Working with Warriors (part four)

Following on from Part One, Two and Three, Working with Warriors now returns to the life of Dennis Martin and the challenges he faced in establishing a bodyguard training service.　He had begun writing a regular column for O'Neill's Fighting Arts International magazine on body guarding entitled ‘On Guard’, showcasing his expertise, but still one of the first major problems was developing a syllabus for close quarter combat. Martin again returned to his source material on training special operatives during World War Two.　He was particularly impressed by this as it was suited for training people with no previous background in fighting.　

Another excellent source was the work of William Ewart Fairbairn, a former Royal Marine and member of the Shanghai Municipal Police. Fairbairn was trained in Japanese and Chinese martial arts and plied his trade in what was in the early twentieth century one of the most dangerous places in the world. One of his innovations was the 'Mystery House', a shooting facility later adopted by the SAS and renamed the ‘Killing House’. He also introduced the first version of a Police SWAT team. He later trained various arms of the British forces during the Second World　War. His guiding principle was simple: what works in a fight? As such, his approach transcended style. Everything was simple, direct and aggressive. Pre-emptive strikes were used as much as possible and any defense was counter-offensive.

In the next chapter of Working With Warriors Martin introduces the favored techniques used by himself, Terry O'Neill and Gary Spiers. O'Neill was (somehow) able to maintain perfect form while working and fighting on the door. He epitomized the maxim of ikken hissatsu or 'one punch to kill' and was able to KO people – often multiple people – using karate techniques imported straight from the dojo. He was the same in competition. Though most self-protection instructors advise against it (including Martin himself) O'Neill was able to kick directly to the head effectively. This skill was the result of hard work and dedication, pure and simple. If you refer back to the first part of this review you will remember that O’Neill was far from being an athletic child despite his interest in Tarzan and the culture of physical training. His favorite kicking technique was the roundhouse, but he was also adept with the reverse roundhouse. He was also mixing it up with wrestling and judo long before Bruce Lee was talking about absorbing the best techniques from different styles and the need to be effective at different ranges, and certainly long before MMA was known.

A downside to this though is that O’Neill’s feet have become famously (in the karate community at least) deformed due to his heavy training but also due to him flexing his supporting foot to execute the kick well.

After every KO Martin and the rest of the bouncers were expected to play up to the situation and award a mock ippon.

Gary Spiers is described as being a specialist in delivering massive impact. He was both big and very fast. He was able to deliver combinations at speed with each technique having the power to end the fight. Unlike Martin and O’Neill, Spiers would also incorporate head butts into his arsenal. He never had the flexibility or technical expertise of O’Neill, but he was famous for his front kicks that saw him drive his foot into the bodies of opponents, leaving them crumpled up on the floor. He was also adept and comfortable wrestling. He was also famous for his love of knives and his willingness to use them if necessary (note that this is illegal in the UK and most likely where you live too).

Dennis Martin started using punching techniques drawn from karate but moved away from them for two reasons. The first was that as he got into body guarding he was aware that he needed to keep his hands healthy in order to potentially use a weapon. He didn’t want to get a broken hand that would prevent him from using a firearm. The second reason is that Aids came onto the scene and he didn’t want to be making people bleed while also seeing his own hands cut open (on teeth for example). He shifted to using slaps, and was able to knock people out with this simple technique. His main weapon was the elbow strike. Another useful technique is the rear naked strangle, which can quickly put people to sleep. Not only does this remove the immediate threat of an attack, but after they have been out when they come around they are disoriented and not looking for a fight anymore. People on drugs, even after being KOed, can easily come around and get back into it.

The chapter on favored techniques continues with notes on the importance of positional strategy and an overview of various, common questions presented to Dennis Martin over the years with full replies.

Martin next discusses how the role of the doorman, and of violence in general, has changed since he started out in 1969. He draws attention to the predominance of gang culture that is apparent nowadays. Not only are more and more people in gangs, but mobile phones allow a ‘crew’ to be assembled quickly and easily. Another major difference is the widespread use of CCTV used to monitor behavior around the doors (and in many urban areas). Martin is frank in saying that a few years ago bouncers worked by knocking out anyone who stepped out of line, but that is not so easily done nowadays as the cameras record any pre-emptive strikes and any follow up punishment intended to dissuade an aggressor from crossing the line again in the future. Another big factor is the increase in the use of weapons. The biggest change though is the use of drugs. This makes people more prone to violence and can grant them superhuman energy levels and recovery rates while making them more aggressive.

