How does it feel to be the heavyweight world champ?

Now it’s sunk in a bit, good. To begin with, it was surreal. When I first started kickboxing, everyone said, ‘Wait ‘til he takes a punch.’ Then you go to MMA, people say, ‘Wait ‘til someone tries to take him down.’ Then, the boxing fans say, “Boxers will just knock him out.” People have a lot to say; it’s good to keep going forward.

How did you pull up?

Pretty good. I got opened up by a headbutt, but the stitches healed quickly. My body was fine, except I was a bit stiff around the shoulders and arms. A fight is like a really, really hard workout.

How do you rate your opponent?

Incredibly frustrating because of his height, but also the way he fought. Head down, rabbit punching, Julius was a frustrating guy to fight. He’s seven foot one; I literally had to jump off the ground to hit him. Seriously, you want to bring the stool in after the second round. It’s a long way up. His muscle mass is all in his upper body. He weighed in at 138kgs. I was about 112.8.

What was the experience of the fight like, in comparison to your Australian title against Bangin’ Ben Edwards? As I remember, that was a very hard fight.

Julius was a much more difficult opponent; stronger, taller, more experienced.

Have you spoken to Lucas Browne yet?

Yeah, a few times. People are calling me to get in touch with him! I think it’s really happening for him, which is great.

How long have you guys been sparring together for?

A couple of years. Yeah, we’re good friends. It’s such a small community, you’re either helping someone out or you’re going to miss out on quality sparring partners. I work with the guys I can in Sydney. Lucas and I became friends when he was doing MMA.

What about a unification fight? How do you think that would affect your relationship?

It wouldn’t affect it at all. I fought Mark Hunt two times and he’s my mate, Jason Suttie five times and he’s my mate. I’ve fought lots of guys that are still my mates. We’re pros; business is business. Once you get in the ring, I try to tear your head off, you try to tear my head off; any less, I’d feel like he was disrespecting me. I’m sure he feels the same.

When do you start back training?

I’ve already started. I love training. I did BJJ the other day; karate the other day. I’m always doing something. I love training; it’s what I do in my spare time, and it happens to be my job as well. For fun I go and train. I’ve also got to do things that aren’t so fun, like watching my diet. I never physically stop, though. If I can do it, I’ll do it.

Is it hard to shift from boxing to kickboxing to MMA?

No. That’s like asking a swimmer who is 75 meters into a 100 meter race if they feel like changing stroke. You don’t say, ‘You know, breaststroke could be easier.’

‘John’ Wayne Parr told me that a fight is a fight. Do you think that’s true?

I couldn’t agree more – there’s no better way to say it.

Where to from here? Have you got any offers for either MMA or boxing on the table?

There’s lots of offers. People are asking me to go different places to do different things, but for now, I’m working on boxing, for a few reasons. I’m enjoying it, but I feel that it could be the most lucrative as well. When you fight for this long, you want to get to the end of it and have something. I appreciate everything I have, but why not have a lot – that’s even better!

International Kickboxer Magazine, Jan/Feb 2016

Joe ‘Stitch ‘Em Up’ Schilling is a significant figure amongst the new breed of fighters.It’s very unusual to drive past any gym now and find that it is a kickboxing-only school. Most fight gyms are branded as MMA facilities, while Muay Thai and kickboxing have come to feature as a kind of sub-set of the combat sports genre.

When ‘cage fighting’ began to rear its head in the nineties, changing from a gruesome cable t.v. curiosity to a sport in its own right, it attracted martial artists from different styles to essentially adapt their skills to a kind of ‘no-holds-barred’ competition.

Generationally, the torch was passed when Matt Hughes defeated the original UFC legend, Royce Gracie, at UFC 60 in 2006. In his victory speech, Hughes stated that the game had officially changed; mixed martial arts had coalesced as a discipline in and of itself. No longer would experts in other styles of martial arts be able to compete effectively.

Schilling is at the forefront of the generation Hughes begat. While originally a Muay Thai stylist, he regularly competes in MMA at the highest level and his striking is only a facet of his overall skill-set as a combat athlete. Obviously, it’s an outstanding facet; he is currently the top-ranked contender in the Glory middleweight rankings.

In many ways, Joe’s story is that of the archetypal fighter; the things that made him suited to the ring interfered with his ability to do anything else. He had a notoriously difficult childhood, being expelled from four different schools.

“That Wikipedia thing makes me sound much worse then I was,” says Joe. “My mom was a single mother and I spent a lot of time with babysitters and [at] day-care centers while my mom worked. I think I just got used to doing what I wanted.

“I was kicked out or asked to leave from I think four schools total but it wasn’t like I was doing anything too crazy. It was more like they just got sick of having to deal with my shit everyday.”

In desperation, his mother took him to a Muay Thai gym in the hope it would give him discipline and focus.

“My attraction to Muay Thai versus other martial arts was the boxing gloves. It seemed like more of a ‘sport’ than the other martial arts I’d seen. I didn’t want to wear the pyjamas or learn the forms.

“I was actually looking for a boxing gym when my mom took my to the Muay Thai gym. At first, I thought kicking was for girls, but that quickly changed.”

His mother’s insistence of a direction worked much better than any parent of a delinquent could ever dream.

“She said I had to find a hobby… I was basically grounded to [stay in] my room or [attend] whatever hobby I chose. I was a pretty angry, frustrated kid so I said I wanted to try boxing.

“She took me to a kickboxing gym after school one day and that was it; if I wasn’t in the gym or at school I was [confined to] my room.

“I spent a lot of time at the gym and got good pretty fast. After five or six months I started to help teach and when I was teaching, I noticed how differently people looked at me.”

After leaving home at the age of seventeen, Schilling began to compete in Tough Man Contests.

“Tough Man contests were very scary for me; they were the first fights I ever had and were usually inside of bars I wasn’t old enough to get into. There weren’t a whole lot of people signing up to compete, so when I walked in with my twenty-five dollar entry-fee, they didn’t check my I.D.

“Most of them were called ‘Tough Man’ or ‘Meanest Man’ or ‘Rough Man’ – they seemed to call every event, ‘Something Man’. The rules were either just boxing or kickboxing with kicks above the waist and no knees.

“Because there were never a whole lot of people who were willing to fight in these bar fights, they only had three weight classes; under two hundred pounds, over two hundred pounds and over two hundred and sixty pounds.”

Joe’s first fight convinced him of his future vocation.

“I was scared to death going into it and really was just flailing around. I landed a hard straight right hand to the body and [my opponent] quit. After I won, I was hanging out in a bar drinking [and] talking to girls and felt like a badass because I just won by knockout. It was pretty much at that moment when I decided, ‘This is what I’m gonna do.”

Eventually, Joe moved to Los Angeles and found work at the YMCA as a personal trainer. He also met his future trainer and business partner, Mark Kumuro, while training at the LA Boxing Club. When the club shut down, they took matters into their own hands.

“It was a low-income boxing facility inside of an old jail. The old Lincoln Heights jail was shut down [when] a new state-of-the-art jail was built for Los Angles. The old building hosted city programs or something, and on the fifth floor was a really low- budget boxing gym. It was like ten dollars a month.

“Anyway, [Mark] and I trained there for a few fights and decided we wanted to open our own gym. When we were deciding what to name it, I thought, ‘What do you call the workout area at a jail? The Yard.”

Joe had a brief amateur career as a Muay Thai fighter and soon turned pro. The change came as a revelation. It was the catalyst for the discovery of his special talent, the one that earned him the monicker, ‘Stitch ‘Em Up’.

“I took my first pro Muay Thai fight on short notice, at a weight class above what I naturally fight at, against a much bigger and more experienced former professional boxer,” he says.

“My opponent had cut weight to get down to one hundred and eighty seven [pounds] for the fight. I had weighed in – with my clothes on and my phone, my trainer’s phone and both [sets] of our keys in my pockets to one hundred and eighty two or three.”

