I was recently emailed an article from my Instructor and friend Terry Barnett.

He suggested I read it and thought I may be able to relate to it.

The article is called Iron and the Soul by Henry Rollins

I’d never heard of Henry Rollins, although, after a short amount of “googling” I quickly found the article posted all over the web and pictures of him that I immediately recognized.

I post one link here to the full article which you can read at your leisure

Iron and the Soul - by Henry Rollins

Some of the article immediately hit home to me and prompted me to send a very personal email to my own Mr Pepperman, Geoff Thompson.

In Henry’s article, Mr Pepperman is a teacher, a fierce looking Vietnam Veteran who noticed Henry’s weaknesses and set about a unique way of coaching him and toughening him up.
Henry was a weak young man, unsure of who he was and controlled by his own fears most of the time. He was so busy trying to fit in and conform with everyone else idea of what he should be, he’d lost all sense of “self”.
Mr Pepperman’s arena was Weight Training and Strength Training rather than martial arts but his “tough love” was innovative and some might say, hard.

You have to read Henry’s article to fully appreciate where I am coming from with this week’s article but it’s enough to say that, Henry spent most of the time during this toughening up process feeling more like he was being beaten down by Mr Pepperman and questioning his extreme approach.

Being told that at any moment Mr Pepperman might jump out in the school corridor and punch Henry in the stomach to test his strength was scary to Henry and would probably see most teachers on the front pages of the local newspaper.

Henry, however, stuck with the schedule, followed Mr Pepperman’s instructions to the letter and as a result, developed fantastic strength, great conditioning, new found self-confidence and self-esteem, to name but a few attributes.

Looking back, it’s clear that Henry owes an awful lot to his teacher, the only one who took the time out to help him to grow and develop and who gave him direction. I guess this is what prompted Henry to write the article.

It’s certainly what has prompted me to write this one.

Terry was absolutely correct when he said he could see some parallels in Henry’s story with that of my own.

Firstly, I can easily relate to Henry’s original demeanour of being bullied, scared, and frightened of his own shadow.

My own “conditioning” came in the form of Martial Arts, and in particular, the tough traditional art of Shotokan Karate.

My “weights gym” was a cold, hard, wooden floored roller skating ring in a rough area of Coventry where the fierce Karate club trained.

My “Mr Pepperman” was and still is, the legendary Geoff Thompson and my metaphorical punches in the stomach in the school corridor were the countless hours sparring and fighting and getting hit hard, very hard from my own Mr Pepperman.

Whilst it wasn’t quite like the Pink Panther style Kato surprise attacks that Henry was subjected to, it was very tough, particularly for a young, small 15 year old boy who was fighting grown men on a regular basis.

For a while I wondered why was I being picked on? What had I done to deserve this “extra special” treatment when I noticed that I was being sparred more frequently, being singled out more often for the ferocious sparring sessions that later became known as Animal Days.
I wondered if it was something I’d done, if my Mr Pepperman was simply taking cheap shots at the small lad in the club. Even my sister questioned Mr Pepperman’s motives and strict regime.