Working With Warriors ends with a hodge podge of collected anecdotes involving Dennis Martin, Terry O’Neill and Gary Spiers.

Working with Warriors - Conclusion

Working With Warriors is an excellent book. First and foremost it is about Dennis Martin and his life as a bouncer and body guard and later, as an instructor. I am not sure how much of this will be of direct interest to martial artists, but the first quarter to half of the book is fantastic reading as it concentrates on early training in the UK and Japan. Best of all, and a reason in itself to buy the book, is the reprint of the Fighting Arts International interviews with Gary Spiers. The book is thick with anecdotes, and although there is some occasional repetition of the same story, this makes the text a very entertaining read. The Kindle edition is currently selling at $3.49 on Amazon (and this review is based on the e-version), which makes it an absolute steal (and full kudos to the publisher for not over-charging on the e-book as many do). Very highly recommended.

Working with Warriors (part three)

Following on from part one and part two of Working With Warriors, the next big step in the life of Dennis Martin was his move to The Quad (proper name Quadrant Park), a new club in Merseyside. Martin began working there in 1987 and stayed for seven years. During this time Gary Spiers saw his security company go from strength to strength, eventually getting the contract to run security for a Michael Jackson concert. He took what was at the time the unprecedented step of calling together various security firms and got them working together under his leadership to make sure the security was tight. By himself he would never have been able to cope. Later the same approach would be applied to supplying bouncers for door work.

Working with Warriors - The Rave Scene

Something else new came along in the same period that would affect Martin: the rave scene.

The Quad became one of the first large venues to get in on the house music revolution. And with house music came something else: drugs. Stopping the informal drug trade on the dance floor was a nightmare and the doormen eventually had to resort to wearing casual clothes themselves to have any chance of getting close to the traders. Another problem was that as the punters took drugs they consumed less alcohol. The money from the drugs wasn’t going into the club coffers like the profit from alcohol would. And then there was the profit margin enjoyed by the druggies. With more to lose the level of violence increased and many of the doormen, Martin included, took to wearing discrete body armor.

As the rave scene became more and more popular all-nighters soon followed. Crowds could easily go up to 4000 people a night. Martin notes that it took 30 minutes to cross from the front door to the other side of the dance floor. No alcohol was sold at this time, only cans of coke. The water in the toilets was turned off so no drinking there. The drug craze was really taking off now and with it the violence. Five doormen were stabbed in a four week period. Another problem facing the security was people ODing. With more danger and more drug use the club eventually decided to keep a full time medic on site. Even he couldn’t prevent what became inevitable: a death caused by an Ecstasy overdose. The all-nighters were stopped shortly after out of fear that one of the security guards would eventually be killed while working.

Competition saw the Quad decline in popularity and Martin left to work elsewhere. After a year off he ended up in the Paradox.　There were plenty of fights but there was something different too; a new level of violence more severe than what had been around before. At one point the Police Firearms Unit turned up and spent the night sitting in their armored Land Rover. For anyone unfamiliar with the use of firearms by either the Police or civilians in the UK, this kind of action is highly unusual and points at just how bad things were getting. The club was finally closed down voluntarily by the owners.

The chapter on the Quad is not uninteresting, but will be of more interest for people into the club scene and the origins of modern day security firms. There is very little to excite a martial artist and the same can be said for the next chapter.

Dennis Martin had been heading over to South Africa for various reasons since 1975. Martin put together a string of successful courses in one of his favorite places in the world, as always making new contacts and building his business. A lot of names are mentioned, none familiar to me and I suspect not known to a general reader either. These characters are noted briefly then the narrative moves along. We never really get to know any of these people. Also lacking are the anecdotes which make so much of the rest of the book such a good read (especially the stuff with Gary Spiers). South Africa was, and still is, a very dangerous country and the seriousness comes over in the reporting. Not that there weren't any funny moments, but Martin's journeys there seem to have been much more about business than pleasure.

