At the top of May Place Hall in Basingstoke, May 1974. Mick Rapley was running a Wado Ryu Karate club on Friday nights. The hall was large enough to have one badminton court painted on the floor, and framed windows that came down to about knee level. Looking out of these windows you could see the rooves of Basingstoke town center and the alley way that was May Place. There were no blinds or curtains and so on a warm summers evening the sun would shine through the windows and catch the minute particles of dust that was thrown up from the floor every time someone stamped their foot.

There were aproximately 25 people training in here all in brilliant white suits. When my brother Arthur, first took me to this class I was 13 (He'd been training for about a year by then). I was wearing his old thin Karate Gi and didn't know how to tie my belt. Arthur had a solid canvas Tokaido Gi that cracked when you punched and would stand up on it's own when it was wet, but mine was more like my pyjamas.

The class consisted of a small warm up which included pressups and bunny hops and stretching where we bounced quite a lot. We were then taken through the basic stances and shown how to hold a fist and step forward performing a junzuki and then front kick, roundhouse and side kick, and that was basically it. The higher grades were perfoming more complicated punches, kicks and stylised blocks that I could'nt comprehend. Then I had to sit By the windows as the higher grades began sparring. No pads were worn but the contact was quite hard. However, most of the time people would stop fighting due to injuries to their hands and feet rather than through being winded or receiving a bloody nose. At the end of the class we all had to kneel and bow to each other and then we could get changed. (no changing rooms).

Paul Clarke at Dryden Hall.

The next day Arthur woke me up and asked how I felt. My legs were stiff, but he knew they would be. He laughed and then left.

Over the next few months I became accustomed to the routine of the club. The warm up, basic excercises and Kata, then some sparring. In got to know then faces in the hall as well. The first one I really noticed was Steve Plant, a brown belt at the time and an energetic and powerful practitioner. Everyone respected him, he was a natural fighter and eager to improve. Jim O'brien had a Ginger Afro and seemed to come from some other style. He was loose and supple like a gymnast and could touch his knee on the wall above his shoulde when stretching. Peter Ely was also a loose and strong fighter. I particularly remember him because he hit me in the mouth with a side kick (no pads) and I bit my tongue cutting it from one side to the other. (no mouthguard).

Click to enlarge.

As I got more involved I began to go to Mick Rapley's other club in Basingstoke at Eatons social club on Tuesdays. This became the main night for training with sometimes 30 to 40 people there. We would train in the main hall with the stage at one end, while people using the social club would sit at the other drinking and watching us. Quite often as we were marching up and down in our lines we would stop right in front of some couple sitting there with their pints. Standing in Junzuki stance with our arms out almost touching while the instructor would adjust someone's techique. sometimes we were there for what seemed like hours staring straight ahead while the people at the tables sat silent and unmoving waiting for us to turn and head on back down the hall. You could cut the tension with a knife.

The secretary of Eatons was the irrepressible Pat Murphy. A no nonsense Irish man who used to swing the punch bag right across the room and then perform a jumping side kick or a clothes line on it as it came back. He would'nt just do it once but about fifty times as we were all performing our Katas and blocks. One endearing memory of Pat was him walking across the floor after a grading with the Japanese examiner shuffling after him and Pat saying "Youv'e had all the money we agreed to and your not getting any more"! Pat didn't care who you were, you were'nt going to put one over on him.

A Demo move with Chris Dominy and Pete Singfield.