Joe felt he had the skill advantage, but the weight disparity was still a differentiating factor.

“I was much faster and an all-round [more skilful] fighter, but I felt I didn’t have enough power to hurt him. At one point, I started to panic because he was walking through all of my shots and I was getting tired.

“I got desperate, hit him with an elbow and it visibly hurt him. I ended up landing forty-six elbows, splitting open his eyebrow and detaching the bottom of his earlobe. After that, elbows were my new favourite go-to weapon.”

From that point, Schilling’s career seemed to change gears. In 2007 he continued to fight under Muay Thai rules and progressed undefeated to contest the IKKC US title at super-middleweight, taking on Russian ex-pat, Denis Grachev.

Grachev stopped him with a spinning back kick forty-five seconds into the first round and Schilling could not continue.

In 2008, Joe also began to train and fight as both a professional boxer and a mixed martial artist. His professional boxing debut is known as the fastest knockout in US combat sports history.

“It sounds a lot cooler than it was,” he says. “We touched gloves, went back to our corner and the referee said, ‘Come out swinging’.

“He must have misunderstood and thought he said, ‘Come out sprinting,’ because he ran across the ring and tried to throw an overhand right while I was reaching out to touch gloves with my left hand.

“Instinctually, I threw my right cross and pivoted off to avoid his sucker punch. It turns out [that] he ran straight into my right hand. By the time I made the pivot off the angle, he was already out cold and the ref immediately waved it off.”

Boxing is the cornerstone of Joe’s style.

“Boxing has always been a huge part of my style and has been a big part of my success in kickboxing and MMA.”

Joe also began his initial foray into MMA in 2008, winning two of his first three fights. It wasn’t easy, however. Strikers have found the transition from kickboxing to MMA particularly difficult.

“Transitioning to MMA is very challenging; it really is a completely different game altogether. There is the ground game and the striking and the transitions between the two, which can be very complex.

“As far as the ground game goes, I have really enjoyed it and been blessed to have trained with some of the best Brazilian ju-jitsu guys in the world.”

His kickboxing career has been stellar, although his progress has been marked by a number of sensational changes of fortune. One of the things that defines him as a fighter, and makes him a persistently exciting prospect, is his ability to adapt and develop. His losses are generally followed by significant technical improvement.

“I think that a huge part of my success has come simply because I persisted,” he says. “I’ve had some extreme highs in my career but I’ve also had a lot of lows. I think persisting through those lows has brought me to new heights.

“But not only do you have to keep going after a loss, you also have look at the mistakes you’ve made and address them. I think that a huge part of my success has come from being surrounded by the right people.”

In 2011, Joe fought Thai legend Kaoklai Kaennorsing for the WBC Interim World Light Heavyweight Championship in Los Angeles. Joe dominated, knocking down the Thai three times in the first round.

With that win, he secured his standing as one of the world’s elite fighters at middleweight, entering into the small circle of top contenders.

Among those figures are Russian middleweight Glory world middleweight title-holder Artem Levin, along with Canadian contender, Simon Marcus.

Marcus and Schilling have shared a torrid rivalry. Their first engagement was on the American promotion Lion Fight 5 in Las Vegas on February twenty-fifth, 2015.

“My first fight with Simon Marcus was, by far, the most anticipated Muay Thai fight in U.S. history, mostly because we both did a good job of talking shit to each other in the media,” says Joe.

“Eventually, [we] agreed to bet our purses in a ‘winner takes all’ match. It was great for the sport and a [highly] anticipated fight. Unfortunately, the fight ended in the clinch when Simon illegally grape-vined my leg and tripped me and landed on top of me with his elbow on my chin as the back of my head hit the [canvas].

“I was able to get up a few times but ultimately, I was finished. The fight was ruled a knockout, even though it all started with an illegal sweep. The end result was that I lost my WBC world title, even though for some reason it was a non-title fight.”

Afterwards, Schilling attempted to have the decision overthrown and the result awarded a no-contest, without success. The follow-up bout at Lion Fight 6 was fuelled by both speculation and resentment. The stakes were further increased by the fact that the winner would earn the opportunity to contest Artem Levin’s WBC world title.

“In the second fight I dropped Simon with a jab in the first round [and] from then on, Simon would clinch and hold on the entire fight. The ignorance and incompetence of both the Nevada Athletic Commission judges and the referee that night were pathetic.

“Two of the three judges did not score the eight-count or the knockdown in the first round. And the referee, Steve Mazzagatti, was completely uneducated in Muay Thai and basically allowed Simon to simply body lock and knee my hip for several minutes of each round.

“Anyway, Simon won by one point, I believe. A few years later Simon and I faced each other at Glory 17: Last Man Standing tournament. It was fight of the year.”

Joe debuted for the Glory organization at the end of 2013 at Glory 10: Los Angeles – Middleweight World Championship Tournament. Through twists of fate typical of kickboxing, he earned his opportunity for a shot at Artem Levin and defeated him in the final of the tournament, establishing himself as the number one middleweight in the world.

Some years later, Joe met Levin once again in the final of the Glory 17: Last Man Standing tournament. While he prevailed against old foe Marcus in the semi-final that night, he ultimately lost to Levin.

Tournaments, while immensely entertaining, are not the best way to find an overall champion, given that both luck and injury are such influential factors. As far as determining the best middleweight in the world, a properly sanctioned title fight is the best possible format.

“The fight with Artem has been offered – and even agreed upon – but Artem seems to always find a way out of the fight with me. I don’t know if it will ever happen or not.

“At this point, I don’t care; I know I’m the number-one middleweight in the world and the politics will not change that.”

Fightlive Magazine, August/September 2016

Lucas Browne is one of the biggest names in Australian combat sports. He recently contested the WBA world heavyweight boxing title in Chechnya, successfully wresting it from its long-time Chechen incumbent, Ruslan Chagayev.

Unfortunately, he was stripped of that same title shortly after by the very sanctioning body that had crowned him.

“I don’t blame the WBA; they had to make a decision on a positive test. It’s a six-month ban, the minimum term, and I probably wouldn’t have fought for another six months, anyway. As long as I don’t lose any money or my ranking as number ten in the world, I’m okay with it.”

The ban comes as a result of Browne testing positive for the banned substance clembutarol after the fight. While he isn’t disputing the outcome of the test, he had taken his own separate measures previous to that test.

“We didn’t trust the Russian anti-doping people,” he says. “We – when I say ‘we’, I mean Team Hatton – employed WADA to do independent testing and we paid for it ourselves. Three or four days before the fight at breakfast in Chechnya, I gave both blood and urine samples before I went back to my room and those [tests] came back negative.

“So, I was completely clear. I paid for the testing. Why would I take something which was going to affect my heart and has no benefit in terms of losing weight because I’m a super-heavyweight?”

Given the fight took place in a foreign country, Browne and his team were fastidious with every aspect of his preparation in the lead-up.

“Taking a tip from Tyson Fury, we were very careful with the water. We didn’t trust anybody. I ate at the hotel to be extra-careful. On the night of the fight, we were tested again via urine sample. It came back showing minute traces of Clenbutarol.”

As to how a tainted test could be administered, Browne has his theory.

“There were two weigh-ins. One was in the hotel the day before. Because it’s a Muslim country, women can’t see anyone in their underwear. That night, there was a sort of public pre-fight extravaganza with a mock weigh in. Dancing, all that sort of stuff. We stood on the scales in full clothing and our weight came up on a screen behind us.”

“At dinner afterwards, steaks were served to only the fighters. My speculation is that it was only the steaks. It was [the promoter’s] complete and utter insurance policy. No matter what, Chagayev keeps the belt.”

Other than a disappointing outcome, Lucas was happy to pay a visit to Chechnya.