Next is an interview between Graham Noble (a famous martial arts historian in the UK) and Dennis Martin. This interview re-introduces Steve Morris (if you still haven't visited his site, now is the time to do so...). Morris was introduced to Martin at a karate championship. Martin’s team faced the Kyokushin squad and lost. He noted that the Kyokushin guys all looked beaten up; the result of some hard training over in Holland with a man named Jon Bluming. All the guys except one...Steve Morris. As a white belt Morris had put his Dutch black belt opponent away with a single kick, sending him to hospital. The rest of the interview is a welcome return to karate with more anecdotes from the door.

Working With Warriors now turns back to the Fighting Arts International interview with Gary Spiers. While the careers of both Dennis Martin and Terry O'Neill were taking off, so was Gary's. He was copying the model used by Bobby Jones in Australia by training individuals in his art of Applied Karate, and these students would go on to form the nucleus of his own security company. He described himself as a professional security advisor (Bouncers being, according to Mr Spiers, bra-less ladies out jogging) and in the continuation of the interview he describes various (but not all...some had to be omitted for legal reasons) of his encounters. The stories come thick and fast and all point to a level of violence that will be incomprehensible to many. The life-or-death nature is driven home and Spiers notes that every year there are fatalities among both punters and doormen in the club scene (and this is in the UK where gun ownership is illegal). Broken bottles cutting jugulars was perhaps not common, but it certainly happened.

In this part of the interview Gary Spiers offers some valuable insight into what it takes to fight and win on a consistent basis. He states that once you know an altercation is going to turn physical then perform to finish the fight as quickly as possible as you have no idea who else may become involved. This requires you to explode, both physically and mentally. As for weapon users, Spiers simply tried to inflict as much damage on them as possible.

And less any reader think Spiers a thug, there were plenty of times his actions and skill in fighting saved people from very serious, possibly even fatal, harm. One story occurred in a club in Liverpool where eight attackers armed with Stanley knives (effectively a retractable heavy razor blade secured in a hand sized holder) were carving up a victim. Spiers waded in to save the lad who already had one wrist slashed to the bone (while using his hands to protect his face). This cost Gary a stab to the knee and seriously impaired his mobility. Two other bouncers came to his rescue and Spiers was eventually able to do 'Lots’ to the guy that stabbed him.

One of his most memorable fights was with Eddie Palmer, the Terror of Toxteth, a man later stabbed to death but who had a truly fearsome reputation while still alive as being one of the hardest men around. Palmer had head butted and KOed a girl in a club for refusing to dance with him. A diminutive Indian doctor (the only one there with any balls to get involved) had also been put on the floor when he tried to help. Spiers was hit hard and fast when he intervened and then things kicked off. Spiers too him down and was tempted to choke him out but knew that Palmer’s friends (The Stanley Boys, a reference to the Stanley knife mentioned above) would have started. So the two left the club to settle it man to man. Spiers got his forearm in the mouth of Palmer and was bitten but at the same time was able to drive him against a wall and smash his head into it. Gary got the upper hand and left Palmer a bloody mess; he didn’t finish the fight properly though due to a fear of escalation. A point seldom covered in self defense.

Spiers also has a lot to say on the training undertaken by many martial artists and questions if it is suitable for preparing them for a street fight. His basic point is that no, much of the traditional training doesn’t suitably prepare you. Here though I somewhat disagree with him. Earlier in his interview he notes that the vast majority of people he faces on the street are not rated as good fighters. While I understand that there is a small percentage of very violent types I also think that one of the problems with these types of interviews (and the book Working With Warriors in its entirety) is that it actually misrepresents the level of violence most people are going to come into contact with. How much need does the average person have to be conditioned to be repeatedly bitten, recover and continue fighting? Little to none I would say.

This chapter of Working With Warriors ends with details of the early death of Gary Spiers and includes a very touching story which shows the human side of his larger than life personality.

Working with Warriors (part two)

Following on from Working with Warriors (Part One), I will begin where I left off: the interview with Gary Spiers. Gary was one of the early Westerners to train full time in Japan. This was before the Bruce Lee craze catapulted kung fu especially, but martial arts in general, into international consciousness. Spiers arrived in Japan in 1968 at the age of twenty five to study Goju ryu karate. He first studied in Gogen Yamaguchi’s dojo but also got involved in the university scene. He took, by his own admission, a fair amount of punishment there but reflected later in life that he felt this was good for him as it taught him how to endure and continue fighting through pain and injury; useful traits in his line of work. He, and other Westerners, did eventually get sick and tired of the stick they were receiving and started to put the Japanese on their asses when the contact escalated rather than put up with it and act as the good kohai (junior).

