadets from opposing platoons

entered the ring for two rounds or as long as the PT Sergeant fancy. Unlike the
Army you could bob and weave as much as you like as long as you win the fight

without too much cheating. Losing would be sure to embarrass our Sergeant
who then take an unwelcome interest in our “cowardly losing ways, but not to

worry, he, Sergeant van der Merwe by the grace of General Johan Coetzee blah
blah blah will cure that. And we can thank him later for his fatherly concern over

us."

We admired our Sergeant by this time and would not want to embarrass him
anyway – we learned to see the twinkle in his eye and the man behind the
stripes so we would psyche ourselves up to heights unimaginable for normal

people for it was no use to spar and not really hit out for the PT Sergeants

wanted to see blood. If it occurs to them that you are not willing to hit a fellow
cadet the PT instructor may enter the ring himself to make you understand the
error of your communist and longhaired liberal thinking.

One cadet abused this rule by deliberately fooling around until the PT Instructor

stepped in to sort him out. They then gave us a wonderful exhibition of boxing
as the cadet turned out to be a good amateur boxer with a dislike in that

particular PT Sergeant. It must be said the PT Sergeant did not actually lose the

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