“It’s a completely Muslim country,” he says, “Islam at its finest. No alcohol, no smoking, no tatts. A lot different to Sydney. Very polite people; very considerate and down to earth. I didn’t see a single argument or dispute of any kind. Everybody had machine guns, but that’s a different story.”

And while they are a nation of fight fans, their enthusiasm is much greater when the local fighter is ahead on the cards.

“After the ref waved it off, I put both my hands in air and yelled out ‘Yes!’ There was not a single sound. The crowd was completely silent. My corner jumped the ropes; they were jumping around, they were so happy. I told them to shut up: we looked like idiots!

“There was no sound [from the audience] and they didn’t warm up. The president had a go at things, and then got the shits good and proper. Chagayev said something over the microphone, and the president walked out. I asked if I could talk, but they wouldn’t let me. ‘Okay, see you later,’ I said. And then I was off to the changing rooms.”

The president had a vested interest in the outcome, given he was also the promoter.

“The president was also Chagayev’s best mate. I was staying in a five-star hotel, while Chagayev stayed in the presidential suite, which is the president’s accommodation.”

Lucas describes Chagayev as a respectful person who let his abilities as an athlete speak for him.

“There was no trash talk, just the fight. He was spurred on by the crowd. A very cagey, very technical left-hander. [Being a southpaw] creates a different dynamic. That was the hand that caught and dropped me; I didn’t see it coming.

“It was a right body rip, and I bent and looked and it was the other hand that came over the top and knocked me down. He had a lot of power. He was very sharp.”

Due to the positive drug test, Chagayev also keeps the belt.

“He’ll fight the American, Fres Oquendo. I have a six-month ban, so I’ll be back in September, ready to smash everyone. It’s given me a level of determination. I’ve well and truly now got something to prove. Winning it back makes the story so much better.”

Lucas’ trainer, Rodney Williams, sees his charge giving form to the ideals he has for him as a fighter. Having set new parameters for him as a fighter, the Chagayev fight sees Lucas growing towards the ideal Williams has set.

“In the Chagayev fight, [Lucas] executed fifty per-cent of [what we’d planned], if he was lucky. What he did execute is what got him across the line.

“If he’d had a fight the next night, he’d probably have been able to execute eighty per cent on the confidence and trust factor alone. Our job now is to keep working on those skills and reinforcing them.”

Rodney became involved with Lucas after he was suggested to him through a third party, after he had left Jeff Fenech.

“It didn’t work out as well as I wanted it to,” says Lucas. “Jeff wanted to manage and promote me, but I already had a promoter and manager through Team Hatton. He didn’t put the effort in. I guess he didn’t get what he wanted out of it.”

Rodney Williams had begun to forge a reputation as a skilful professional boxing trainer after working with both Nigel Benn and his son, Connor. By the time he was introduced to Lucas, Williams had already begun to develop an understanding of him as a fighter.

“I was in the opposite corner when he fought Chauncey Welliver. Lucas won by stoppage, somewhere in the fourth or fifth round when he broke Chauncey’s orbital bone. It gave me the chance to look at him from the very front row, so to speak. I wasn’t that mightily impressed, to be honest – as a fight fan, he wasn’t the sort of fighter I would follow.

“There was nothing terribly exciting about him. I did have that conversation with him; I think I described him as ‘Frankenstein with gloves on’, or something to that effect. That said, he has the three things any trainer asks a fighter to bring to the table; a big heart, a good chin, and knockout power.

“The main thing I said to him was that you’re great when you’ve got the ball, but when you don’t, there’s nothing exciting going on. When you’re not punching, you don’t look dangerous.

“Yes, you’ve been winning, but your stocks as a fighter are dropping. We needed to make him an exciting-looking fighter. Head movement, use of footwork; all the things you’re doing when you’re not punching. And not looking vulnerable when you’re not punching.”

Now that Lucas is acquiring the skills to match his size, his sights are set on finding the most compelling contests on offer. His outlook on the heavyweight division is indicative of his approach.

“The best thing for heavyweight boxing was when Klitschko lost [to Tyson Fury]. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a sensational fighter, but too clinical and too boring and he’s held the title for too long. It’s opened the door for everyone else.

“It’s creating hype in the heavyweight division, as it needs. I’m hoping Fury gets [the win in the rematch]. That said, I think Klitschko will come out, all guns blazing.

Lucas also has a few choice words to say about Fury.

“He’s a genuine nice bloke, but put a camera on him and he turns into an idiot. You can’t argue with it, though; he creates sales, and he can back it up. I’ve spoken to him many times. He’s a top bloke.”

Lucas began his career in combat sports after his divorce.

“After my wife and I split up, she moved everyone to Perth [from Sydney]. My thought process was, I’d been a full-time dad, I looked at myself and thought, ‘Let’s give it a try and see what happens.

“My background was in rugby as a teenager, so getting in amongst it wasn’t daunting. I’d also done thirteen years of security, so being in a fight didn’t faze me. I actually felt calm; I didn’t have to worry about being bottled in a one-on-one fight, and the ref is there if something goes wrong.”

Lucas began in mixed martial arts.

“I was five and 0 when I won the XMMA intercontinental title. For my sixth fight, I fought Daniel Cormier. I couldn’t wrestle him for shit – he dominated me. He elbowed me [on the ground] and I got thirteen stitches for the cut. I got done in that regard. Both my losses were to wrestlers, and I’m not a wrestler.”

It is often said that in life, one finds out what one wants to do by doing things one doesn’t.

“At thirty-one, thirty-two, I didn’t want to learn to wrestle. All my KOs were [by] punches. I didn’t even kick. I threw two kicks in my first kickboxing fight, and in my second I threw one knee, and that was it.

“That fight would have gone to him on points, but I KOed him in the fourth. A very good example of why I don’t want to do kickboxing! Boxing is easier for me, so to speak.” 

While it may be easier for Lucas, one cannot imagine that it would be easier for anyone climbing through the ropes to mix it with him.

“There’s quite a few fellas, actually. I’m good; I don’t hurt people or knock them out [in sparring]. I probably should in terms of my personal gain, but I also realize I’ll have no sparring partners if I do that.

“As far as my hands go, it’s probably an eighty per-cent split where I use my left more. When I fight, I turn it other way around. Sparring is all about learning. I’m keen to learn from other people and they are keen to learn from me.”

High on the roster are two of Australia’s most durable heavyweight kickboxers, Peter Graham and Ben Edwards.

“Peter Graham has a head like a brick, which is a good thing. He’s a genuine, old school tough nut, but also fit, and they are the two hardest qualities [to face] in an opponent. We talk during sparring to develop. ‘I can see this plainly, I can see that, don’t do that again.”

“I met Lucas through combat sports,” says Peter. “I first met him when he was training with the Te Huna brothers. We’ve sparred MMA, kickboxing, boxing, the whole thing.”

Working on different disciplines had given Peter a greater insight into Lucas’ style than almost anyone, aside from his trainers.

“He’s incredibly agile; it’s remarkable for such a big person to be so light on his feet, and fast with his hands. He’s the exception, rather than the rule. [Lucas is] impressive as a natural athlete.”

‘Bangin’ Ben Edwards has also spent time training with Lucas at different points in his career.

“Ben Edwards, I’ve met him twice and sparred him twice. The first time was kickboxing sparring. I was worried about kicks; then, after I got kicked, I was punched in the face. The second time was just boxing. I did much, much better.”

The first – and possibly last – word on Lucas probably comes from Edwards himself, who once said that ‘Lucas Browne is the definition of blunt-force trauma.’

You’ve been quiet. What have you been up to since you lost the Oz Heavyweight boxing title to Peter Graham?

I had one fight with Glory in October 2015 [which was] a disappointing loss. After that, I decided to have a break and make some big changes in my personal life. Pete won fair and square but I had a lot going on during my prep. It wasn’t hard to tell, considering I put on ten kilograms in between fights and didn’t miss a training session.

What happened?