Working with Warriors - Land of the Rising Sun

Gary trained there for two and a half years and was a member of the famous Ikebukuro Jujitsu club, a collection of Westerners all training in different arts who would meet and pool their knowledge and work out together. He also met and trained with the legendary Steve Morris (if you don’t know who Steve Morris is, find out) as well as spending time in Okinawa and training with Morio Higaonna. Spiers shares some great insights and anecdotes about the conditions of that early training in Japan.

The next chapter, chapter five, is an interview with a man named Tommy McNally, or Tommy Mac. He was a veteran doorman and a mentor to both Terry O’Neill and Dennis Martin in their early days. He first met O’Neill when the karateka was training in the YMCA by throwing weights into a mat to build explosive power. Disturbed by the noise Tommy and his training partner Tony Buck checked out what was going on. Later O’Neill (age 15 at the time) joined the two men in their wrestling practice and the rest, as they say, is history. Tommy took an immediate liking to the youngster and took him under his wing eventually getting him onto the door at the Cavern night club, famous around the world for being the birthplace of the Beatles.

Tommy has plenty to say about the state of wrestling in Liverpool at the time, along with anecdotes on the various local hard cases and some basic information on how to approach door work; the kind of advice he gave Martin and O’Neill when they were starting out. Tommy Mac was also there when Terry O’Neill’s athleticism finally emerged. Remember, referring back to Working With Warriors part one, that O’Neill was anything but a gifted sportsman. He had had surgery on his knees as a child and was forced to use a walking stick for a year. His doctor had told him that he would never play sports. Well, near the Cavern at one particular time there were some waist high barriers. Tommy and Terry had to transverse them. Tommy slid over while Terry, with no hesitation, did a full tuck jump bringing his knees up to his chin and sailed over. From that moment on his clumsiness was gone and something just ‘clicked’. By the time he was working at the Victoriana (another club), Tommy witnessed O’Neill knock three guys out in one kicking movement, without ever putting his foot down between techniques. Another time Tommy was crouching down to set himself up to strike an opponent’s groin when suddenly his target went flying back. O’Neill has launched himself into the air, over Tommy and executed a picture perfect flying sidekick to KO the guy. This was real fighting against real opponents.

Tommy also worked with Gary Spiers later and was impressed with the New Zealanders ‘verbals’, the ability to talk would be aggressors into not fighting. Actually, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. First this huge, hulking Maori would put his arm around the trouble maker, nice and friendly, and begin his spiel while slowly squeezing harder and harder. That was enough for most people and a fight would be avoided.

Owing to the influence of the people around him, the next natural step for Dennis Martin was to head over to Japan to train firsthand with the masters. He left Liverpool in April, 1973 for a six month stay. His first stop was with Morio Higaonna and he began training twice a day, a schedule he would maintain throughout his stay. A few weeks later Terry O’Neill arrived, coming ahead of the British team for the JKA World Championship. O’Neill had many contacts, one of whom was the internationally famous Donn Draeger. Shortly after Martin, accompanied by O’Neill, made his way down to Okinawa and the Jundokan dojo of Miyazato sensei. Returning to Tokyo, Martin found himself making up the numbers in the British squad and competing at the tournament. Towards the end of his trip Dennis was graded to second dan by Higaonna sensei, becoming his first black belt in the UK. Martin engaged in the conditioning that Goju ryu is famous for but eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the healthiest method of practice.

Over this period Bruce Lee had died at an early age but not before completing work on his masterpiece Enter the Dragon. Martin returned to find the martial arts in a serious boom period. His club grew and he groomed several key people that would work with him in the personal security field later on in life. Martin continued teaching until 1991 when the demands of his body guarding courses and contracts meant there just wasn’t enough time to do everything.

At this point (about one-third of the way through) Working With Warriors shifts from being centered on the application of martial arts - and karate in particular - in door security situations to Dennis Martin’s work providing professional security, both personal and team, to various contractors, starting with the Miss World pageant. Over the course of his career Martin retrained himself in the use of firearms and CQB (Close Quarter Battle) as well as in surveillance and first aid (to potentially deal with bullet and explosive wounds). He came into contact with former members of Britain's elite Army units as well as Special Forces personnel.

These pages are not without interest and to be fair it is Martin’s book, his biography, and it would be remiss of him not to cover such an essential part of his life, but for the average martial artist these details fail to absorb in the same way that the bouncer stories do.