Eatons was in the United Kingdom Karate Wadokai at this time so all the examiners were all Japanese. Many of them came to the club. Mr Yamanashi was very young at the time and had fast, loose kicks that we were all impressed with. I particularly remember Mr Nishimura. who graded me for my 5th kyu. There was always a training session before the grading and Mr Nishimura decided we had to fight so everyone paired off. I was left to spar with Mr Nishimura. After we bowed, he ran at me raining punches and kicks, I just backed up against one of the pillars and covered up. We went back to the middle of the room and he did it again. I was back against the pillar trying to defend myself. After a third time of backpedalling and ending up with my head in my hands as he punched and kicked me, something snapped inside. This time as he went to move forward I hit him with a roundhouse kick full in the face! He stood there stunned for a minute and the let loose with a mighty side kick. I slid back and threw a return side kick at him. we traded techniques like this for a while until he caught me with a sweet (and very gentle) foot sweep that dropped me to the floor. I think this lesson taught me never to be overawed by reputations. During the grading Mr Nishimura made me fight everybody, not just in my grading section, but the Brown belts right up to the 1st kyus. At the end of the gradings we lined up to receive our signed licences, each student going to collect theirs in ranked order. When it came to me I walked up to the desk. Mr Nishimura seemed confused for a moment and then said "Try again". He Failed me !!! I never got an explanation, I never knew why.

The Cobra tornament.... Arthur at Dryden hall.

Eatons was the mainstay of Wado Ryu karate in basingstoke for most of the seventies along with a club at Smiths industries run by Gordon Dillon. most of the training consisted of grading and basic work and katas and sparring at the end of the lesson. we entered the odd tournament but there weren't many around then.

In 1976 Steve Plant and my brother Arthur opened a class in Dryden hall attached to the Pen and parchment Pub in Popley. The class ran on Wednesdays and sundays and had a good attendance for such a small venue. My introduction to teaching was when I taught the beginners on a Wednesday even though I was only a green belt. We had many local lads training here and the class was geared towards sparring and basics.

Dryden hall 1977. Beginners class.

As the class grew more and more people became involved in it's running. Pat Eland became chairman of the comitee with his wife Joan as secretary. The class opened another night on Thursdays at John Hunt School and became the Wasp karate club.(affiliated to Mick Rapley's SEKU association).the Kids class also moved to John Hunt on Wednesdays. Bernie Dominy became our chief instructor, Arthur and me achieved our Black belts at this time and we began enteriing more tournaments.( mainly the CHP open tournaments).We also won the Hampshire and the Isle of Wight games, began performing demonstrations and holding our own tournaments. One notable tournament was the SEKU championships held at the Cobra club, Horsham. We had to compete against the other SEKU clubs and this led to us winning our first tournament as a team. We had to have a five man team and one reserve, but only five of us turned up and so I had to use my mate Andy Gentry ( who hadn't done any karate before)as a reserve. There was one point where Arthur injured his shoulder and it was doubtful if he would fight in the final. This meant that Andy would have to take his place, but Arthur managed to struggle through. Anyway we won the tournament and Andy recieved a winners medal even though he Didn't do Karate.

Andy Gentry receives his winners medal from............................................................... Mick Rapley despite the fact that he didn't do Karate.

This was a major time for the Wasps with many students achieving high grades. People like Peter Fox and Dave Dolling gained their Black belts and opened other clubs in areas such as Brighton Hill,Hannington and three hours at Danesmede on aSunday, which I taught after palying football in the morning. (was I MAD) !!!