I wasn’t in the best relationship and my girl was pregnant at the time. She had a miscarriage three days before the fight. My relationship with my fight team also became a little strained.

I was burnt-out and ultimately taking a year off from fighting was the best decision I made. Since then I’ve made a lot of changes, cleaned myself up and now [I] only surround myself with positive people. 

Can you tell me about that fight? What was your impression of Peter as a boxer?

Peter is a legend. He doesn’t hit especially hard… he’s not fast but the guy is a tough-as-nails warrior who always comes in fit and ready to fight. I’ve got nothing but respect for him.

You had a boxing comeback fight. How did it go?

I had probably my final boxing fight against super-tough Wallace To’o. I got the win on points and managed to break my right hand for the fifth time but didn’t need surgery. My bone density is excellent, I just have a crap-shaped hand for fighting. It was good to fight again; I was pretty rusty after so long off but I rediscovered my love for the sport since.

You’ve got a fight under full MMA rules – in a cage – coming up. What’s the idea?

I wanted to go to MMA back in 2011 but my old management team persuaded me to stay in kickboxing; Glory was looking like the next big thing at that time. I’m happy to have finally made the transition and I’m loving the training.

My goal is to be the only person ever to be a world kickboxing champ, a national boxing champ and a UFC fighter with a winning record which will also mean the only person ever to fight in and win in K1, Glory and UFC.

Have you got an opponent slated?

No opponent yet but we’re looking at a few and fans will not be disappointed – I’m going in the deep end. Glory said they don’t want me anymore so I’m done with kickboxing and boxing, unless someone makes me a big offer.

Do you have a plan as regards a trajectory as far as MMA is concerned?

I want to have three or four fights nationally and hopefully get straight wins. If I can get a fight and a win on UFC Fight Pass, that’s my UFC ticket.

You’ve established yourself as a skilful striker. Have you had to rework your approach for the cage?

I’ve been MMA grappling for about fifteen months now. I have a few people in Canberra helping me out; Duke Didier, Andrew Machin, Steve Rudic and Simon Foscorini. I just did a training trip to Melbourne [to train with] UFC fighter Dan Kelly at Resilience Training Centre. I’m also training with Renegade and Australian Elite Fight Team.

The jitz culture is great; everyone is so supportive and there are no politics. I love it and can see myself rolling for a long time. I’m a natural wrestler. My dad was a black belt judoka and after thirteen years of high-level rugby league, you do get a high level of body awareness.

I have made adjustments to my striking to prepare for the sprawl and I’m getting better all the time.

How do you mitigate the risks of MMA?

Life is about to taking risks. I mitigate them by learning from my mistakes and being the best version of myself I can be. I understand the risks better than your average Joe; I’ve done a lot of research on CTE. I’ve made my choice and I’m at peace with whatever happens.

Without wanting to get too technical, boxing is one of few sports which delivers a truly comprehensive workout.

The thing I like best about boxing is that it is the essence of the maxim, ‘easy to learn but hard to master.’ It’s quick and easy for you to get going and begin developing your fitness, but it doesn’t require much space and equipment.

Most significantly, it is highly technical and strategic, which means that it is psychologically engaging. The bottom line: I don’t exercise because it is good for me; I exercise because it’s fun.

I have put together the following workout to introduce you to the greatness of boxing.

1. The plank

The plank is a core exercise. The word ‘core’ is bandied about relentlessly, but what it refers to is the deepest layer of abdominal muscle, the transverse abdominus.

That layer of tissue is the fundament of your balance and is the place your limbs are anchored into. Also, good spinal health is dependent on a strong and healthy core.

THE EXERCISE:

• Prop yourself on the floor with your elbows under your shoulders and your legs out with feet together.
• Lift up the hips so the body is entirely supported by the balls of the feet – toes back – and the elbows and forearms
• Squeeze the glutes and legs. The legs are essential!
• Tilt the pelvis. Don’t arch your lower back
• Head up. If you drop your eyes, you’ll lose the straight line through your body
• Your goal is a straight line from your ankle, through your knee, through your pelvis, through your shoulder to your ear.

2. Rotation

Your torso is the engine of your power. Striking is not a matter of using the limb; it’s a matter of conducting body weight through the limb by rotating. This activity is also a very effective core exercise and warms up the lower back.

It’s a good place to begin because it conditions you toward the fundamental task: rotation of the body weight around the midline.

THE EXERCISE:

• Stand with your feet a little wider than shoulder width apart
• Take the foot on your dominant side (if you’re right handed, it’s your right foot) back until your toe is level with your heel
• Bend your knees
• Keeping your spine straight, oscillate from side to side
• Use your eyes to guide the movement
• Turn your heels out to maximise the rotation of the hips

3. Jab

The jab is a straight punch with the front hand, or the hand closest to the opponent. It’s essentially a range finder; if you can reach with the jab, you can reach with the rest of your weapons

THE EXERCISE:

• Front foot is flat; rear foot is elevated.
• Keep your elbow under your hand and your hand against your face
• Extend your elbow to almost full extension
• Turn your fist so that it’s horizontal to make maximum contact with the knuckles
• Bring your hand back to your face.

…That’s all! The trick with boxing is to avoid doing anything except what you have to. The paradox of the activity is you’re refining your body language until you do nothing but the effective bare minimum.

4. Cross

The cross is a straight punch from the back hand, so named because it crosses the body.

THE EXERCISE:

• Push through the back leg welling up out of the toe
• Rotate the hips
• Extend the right elbow almost all the way, while keeping it exactly beneath the hand
• Turn the fist to horizontal for maximum contact
• Shift your weight fully onto your front foot
• Simultaneously bring your jab hand back to your face.

The hands move in concert with the body, the way that pistons are driven by a cam.

5. Left Hook

The hook is a circular short-range punch targeted at the side of the head. It begins as the cross returns to your chin.

THE EXERCISE:

• Extend the front elbow to 45 degrees, allowing the hand to leave the face
• Drive the rotation of the torso from the front leg, shifting the weight towards the back leg (this is counter-intuitive, but essential to making the punch work)
• Lift the elbow as the hand moves towards the target
• Turn the fist horizontal to maximise contact with the knuckles
• Pull the right hand tight to your own chin as the left hand – the hook – finds its target
• Finish by planting your weight on your back foot.

6. Right uppercut

The right uppercut is targeted at the chin and is intended to lift the opponent’ eyes so he – or she – can’t see you.

THE EXERCISE

• Bend your knees and carry your body weight from your back foot towards your front
• Extend the back elbow to forty five degrees
• Extend both arm and shoulder, keeping the elbow directly underneath your fist and target
• Extend the legs, effectively using the body – rather than just the arm – to deliver the blow
• Pull the left hand tight to your own chin as the right hand finds the target.

7. Left hook

The left hook is the coup de grace. The other punches have closed the distance and confused your opponent. The final left hook is intended to conclude the engagement.

THE EXERCISE:

• Extend the front elbow to 45 degrees, allowing the hand to leave the face
• Drive the rotation of the torso from the front leg, shifting the weight towards the back leg (this is counter-intuitive, but essential to making the punch work)
• Lift the elbow as the hand moves towards the target
• Turn the fist horizontal to maximise contact with the knuckles
• Pull the right hand tight to your own chin as the left hand – the hook – finds its target
• Finish by planting your weight on your back foot.

Make sure you breathe! Good boxing is like good tennis; a good hit feels effortless, and often seems to be the result of relaxing. Use your breathing to punctuate your techniques.

Once you become proficient with the sequence, you can begin to change the punches around, or add some. First and foremost, focus on your breathing. Then, think balance. Lastly, remember co-ordination. From there, it is a simple matter of repetition.

“Simplicity is the last step in art and the beginning of nature.”

– Bruce Lee.

2.

I probably first walked into a fight gym shortly after that so I could learn to stand up to him physically because reason and honesty weren’t working, but it was more than that.