As noted, Dennis got his first big break when he became involved in the security for Miss World. This was in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre when Arab terrorists killed Israeli athletes. The Israeli government insisted on tightened security for events such as Miss World and so one thing led to another and Martin found himself protecting Miss Israel. There was also a strong domestic terrorist threat from the IRA in Britain and one particular cell was active in London. Martin suddenly found himself in a whole new world and the need for training beyond empty handed self-defense forced him away from karate. He initially impressed his boss and was thus asked back in future years; enjoying the work he decided that VIP protection was something he enjoyed and that he seemed to have an aptitude for.

Working With Warriors then briefly returns to life on the door in Liverpool and introduces Terry O’Neill’s film career. O’Neill had a small part in Conan the Destroyer (attacking Grace Jones) alongside his hero Arnold Schwarzenegger and thereafter pursued an acting career with more interest. There are some amusing anecdotes in relation to Terry’s film and TV work and the book provides some details unavailable elsewhere.

The anecdotes continue to come thick and fast and these make Working With Warriors highly readable. There is some minor repetition of points but the approach taken is very personable. There are too many to even attempt to recount but one of the most amusing involving all three, along with a man named Brian Waites, another early martial arts pioneer in Britain, was when Martin, O’Neill and Waites ganged up on Gary Spiers while on a long train journey. The three finally managed to pin the huge Maori warrior and were about to (finally!) claim victory when Spiers did the only thing he could do: he 'snotted' them, snorting mucus at them and forcing them to release their grip. Victory to Mr Spiers.

The next business move for Martin was to hold a training course for body guards. This would also allow him to make contacts and begin grooming a group of committed individuals for any future work. The response was incredible and things moved forward, even coming to involve the legendary ex-Regiment veteran Lofty Wiseman. As most reading this are from the USA, take the time to check out Lofty on Google. He is certainly a man who knows what he is talking about. Perhaps of familiar note is that he was tasked with helping set up Delta Force in the US. In his time he was the elite of the elite.

Here Martin’s body guarding experiences melded with but moved away from his martial arts background as he had to come up with a training program that met certain requirements: it had to be easily taught but needed to be able to be used effectively under stress of an actual lethal attack while wearing normal clothing. Martin created CQB and began to turn away from his karate background.

CQB was more heavily influenced by the work of W.E. Fairburn and E.A. Sykes than by karate or other traditional (Asian) martial arts. The original syllabus was used to train commandos and special operatives during the Second World War. Another strong determinant was Kill or Be Killed written by Colonel Applegate and recommended by Lofty Wiseman as the core text for training SAS members. Applegate was an American student of Fairburn. CQB emphasizes a complete approach to combat, covering armed and unarmed situations with all skills building and complementing one another. Students do not train one way for unarmed combat then another way when using a knife.

The success of these initial body guard courses led to a presentation in the US in 1988. This was hosted by Evan Marshall, a Detroit Police homicide detective and a veteran of numerous gun fights. The course was again a success and with more contacts came more opportunities and more courses followed. One of these contacts was Nick Hughes, a huge Australian ex-doorman and member of the French Foreign Legion and a man who would go on to further success in the field of protection and teaching his FIST system. Hughes is the survivor of one encounter when he took on twenty one attackers, some of whom had weapons. The full details are covered in Working With Warriors but even though Nick thought he was staring death firmly in the face, after three minutes the police arrived and he lived to walk away. Three needed ambulance support and eight were in various stages of unconsciousness. The rest had fled.

Again, as with the earlier look at VIP protection, these chapters on body guarding may not be of direct interest to many martial artists. Virtually all of the people mentioned are unfamiliar to me, though they may well be ‘names’ in the actual industry. The information though is, as always in Working With Warriors heavily interspersed with amusing anecdotes that keeps the book readable.

Working with Warriors

Working with Warriors was written by Dennis Martin and it relives the exploits of three of the most famous martial artists-cum-personal security experts active in Britain over the last few decades, namely Terry O'Neill, the late Gary Spiers and the author　Dennis Martin himself.