...............................................................*click to enlarge

We performed many demonstrations with Arthur and me working in a Sword defence routine. Our demonstrations became more and more theatrical. At one point we had Dave Dolling coming on at the end with a bottle and acting like a drunk. The crowd thought it was a real attack. The plan was as Dave lunged at Arthur he would put him into an arm lock and I would side kick him, Dave would fall to the floor and we would all jump up and bow together. This all went well but as I threw the Side kick to Dave's stomach he couldn't fall down because Arthur kept the arm lock on. So I hit him with another side kick....Still standing. I threw another and then a reverse punch. Dave groaned and sagged then Arthur let him go, he crumpled to the floor and had great difficulty getting up, but when he did the crowd erupted in applause. The following year we were due to perform another demo at the same place (Popley Fields fete). I was on holiday so Steve Plant took my place in the Sword demo. Now the one thing we had to learn when working with a real Katana was to keep your guard down and your hands out of the way of the swinging blade. Arthur and me had it worked out well, If I forgot a move then he could stop the sword or bring it down in a different arc to miss me and I would ensure that my arms were clear of the blade. The demonstration went well and Steve and Arthur now took the stage on for the sword defence finale. Everything was going well until steve forgot one of the moves, Arthur re-directed the sword to the side of Steve but his hands were not completely out of the way of the swors path and it struck Steve at the wrist. Steve shouted "Youve cut my hand off"!! and grabbed his wrist as the rest of the team gathered around to help and Peter Fox ran to ring the Ambulance. The Ambulance arrived very soon and took Steve to hospital where he had an operation on his wrist. Apparently the sword had hit the joint and cut through three quarters of his wrist leaving his hand hanging on by just the skin. Steve was in hospital for a week and was out of work for the next couple of months. The Ironic thing is that because of our attempts to make the demos seem real by having drunks attack us etc, most of the people at the fete thought it was just another stunt and were applauding as Steve was taken away in the ambulance. since that time Arthur and me stuck to using a Bo staff for demonstartions.

...................Staff demo.............

Because Steve Plant was self employed it meant that he had no wages while he was recovering, so we decided to hold a 24 hour sponsored Karate class at Popley Fields hall in order to raise money for him. We began at 10 o'clock in the morning with about 12 people and others would join in during the day. The object was to have at least one person working out on the mats at any time. To begin with this worked well and we were full of enthusiasm, with several people on the mat fighting and practicing Katas.but in the early hours of the morning it became very hard as there were only about four or five of us left. We resorted to playing cards to decide who was going to be the next one to get up on the mat and walk up and down punching weakly. and I was very bad at poker. By the time the sun had come up we knew we were going to succeed and at 10 o'clock it was all over and we had raised £750. for Steve. Then someone brought the paper in and it announced that we were now at war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

*The Wasps adult class.

The Wasp club went from strength to strength. I taught the Beginners with Bill Drury and Bernie and Chris Dominy taught the adults. Both classes were full and had a great depth of grades. We earnt no profit from the club and was in the process of looking for our own premesis.

*Wasps beginners 1984. ........... My brother Rod at CHP event.

In 1984 I became the chief instructor for the Wasp club and ran both the adults and Childrens classes. By 1985 I was interested in opening my own classes and looking to develop into more competition based sparring. I opened a club at Lychpit. I was told by the comittee that I could not be an instructor in another club and be an instructor in the Wasps, so I relinquished the responsibility of teaching at the Wasps and just kept training there. The only other instructors turning up at this time were Peter Fox and Dave Dolling so they took over the classes. For the first time in ten years I could concentrate on my own training in class without worrying about what was going on with all the other students.

A couple of months later I sent my licence off for renewal and was told that I couldn't have it back and that Mick Rapley wanted to see me. I didn't go because I knew he was going to say I had to give up my other class if I wanted to stay in SEKU. My final tie with the Wasps was broken when I went to see Dave's class at Brighton hill on a friday and was told that I wasn't allowed in even to watch. It had been a good time but I had to move on and develop the club I had started at Lychpit.

I made a promise that I would always allow my students to move and develop in their own way and never restrict them to training solely with me. We each have our own path to follow in the martial arts, wether it's short or long and no one knows it all. Iv'e learnt great lessons from rank beginners and practitioners of other styles and have many more lessons to learn. Another thing to remember as an instructor is that respect has to be earnt each and every time you enter the class or walk on the mat, it's not something you can put in the bank and bring out on a rainy day. As for petty rules and rituals, they don't make good martial arts, neither does the suit you wear however well pressed. It's the person inside that matters.

Takedown. Hampshire and IOW games.

Ps. Iv'e written these events as I remember them and will update and add to them as I am informed or as more things come to mind.

Ron Peploe.