When I looked in the mirror, I saw what he saw; I was weak. And ugly. He was disgusted by me, and I was disgusted by myself. Most bizarrely, I had his voice, and face, and expressions, all of which were imbricated over my own hateful reflection.

I think I wanted someone to punish me, like a kind of self-mutilation with someone else agreeing to hold the knife. I probably also wanted to hit someone for a change, too. Reverse the dynamic. See what it felt like.

Training was rough and painful and the pain was good. The sharp report of shin on shin seemed to bleed the emotional pain, and the bruise afterward was like a witness. It was proof of the ordeal. There was no denying it, or explaining it away as something else. Emotions are ephemeral; a bruise is a fact.

Sparring itself was terrifying. It’s one thing to end up in a fight because it overtakes you, but it’s another to actually make an appointment and arrive on time. I felt I had to do it, though; I had to find the courage, or how else would I be able to stand up to Dad?

I was completely unprepared for what I found. Me and some other guy got stuck into it and for three rounds, we went at it like fighting roosters; plenty of intention, but not a lot of clean contact. It was more a matter of bruised feet and shins, a sore head and smarting knees and elbows. But the exhilaration was undeniable.

In my late teens, it was better than sex. It was more truthful and more intimate.

Most of all, while it was rare to uncover your heart to another man in the gym, we both understood that we had come to the ring for the same reason. He had his demons, I had mine, and one had agreed to stand in for the other man’s shadow.

By doing so, we had proven to ourselves that we were brave. We bore witness to one another’s strength, courage and will to persevere.

There’s no physical catharsis with a woman half your size. There’s no screaming in a boxing ring, either; you’re focused on your own feelings, not somebody else’s.

This new experience, in which the violence was so joyous and positive after it had been so destructive, was a genuine revelation. To then visit physical violence on a woman, much less a woman I loved, was perverse beyond expression.

Hitting people outside of the ring has also been necessary on very rare occasions and almost every time, it has felt really, really good. I can’t say that’s ever been the case when I’ve hit a woman.

Published in ‘Mayweather Vs McGregor: Money Fight.’

“The public has been hoodwinked. It’s the biggest farce in boxing history,” says Peter Graham, former world champion heavyweight boxer, kickboxer and mixed martial artist.

“It’s amazing so many people think that Macgregor can win the fight. It’s a bookmaker’s dream come true.”

Peter is quick to list the reasons why McGregor doesn’t stand a chance.

“This is McGregor’s first boxing fight – ever. Apparently, he’s had some amateur fights, but the record isn’t readily available. Even if he [had], Mayweather has fought the best amateurs in the world – and beaten them. The only time he’s had to take a knee was when he hurt his hand, hurting someone else.

“Forget about the fact that Mayweather is the best defensive boxer of his generation, McGregor isn’t even the best mixed martial artist of his generation. Mayweather has been fighting the best boxers in the world for fifteen years.”

Very logical, and very reasonable. However, Ben Edwards, former kickboxer and champion boxer about to make his professional debut as a mixed martial artist, views the match-up a different way.

“I don’t know why there’s so much hate,” says Edwards. “Get the fuck over it – it’s a bit of fun! It’ll probably the most watched fight ever, and that’s a great thing for [fightsports].”

Edwards is more enthusiastic about McGregor’s chances.

“I think he’s actually paying about five to one, which is probably about right. While any reasonable person thinks Mayweather is going to win, there’s a few things working against him.

“Firstly, Conor isn’t a boxer and he doesn’t have a boxer’s rhythm, which makes him hard to read. Not being a boxer but still skilled as a combat athlete could work to his advantage.”

“The other things is, if Mayweather hits you, you think, ‘I got hit.’ If McGregor hits you, you wake up ten minutes later. And history shows that McGregor has had problems with lefties in the past.

“He’s also got a couple of inches on Mayweather in terms of height and reach and after the weigh-in, he’ll actually enter the ring a lot bigger [than Floyd].

“On top of that, McGregor’s got nothing to lose! There’s zero pressure on him. Mayweather is essentially defending boxing. He’s coming off a two-year break; he hasn’t had a hard fight in two years since Manny Pacquiao.

“Sure, it was a hard fight, but ring rust is a real thing. Conor has been active. And at twenty-eight years old, he’s in his prime.”

To make any kind of prediction, you have to try and view the fight in terms of the variables at work. In this respect, Graham and Edwards are in agreement.

“You have to work exclusively on whatever code you’re being presented with,” says Graham. “Although I’ve done well as a boxer, it’s not like I only ever did one thing. I’d always been a striker.”

That said, the subtleties of technique are not directly translatable.

“To begin with, you have to change the way you stand; it’s a wider stance for MMA, because you have to be wary of takedowns, which aren’t a risk in boxing.

“There’s also slipping, ducking and weaving to deal with the higher volume of punches, because remember, that’s all you do. Many of the defensive movements in MMA aren’t relevant anymore.”

“I went from kickboxing to boxing; I didn’t find it that hard, to be honest,” says Edwards. “For every fight, you’re fighting someone with a certain body type and skill set and you change your game plan accordingly.

“Especially if you’re going from MMA – which is about six different sports in one, whereas boxing is one skillset. If anything, I think boxing’s easier. You don’t have to worry about takedowns, so you can commit to your punches.”

Both Edwards and Graham acknowledge the impact that age will have on the engagement.

“Mayweather may be forty, but forty in 2016 is not forty say, thirty years ago,” says Graham. “We know more about nutrition, training, sleep and supplementation. He has the money to get the best advice and people around him.”

Edwards makes an interesting counter point.

“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Fighters get old in one fight?” That’s especially true when you’re talking about reflex fighters. A fighter like Roy Jones Junior, who relied on his reflexes, aged very badly in the ring.

“On the other hand, while Mayweather does have the skills, he’s still relying a lot on his reflexes.”

Attempting to look into the history of MMA fighters who transitioned into boxing doesn’t assist in terms of un-clouding the crystal ball.

Most fighters are fighting for the money. Entry-level purses for the UFC are around ten thousand dollars a fight. If a newly-signed fighter can expect three fights in the space of a year, that income needs to be supplemented by other means.

Boxers take a substantially different career path to MMA fighters. While a boxer’s record may not appear as chequered as that of a comparable MMA fighter, that is often because their record is padded out with easier fights against less challenging opponents.

Promotions like the UFC are the destination for aspiring mixed martial artists. Conversely, boxers are often selected early in their careers and supported by ambitious promoters. It is in the promoter’s interest to protect their prospective champion and nurture both their development and reputation.

Farkhad Sharipov, bantamweight MMA fighter and former resident of Kyrgystan who now resides in the US, has an MMA record of 16-7. At thirteen boxing fights for four wins and nine losses, his boxing record is not quite as sterling.

“I’d never boxed in my life. I started when I was twenty-six years old. I only boxed once a week to get my hands better for MMA,” he says.

Sharipov understands the financial constraints of full-time fighting all too well. He works during the day as a real-estate agent while running his own gym and managing other fighters. Many of his boxing fights have been taken on short notice.

“I had only one or two weeks of training and I fought national champions, top guys, Olympians, Cuban champions, Pan American champions and none of them could finish me.”

Sharipov’s last foray was against the undefeated Jonathan Navarro, a matter of weeks before his next MMA fight. He had decided to take the six round fight as ‘sparring’. While proving himself a difficult opponent, he lost by unanimous decision, winning two of the six rounds according to the judge’s scorecards.

“Yeah, I took it for the warm-up,” he said. “I like to compete. I think with a few months’ notice I could beat most of these guys. My record is upside down but if you look at the fights, you can tell that some of them I was robbed, some I lost.”

Saul Almeida, Jose Aldo’s translator, has an MMA record of 18-8 with a number of significant scalps among them. His boxing record is 0-8, but doesn’t accurately reflect either his quality as a fighter, or his quality as a boxer.