Terry O'Neill

Terry O’Neill is currently ranked 7th Dan in Shotokan karate and is one of the senior instructors in the KUGB (Karate Union of Great Britain). He was the former captain of the British karate team that defeated the Japanese in the 1975 World Championship and he held various domestic titles throughout his competitive career. He was the former editor and owner of Fighting Arts International magazine, which maintained an extremely high level of quality throughout its publishing history and really set the standard for all other magazines to follow. Friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, O’Neill also pursued an acting career which saw him play small parts in movies such as Gangs of New York and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In much of his early adult life, O’Neill was also a bouncer in Liverpool where he perfected his ability to knock people out with devastating kicks to the head. Really.

Gary Spiers

Gary Spiers was born in New Zealand before making his way to Australia. He pursued his interest in various martial arts and put his knowledge to good use until a very serious fight (details follow towards the end of this review below) forced him to leave Oz. He made his way to Japan and trained in both the Japanese and Okinawan versions of Goju ryu. While there he met Terry O’Neill and the two became firm friends. Spiers eventually ended up in Liverpool after being invited there by O’Neill. He began working the doors of night clubs and quickly built a reputation as a fearsome fighter who could ‘do the business’. Later, when the British karate team traveled abroad Spiers was taken along to make sure the world class karateka behaved themselves and didn’t step out of line! His experience led him to create his own approach to combat named Applied Karate (or Ga Ryu, as Dennis Martin labeled it) and he established a security business that provided top notch bouncers for various venues throughout Britain. Sadly Gary Spiers passed away in 2001 at the age of 57 due to a heart attack.

Dennis Martin

Dennis Martin originally got into Shotokan karate under Andy Sherry and Terry O’Neill at the famous Red Triangle dojo in Liverpool. He too began working the door and gained first hand insight into what did and did not work. Though his particular approach to street fighting, Martin eventually moved into the study of Goju ryu and also spent time training in Japan and Okinawa. His interest in Japanese martial arts would eventually pass though as he focused on CQB (Close Quarter Battle) which was heavily based on techniques developed in World War Two which emphasized practicality and simplicity in learning. He wrote a very popular regular column for O’Neill’s Fighting Arts International magazine entitled On Guard while building a career in the personal security field before moving into training people to work in the same field.

Working with Warriors: The Early Years

Working With Warriors is primarily the autobiography of Dennis Martin as far as his life in martial arts, door work and body guarding are concerned. Interspersed between his own experiences are observations on Terry O’Neill and Gary Spiers along with interviews with associated characters and, best of all in my opinion, a reprint of the original interview given by Spiers to O'Neill and published in the magazine Fighting Arts International. I can remember when I first read the four-part interview and being highly stimulated by it. One thing that I got from it was the realization that I was not bred to be a street fighter. The experiences of Spiers (as well as O’Neill and Martin along with people like Geoff Thompson, author of Watch My Back) are from the extreme end of violence. They are way beyond the verbal insults escalating into pushing and shoving and maybe a punch or two that some of us will perhaps experience and enter the realm of life-or-death where there are potentially fatal repercussions, or heavy legal penalties, associated with the level of damage meted out. Reading about how these men have lived their lives and used their art (all three come from a karate background and all were trained in Japan when a black belt really meant you could fight) will, I think, help the reader clarify his or her own aims as far as training and the potential use of a martial art goes. While many may fancy themselves as a hardened pavement warrior, a safe look into the reality of that world and how violence permeates your daily life may cause some to reconsider.

Working With Warriors starts with how Dennis Martin got into martial arts. Like many in those days (early 60s) he first started with the more popular and more widely available judo. He next saw what must have been an amazing demonstration of Shotokan karate put on by Masters Enoeda, Kanazawa, Kase and Shirai (from the JKA). After this he started training at the famous Red Triangle dojo in Liverpool under Enoeda sensei and Andy Sherry sensei (currently the highest ranking Shotokan practitioner in the UK). Terry O’Neill was also training there and the two shortly thereafter struck up a lifelong friendship. Training at the time was hard and often severe with sparring being virtually full out (with no protection).

As Martin progressed though the ranks of Shotokan he became more interested in Goju ryu. He preferred the arsenal of shorter range techniques and made the switch.

It was through O’Neill that Martin got involved in door work. Martin was a regular at the world renowned Cavern Club in Liverpool, made famous as the home of the Beatles among various other bands. O’Neill was on the security there and Martin was impressed by his senior’s ability to ‘do the business’ for real and not just in the dojo.