“I do it for the experience,” he says. “I’m fighting really good guys. I can hang with them but I’m fighting in their backyard, if you want to put it like that. If it goes to decision, I know it’s not going to go my way… that’s how boxing works.”

Yevgeni Makhteienko boasts an 11-4 MMA record and has a boxing record of 8-6. What that record doesn’t explain is that he’s won a number of upset victories and lost by way of several controversial decisions. He’s only been stopped once, in the twelfth and final round by Karo Murat. Murat has contested titles at international level.

Oftentimes, MMA fighters are less-concerned about the blemish on their record and are grateful for the experience and the pay-day. A loss in the boxing ring doesn’t affect a fighter’s standing in MMA.

While this is true, McGregor is reversing this pattern; he’s stepping down from the pinnacle of one sport to enter another.

“As the saying goes, ‘money talks, bullshit walks,” says Peter. “If you offer anyone enough money, they’ll box. I don’t think it’s going to open the floodgates [of MMA fighters transitioning into boxing].

“Fighters want one of three things: fame, money, or titles. Promoters want one thing – fights that make them lots of money. McGregor – Mayweather is going to make everyone involved a lot of money.”

“I think the best analogy that I’ve heard is that they’re both swimmers and it’s going to be the best freestyler against the best breaststroker,” says Ben Edwards. “They’re both in the water, and there’s going to be a lot of crossover.

“Mayweather has the record and the experience, but he’s fighting a big, awkward lefty with crazy power. Conor’s definitely got a chance and it’s definitely going to be a fight.”

While Graham and Edwards may see the fight in different terms, there is one thing they agree on:

“You know what? I’ll still watch it.”

Ben Edwards is a beast. After making a significant impression on international heavyweight boxing and kickboxing, he is poised to make an elephantine splash at the deep end of the swimming pool of MMA. He fights Westside MMA stalwart Jeremy Joiner this Friday night in Canberra on Monaro Fight Circuit 26.

How’s life as an MMA fighter?

I’m loving being an MMA fighter now; I was into MMA before it caught on and before there was anywhere to train. It was a long time coming and it feels right to finally be doing it.

What about boxing and kickboxing?

I can’t see myself ever kickboxing or boxing again unless I get a crazy offer.

How did you feel about your debut performance against Brandon Sosoli?

I was happy with my first fight against Brandon. I picked a hard fight for my debut; a guy with a winning record [who has] ten [pro] fights experience and six amateurs. I was happy I got out of two bad situations; my fitness held up and I still got the KO. I’d much rather [have to] overcome a bad situation for my first fight than a quick KO win.

What are the weak points of your game?

Obviously my wrestling and grappling. Everyone is going to have the same game-plan against me; take me down. If I can have an 80%-plus KO ratio in 10oz gloves, I’ll kill people in 4oz MMA gloves.

It’s great to be learning new things every day! My ego is in the back seat – it has to be – because I’m rolling with guys better than me all the time and I’m learning from them. Fast.

Is Jiu-Jitsu a difficult skill-set for a striker to step into?

The jitz seems to come very naturally for me. I’m still a beginner, but as my coach [Duke Didier] said when I first started ‘Your instincts are awesome; it’s the execution that needs work.’ I was good at grabbing a limb but not great at ripping it off, shall we say.

What’s your prep for Jeremy Joiner?

I’m keeping my striking tools sharp. Striking in MMA with the threat of a takedown is very different to a boxing or kickboxing match, especially for someone like me who really sits down on my punches. Punching and defending with MMA gloves is very different as well. I am working on all aspects of my game all the time.

How have you adjusted your style for MMA?

Concentrating on speed rather than power for kicks to prevent an opponent grabbing your leg and taking you down. I believe Olympic-style boxing is better for MMA than a professional style, especially [the volume punching] Mexican style. I try to get in and get out, just touching the opponent. There’s no need to load up your shots in small gloves, especially as a heavyweight. Just fast and accurate.

How do you approach sparring in light of recent research into CTE and brain damage in contact sports?

Just concentrate on having really good basics, same as what I do for my jits. The focus is on play or light sparring all the time and very rarely spar hard. Getting punched in the head every day in training is stupid and even if you’re wearing headgear your brain is still bouncing around. Despite what the old boxing heads say, you can fight hard and have good timing without hard sparring.

‘There must be rites,’ [the Fox said].

‘What’s a rite?’ asked the Little Prince.

‘It is a thing too often neglected…’

The Little Prince,

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

p.61

I have a young man coming to see me for boxing training. His older brother bought him a ten-session package for an eighteenth birthday present, because learning to ‘handle yourself’ is considered one of the quintessential rites of passage.

Handling yourself implies the ability to defend yourself, but literally means a developed, competent knowledge of one’s abilities and some refinement of them, based on disciplined practice.

Part of my brief, as I understand, is to also give the kid an introduction to the rudiments of the discipline so that he can continue to train himself – personal training once a week is a reasonably expensive proposition.

Part of what makes the personal training experience one worth paying for is the fact that many people find exercise boring. A good trainer has to dilate activities so that a client sees the value in them and can easily find the excitement.

It’s a simple litmus test, on the success or failure continuum; if the client comes back the following week, you’re doing your job effectively. However, the thing that separates a personal training client from an athlete is the amount of tedious, boring activity the subject will persist with as a necessary part of development.

Boxing is compelling in the way that learning a musical instrument is compelling; true skill is dependent on mastering certain rudiments. The value of doing so extends beyond the narrow discipline of fighting itself. If you become skilled as a boxer, it will translate into a breadth of sports that require balance, footwork and hand-eye co-ordination, all the way through to dancing.

Equipment like the skipping rope, the speed bag, the floor to ceiling ball and the heavy bag will provide a demanding workout, and allow a committed person to develop a significant degree of skill and fitness. However, because there is a basic level of skill required, many people are discouraged early on and wander off to find something they find more engaging, or less frustrating.

The heavy bag is where the solo workout will most likely end up, and is probably the most discouraging of all the rudimental equipment for boxing training, because it is the piece of equipment that stays closed. It is the slowest to speak to you. However, the benefits of hitting it are profound. In fact, I don’t think you can learn to box without hitting it.

The thing is essentially dead, and possessed by inertia. This quality is what brings out your skill, and once you hit it properly, your striking will take on a polish and finesse that you simply cannot otherwise attain.

The instinct as a beginner is to hold the bag so it doesn’t move and you can hit it. The bag will not allow this. In order to make it work, you have to hit it, and then manipulate the travel of the thing through space by hitting it again.

It sounds simple, but requires a confluence of independent, fully realised skills. Part of that is knowing when to hit to inflict maximum power and do yourself as little harm as possible.  

Firstly, it’s non-co-operative. Skipping is difficult, but there’s not much of a knack to it, and the speed bag and floor-to-ceiling ball require a sense of rhythm before they will conform to your attention. The heavy bag is something quite different.

The second thing it teaches is the difference between a hit and a push. To push is to make contact before velocity. A hit, on the other hand, requires that the weapon (the fist) has velocity before it makes contact. Velocity is essential to penetrating an opponent. You don’t want to push an opponent away because it won’t hurt them. On the other hand, a hit will.

The heavy bag also teaches how to use the momentum of the target against it. The best possible instant to strike is when the bag is moving toward you. It will move away when struck, and then try to return to centre, beneath its point of attachment.

Hitting it on the return means that you have the combined force of your strike, and the bag’s momentum effectively impaling it as it returns.

Lastly, the pressure a heavy bag puts on your hands and wrists will force you to punch properly. If you don’t time the closure of your hands, your wrists will be slack and you run the risk of spraining them. Watching the bag swing, learning to read it like a pendulum and manipulate that momentum by striking it is an invaluable lesson.

One of my early memories of training with a skilled boxer was watching him hit the heavy bag. When I hit it, it seemed to show up all my shortcomings at once. My long, thin arms behaved like spaghetti and any force I could generate seemed to be absorbed, along with my energy, by the monolithic dull thing that seemed to absorb even the light.    

My companion, on the other hand, looked like he was in some kind of cooperation with it. And when he struck the bag, it bobbed and danced at the end of its chain like a cork on the tide. When I looked down, I could see the logic of his method; it was as if he mapped out the constellation of the activity with his footprints on the floor of the gym.

I’ve never forgotten it; I can see him clear as day as I write this.

The simple fact of boxing is that a human opponent is, by definition, uncooperative. All the basic tools in the boxing gym require that you develop relationships with them through rhythm. The heavy bag is the least co-operative of all because rhythm is something you have to forcefully invest it with.

Training other people’s children is one of the most significant responsibilities I’ve undertaken.

It’s a huge moment of trust when a parent leaves you with their child, and I feel as if me and the kid are enveloped in a white-hot spotlight of attention. Everyone can see everything I do, and they’re watching in relation to the child.

This is even more apparent when the kid turns out to be annoying.

My mate Tim, hanging on the left side of the photo like an unshaven full moon, is the father of Xavier and Ollie, my two most recent charges.

He’s a capable boxer and, now and again, brings his boys to throw some punches. They are both involved with other sports, but they get something out of boxing they can’t find anywhere else.

I find that boys are different to girls. Boys are taking the measure of you, and it’s their own measure, like when they walk through a door and look up at a light switch.

They are using you as a metric to measure their span. How does this adult behave, and how should they model their own behaviour in relation to the world they are reaching towards?

As much as I’m making this sound high-pressure, I really love training kids. It’s not that they are more enjoyable than adults, but when you’re training children, you have a profound influence, as opposed to something between a significant to marginal one. The other thing is, they’re always surprising. You never know how what you say – or do – is going to land.

When done correctly, teaching is, by its essential nature, an honourable undertaking.   

Coming from a martial arts background has conditioned my approach to exercise. Within the context of martial arts, the literal transformation through training, in terms of aesthetics and skill, is actually a metaphor for getting in touch with the pulleys and levers of what is often referred to as character.

It is also the way in which we release the negative biproducts of psychological process that are necessary to running the human machine, like anxiety, frustration, anger and fear.

In fact, the martial arts have always been preoccupied with this, possibly because they are descended from yoga. And I think there’s something in teaching kids to box, both girls and boys, because they come into a sense of their own power, yoked as it is to physical energy and vitality. It is life affirming in a fundamental way.

There’s a couple of quotes that I live by, and one of them comes from Bruce Lee. He famously said that ‘simplicity is the last step in art and the beginning of nature.’ I love this quote, because it indicates the true essence of training.

Training to develop a skill is not about acquisition so much as it is about elimination.

When I’m teaching anyone to box, I distil it into the following fundamentals:  

1. Breathe
2. Rotate your body weight around the mid-line
3. Your hands travel to and from your face
4. Your elbows draw the arcs of your strikes
5. When your feet are on the floor, you have power. When they’re off the floor, you don’t.

When you look at it in those terms, it’s a pretty simple list. And once you recognise that, it’s pretty easy to become discouraged. If there’s so little to doing it, then why is it so hard?

Western culture is fixated with acquisition. Training, on the other hand, is about eliminating every extraneous element of your body language. That means you’re fast, economical, difficult to read and difficult to hit because you’re not open, nor are you giving your opponent indications of what you intend to do.

“You said the right thing on Saturday,” Tim Schleiger, father of Xavier and Ollie, said when we caught up to train a few days later.

“The little one, Xav, just wants to hit stuff, but the thoughtful one, Ollie went home and he Googled Bruce Lee.” 

Shihan Cameron Quinn is, by the standards of ‘Theme Park…’, a luminary. He began training in Kyokushin Karate in 1971 and lived in Japan in 1976, studying Japanese and training at the Kyokushin Honbu dojo in Tokyo under Kyokushin founder, Mas Oyama.

From 1978 until 1987, he competed in full contact karate tournaments, placing and winning in numerous state, national and international competitions. He represented Australia in the Fourth Open World Tournament in 1987, finishing in the top 32 contestants, and in the over forty World Open Weight Championships in 2001, where he finished fourth. He was a finalist in the world Kata Championships that same year.

He holds a BA from the University of Queensland, with a major in Japanese Language and Culture Studies. He is also fluent in Japanese and served as translator and interpreter for Mas Oyama from 1976 until Oyama’s passing in 1994, as well as other senior Kyokushin figures.

Cameron has trained extensively in boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, kendo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. As a referee, he has regulated bouts in Kyokushin Karate, boxing, shootboxing, kickboxing, shooto, MMA and Muay Thai.

He was awarded his seventh dan by Hanshi Oishi Daigo in 2020 and instructs at his Queensland dojos while continuing to lecture and teach.

I read his book The Budo Karate of Mas Oyama as a nineteen year old when I began Kyokushin Karate and was overcome by it; twenty years later, I was assigned to interview him for Blitz Magazine. It was a great honour, to come back and be able to personally thank the person whose hand had instigated my arc.

I found him to be immensely literate, and the kind of martial artist I had always hoped to find; someone who is walking the martial path with the intention of making it back, as Rumi says, to discover themselves at the end of it. I am very pleased that he answers the phone when I call him with a question. I am always very conscious of making it a good one.

**

When did you first come into contact with ‘A Book of Five Rings’?

Around 1977-78, when I was between nineteen and twenty years old. I was transferred to Townsville, which wasn’t considered to be the most attractive place to live. I was there for work as a customs officer.

It turned out to be a particularly transformative 12 months. I found Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi and met a number of people who became very important. Then, after I’d done these things, as if on cue, I got transferred away again.

I was introduced to A Book of Five Rings by a Zen Do Kai instructor named Gavin Scott. When I landed in Townsville, I was looking for somewhere to train, but there was no Kyokushin. I tried all the different martial arts schools I could find.

The Zen Do Kai school run by Gavin Scott was the best of them. Scott is a very interesting fellow; a real deep thinker. His reflections of what he had read got me interested.

I thought to myself, having been to and from Japan, how had I not seen this book before? And it was a bit like Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri’s The Holy Science. That book is about 150 years old and I’d never seen it. The first time I read that, I had no idea what it meant, so I left it there. Then, five years later, it made perfect sense.

It was the same with ‘…Five Rings’. At first, a lot of it didn’t seem relevant. Then I began comparing different translations to the original Japanese or different modern Japanese commentaries. I find the best translations are written by academics.

…And there are horrible versions of it where someone in a publishing house knows it’s popular and produces a glossy edition to make some cash. It’s beautifully presented, but no balls. No feeling for the Musashi mindset.

I’m thinking of doing my own translation, from the martial artist’s perspective. Musashi wrote ‘…5 Rings’ as a swordsman, a martial artist.  Now, when I read certain paragraphs, they mean more and more because of the experiences I’ve had.

For example, in the best-known translation, done by Victor Harris, the word ‘choshi’ is given to mean timing, but it can also mean rhythm. I thought about this in terms of my own experience of martial arts, and knowing how the word ‘choshi’ is used in Japanese, I drew the conclusion that rhythm is internal, while timing is external.

So, developing good technique is, in one respect, a matter of developing perfect rhythm. And getting that well-trained technique to work against a non-compliant opponent is a matter of timing. So, translating ‘choshi’ as rhythm is very accurate, but for a martial artist, a little more clarification helps. 

Mas Oyama’s compendiums of karate technique, This is Karate and What is Karate? were translated by an American named Richard Gage. He had no precedent. He translated ‘newaza’ as, ‘lying down techniques’. As an academic, he was not wrong.

Later, newaza was more suitably translated by someone as ‘ground work.’ So that is an example of the difference between an accurate academic translation and a translation more suitable to a martial artist. 