Terry O’Neill had become interested in physical culture at an early age through his exposure to the Tarzan character. Like Martin, his desire to become a competent fighter first led him to take up judo. O’Neill was not physically gifted as a child. He had surgery on his knees and had to use a walking stick for a year. His doctor told him that he would never play sports. Years later he broke his ribs while competing at the European Championships and when visiting the hospital, he had the same doctor that had given him the bad news when he was a child. He notes that had he listened to his doctor it would have been ‘the kiss of doom’ for him.

Terry O’Neill began his karate training at the age of 14. Later he got involved in wrestling with Tommy McNally and Tony Buck, an Olympian and a champion. It was Tommy that invited O’Neill down to The Cavern and was the first to offer him door work. Terry at that time was just 16 and had to wear multiple layers of clothing to make him look bulked up and a little more intimidating. Tommy also suggested to the youngster that he start bodybuilding and he put on nearly a stone of muscle in 6 months.

While this was going on O’Neill had been knocked back from the Police cadets due to poor eyesight. He had a tough decision to make: he could wear contact lenses, but they would be dangerous to him while doing karate. He opted to pursue his martial arts and continue working on the door.

His first fight didn’t last long but it taught him an important difference between practicing techniques in the air and actually performing them against a live opponent. He kneed someone in the groin, one of a pair of assailants, and suddenly felt a blow to his face. Suspecting that he had been punched by the other of the two, he was nonetheless dazed. What had actually happened is that after striking his opponent, his adversary’s head shot forward and involuntarily head butted Terry full in the face. He simply wasn’t ready for this kind of reaction. Luckily another doorman stepped in and finished the fight while O’Neill nursed a nose pouring with blood.

O’Neill didn’t do much of the fighting at the Cavern before it closed when he was 17. After various gigs he ended up working at what would become the Victoriana as the head doorman. Here he really cut his teeth. During these years he also perfected his ability to knock people out with a round house kick to the head and his reputation grew. He was, at that time, the youngest black belt in the UK.

The Victoriana was where Dennis Martin and Terry O’Neill, already friends, started to work together on the door. They also started training on a regular basis with one another and a stronger friendship grew with them taking frequent trips to London for special courses and to see the latest films in the West End. During this period O’Neill headed over to Tokyo in 1970 for the first World Karate Championships. While there he met a superb Goju ryu master named Morio Higaonna (readers of the old Fighting Arts International will know that years later this Okinawan warrior featured regularly in the hallowed pages) as well as a ‘really interesting bloke' called Gary Spiers.

Dennis Martin first met Gary Spiers on the day he arrived in England in 1971. He had made his way over from Japan. Originally from New Zealand, Gary had spent some time working and training, under the famous Bob Jones, in Australia. From there he practiced in harsh conditions in various dojo in Japan, specializing in the Goju style. Some of the stories about Gary are fearsome and he was nicknamed ‘The Animal’. For anyone looking for an insight into personal violence at the sharp end, Working With Warriors is worth the price and the read just to learn about Spiers and his exploits. One story is of how he forced an opponent’s head into the drain along a roadside. Another is of how he picked up a massive slash across his face fighting, with friends, against a large group of Italians who were all tooled up. Apparently there was some confusion about the word ‘mate’ which is Italian sounds something like homosexual. A final extreme story relates the conditions in which Gary Spiers had to leave Australia. After having refused entry to a couple of soldiers at a club, the two returned later to find Gary enjoying a post-work meal in a nearby restaurant. Deciding to start a fight they had the better of it until one of them lost an ear…bitten off by Spiers and never found, so where that ended up is anyone’s guess…and the second ended up going through a second storey window as he hurtled around trying to escape. He was subsequently hit by a cab and killed. Gary made himself scarce and friends got him out of the country and he ended up in Japan.

Soon after Gary Spiers arrived Terry O’Neill began publishing Fighting Arts International, a high quality magazine that, in my opinion, has never been surpassed. The most popular interview ever published was between Terry O’Neill and Gary Spiers, and chapter four of Working With Warriors reprints the first part. In this part Gary talks about his early experiences boxing and wrestling and how his training was always geared to being practical. Next he became enthusiastic about karate, seeing value in the kicks. He also relates some of his earlier fighting experiences in Australia, including the battle with two soldiers that led him to leaving Oz and going to train in Japan. I will continue with some of his stories in the second part of my review of Working With Warriors.