The Driving Force of a Crucially Diminished Intellect

Psychological injury is different to physical injury. It’s something that settles over a period of time, as whatever has occurred continues to resonate inside you. Caroming off your thoughts and feelings; creating persistent resonances that shape the thoughts and feelings that follow.

It’s simple for a reader to understand, and should be, if I’ve explained myself properly. J had been crucially emasculated in his own home through the betrayal of his friend with the mother of his children. Then, I’d made him look like an idiot where his relationship was concerned with his new girlfriend, V.

That subversion must have been very painful for him. His physical prowess, superior to mine as a teenager, as well as one of the primal evidences of that, his ability to attract a partner, had once again been proven inferior. Grabbing me by the genitals was a symbolic act of emasculation, intended to reassert the dynamic we had lived under in high school.

This is where the tale becomes universal.

Fighting

Fighting, for me, was the fairy tale. It gave me almost everything I have. I didn’t have a terrible time at high school, and I made a lot of really good friends, but I was bullied and it left a mark. In fact, being bullied, and that feeling of weakness and powerlessness, were at the core of my sense of self.

Fundamentally, and I’ve talked about this at some length before, the essential theme of bullying is shame. You’re told something about yourself; that you’re a failure, or crucially inferior, and the physical impact is used to nail it to your soul. In your mind, it becomes a fact.

My father had ridiculed me ruthlessly over the course of my life, and that was something confirmed at school – particularly boarding school. In boarding school, it was something I couldn’t escape from. And from experiencing the facts of my worthlessness and inferiority constantly asserted and reasserted, I believed it more than anybody.

When I first walked into a boxing gym, it wasn’t with the intention of proving anybody wrong. It was with the intention of finding out whether or not what they had said was true. Was my physical weakness emblematic of my essential worthlessness?

That sense of being shameful, without worth, was far more painful than bruises, broken bones or concussions. And a broken bone is a small price to pay for redemption.

I stuck with it for two reasons, in the beginning. The first is that intense exercise, to the point of collapse, gave me catharsis from day to day. I settled down emotionally and life wasn’t painful every second I was conscious.

The second reason is that I made some wonderful friends. The people I sparred with, the people that were hitting me were people who were gracious enough to act as proxies for my shadow. That is the mutual pact of sparring and fighting.

The contact is no longer about harm and disgrace. Those people are lifting you higher. They show you your courage and your skill. Whenever I see old opponents and sparring partners now, there’s a bond between us that I can only describe as love.

There’s a crucial quotation that I always think of when it comes to fighting. It comes from a book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, called Story. McKee says there is a distinction between deep character and superficial character.

Superficial character is the clothes you wear, the colour of your hair, the colour of your eyes, the car you drive, the foods you like, the foods you don’t. Deep character, on the other hand, is a mystery. Deep character is something that is revealed moment to moment under pressure when you make the choices you make to take the actions you take.

One of the essential themes of boxing is fear. When you get into the ring, you climb into the crucible of your fear and assert your right to choose who you want to be.

When I fought, I won and won and won. It changed my life in ways that were reflected back to me by the people around me, not least of all in terms of how certain people became more reticent to fuck with me from day to day.

And now, here was J appearing in the supermarket, trying to drag me back to sixteen years old, literally by the balls. However, J had spent his life drifting from mistake to mistake. Every fight I’d had was a crystallisation, a certainty. A fact.    

Provocation

I had to challenge J- in such a way that didn’t amount to a threat. It’s entirely possible that he might even take a threat to the police in order to tie me up. I got his phone number from V- and texted him.

Tuesday, May 9

Hi J-

It’s Jarrod.

Why don’t you come and do some boxing?

thank you mate. i’d like that.

(The idiot obviously doesn’t get it. He is so arrogant he thinks he can humiliate me in public and I’m actually going to want to do something for him.)

When suits? You need a mouthguard.

Im in wa until next*. I call you when im home?

*next week

Text me after the 22^nd. You need a mouthguard. No training without it.

copy mate…

Friday, June 23

(No response for six and a half weeks. I text him again.)

When are you coming to box?

Hi mate. ill buzz you early next week. I’ve just come off 5 weeks of night shift.

Text me.

Thursday, June 29

It’s Thursday. Are you scared?

Ha! To be fair, I plum forgot mate. Been busy with the kids. May I pop in tomorrow to see the gym and have a chat?

What time?

11am?

[Address of gym]

Bring your mouthguard.

(That night, I began to write the piece that you are currently reading. I was way behind, and concerned that if the duel occurred, or even if it didn’t, I would lose the opportunity to produce the material. Some kind of premature outcome or reckoning would diminish it.)

I need to postpone tomorrow – something has come up. Can you do next week?

Thumbs up.

Tuesday, July 4

9:10am: Because I am a generous person, I will open the gym for you this Sunday at 11am.

Fantastic mate. Good egg. However, I fly out Friday for 3 weeks. Back on the 28^th. Let’s make it Monday the 31^st 10am

No. I have clients. This week. Fri arvo, Sat arvo.

31^st of July? Can’t do?

9:24am: No. This week.

Silence for an hour.

10:56am: I understand you are caught between your fear and your pride, but you shouldn’t worry. It will be over quickly.

Come Thursday arvo.

12:19: None of that buddy. Can’t do this week as I’m flying early Friday morning. I have kids, a routine, etc. Looks like early August.

12:28: You’re a weak prick.

2:57: Nice try (laughing emoji).

(The cunning of the desperately stupid never ceases to amaze me.)

3:00: So… here’s my question J-, you meth smoking, Forrest Gump loser – was M– smoking meth with your wife before he fucked her?

(I can feel my window closing and while he’s unpredictable and dangerous, I have to take extreme measures to attempt to solve the problem. This is brutal, and ugly, but I have to solve this while I can.)

4:04: I guess so. It was a long time ago. What’s your point?

4:16: You’ve been emasculated. Which is a big word that means you’re dickless.  

4:18: I didn’t choose that route.

4:44: You’re choosing it now.

4:47: I’m indifferent. It’s their gig. You can not move forward unless you let go of the past.

4:49: Jesus, you’re thick. I mean, you’re proving yourself dickless by avoiding me.

Thursday, July 6

12:22pm: So then next question is, do you think you can refrain from following me into supermarkets and grabbing me by the nuts?

**

Back in Training

‘Movement relieves tension.’

• Teddy Atlas.

I’ve got a shattered ankle that’s a kind of dysfunctional knot at the bottom of my right leg and any kind of twisting action causes it to swell and then stiffen. In addition, the tendonitis in my shoulders, especially the left one, becomes inflamed when I box.

Tendonitis is probably the consistently worst injury I’ve had; it burns when you use the affected body part, but at night, it seems to throb with a kind of coldness, as if irrigated by ice water. Three rounds were about as much as my body could tolerate.

In my late forties, I’ve got a host of other injuries that I’ve picked up along the way, and I won’t bore you with them. However, duelling required that I get in shape regardless, and hopefully, the actual duel itself wouldn’t last long.

As anyone who has had an organised fight knows, a round of two minute’s duration feels like an eternity. Given that I’m a heavyweight, I shouldn’t have to hit him cleanly much more than once.

I just needed to get fit, so that I could stay calm. I’d also recover my speed and accuracy. He wouldn’t train; it would be all bluster and natural athleticism, buried beneath decades of inactivity, bad food and drug abuse.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be dangerous, of course. He was unpredictable, and that’s always the wild card. I needed distance to work, and he always made closing it his first order of business.  

I began doing padwork with a friend around the time that I had begun to taunt J- by text. Patience in such matters is of the greatest importance; the longer he put it off, the better my condition would be. And the longer he avoided it, the more it would grow in his mind.

Secretly, I was terrified. I felt like this was almost the highest stakes it could be, a peg beneath life and limb. If I lost, I would be turned back into my teenaged self by this despicable, retarded piece of junkie shit. It was easier to avoid, except for the fact that all my self-respect relied on my willingness to submit to the necessary risk.