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BCA Training Day - With Peter Consterdine

I am typing this article with hands still shaking from holding the focus pads for, what felt like a 10 hour session with the legendary Peter Consterdine at Bob Syke’s Colne Valley Black Belt Academy, Huddersfield.

In reality the session was around 2 hours with the first 30 minutes being a light stretching and general warm up with the usual smattering of friendly banter between Peter and the other guys that included Iain Abernethy. (Don’t worry Iain, no jokes about your string or flat cap collection, I’ll leave that to Geoff)

I could say that my day started at 5am that morning, when I left my house for the 3 hour drive up to Huddersfield, but in actual fact, my preparations, or rather, nervous anticipations for this training day began about 4 weeks ago when Peter invited me up to train with him.

Some have said being invited to train with Peter is a bit like being asked to make love to Princess Anne. You know it’s a huge honour but at the same time you know it’s not going to be a very pleasant experience. But I mean that in the nicest possible way, because the only unpleasant aspect of this whole experience is the overwhelming physical effort and discomfort it will undoubtedly require and induce. Every other part of training with such incredible guys, at this world class level, being around their friendly, warm, positive and encouraging attitudes, and being pushed to your limits with a group who are all experiencing the same feelings, is just about as good as it gets.

So for 4 weeks I’d been nervously anticipating this big day. At some points, more than I have worried about up and coming real fights. The usual “We’ll see you next week” threats that become part of the norm for an inner city doorman were easy compared to the thought of an event such as this slowly creeping up on you as the days get ticked off your calendar.
My anxiety and fear came in many forms, from fear of the unknown of what we would be covering in the session to a fear of failure and not being able to perform on the day. Fear of letting myself down and not having the fitness levels required to make it through the session with any degree of success. The fear of giving in when it got really tough and looking like a weak minded individual not worthy of a dan grade let alone a 5th dan. Fear of getting injured, beaten up. The list went on.

What got me through the 4 weeks and stopped me from becoming a quivering wreck on the morning of the training day was the fact that I knew all about these feelings, I had been there many times before. I made a deliberate attempt to put all of my recent NLP training into action and whenever these negative fears jumped out at me, I just changed state. I went into a positive frame of mind and simply told them to F-off.

I rationalised all of the fears one at a time, as if doing a mental spar with each fear in turn, knowing that I had all the answers, all the counter-attacks, and a few secret moves up my sleeve waiting to unleash on the most persistent of the fears.
Fear of not being fit enough was quashed by my many sessions spent being pushed to the limits by a good friend of mine Paul in Milton Keynes. Fear of letting myself down was demolished by having the full belief that I know I would give my all, whatever the outcome. Fear of getting hurt was dealt with by recalling all the animal days, all the fights on the door, all the hard sparring done with top players over the years. I handled it then, and so I can handle it now.
The only one that remained was the fear of the unknown, not knowing what the session would entail. But, instead of worrying about this endlessly and allowing it to spiral up and out of control until I’m expecting fights to the death with broken glass covered gloves. I simply prepared for every eventuality. I made sure my own training had a good mix of hard CV workouts, lots of rounds on the bag, focus mitts, lots of sparring, lots of impact and solid punching and kicking, etc etc.
As with everything, it’s all about preparation. The more effort you put in up front, the easier it will be on the day.

There’s an old saying that goes, if you have 30 minutes to chop down a tree, spend the first 15 minutes sharpening your axe. And so, when it came to the actual morning’s training with Peter, what I expected to be a 4 or 5 hour slog, both outside on the hills and indoors, actually turned out to be a 2 hour session in the dojo.
Please note; I am acutely aware that my last sentence may have made this seem like it ended up being an easy session. It most certainly was not!

But my ability to cope with the levels of intensity was far better than I had expected and that was because I was expecting the session to be even worse than it was.

So, on to the session itself. It’s not my place to let you all in on the secrets of Peter’s Thursday class, that is for Peter himself, but if any of you have read any articles on the subject or seen any of the training day footage, it lived up to it’s reputation.
An intense CV based session with lots and lots of partner pad-work. Heavy drills, each round pushing to exhaustion and then trying in vane to recoup as much energy as you can whilst holding the pads for your partner, who is now knocking you around the gym with the weight of his punches and kicks.
A lot of focus was placed on rapid combinations, speeding up and smoothing transitions between punching and kicking range. And there was no denying that, what may look to some as “snappy” kicks, the power generated by this novel “whipping” action that Peter puts into both his double hip strikes and kicks is immense. And I don’t use that word lightly.

I have to say that my fitness was not as good as it should have been, but it was great to see that even the fittest in the class were absolutely exhausted throughout the session. A great indication that absolutely everyone was training to their maximum. And there was a real buzz and very definite energy in the room as a result, that is, without doubt, infectious.

So all in all, a great session was had and it was a real privilege for me to have been invited up in the first place.

In addition, I received a fantastic phone call on my journey home, from Peter, to tell me he was happy to award me my 5th Dan with the BCA (British Combat Association). It’s only now that it’s sinking in, along with the responsibilities that this honour carries with it.
And so, after my 4 week journey of anticipation before the grading, my 3 hour journey to Huddersfield, my journey into total exhaustion during the session and my 3 hour journey back home, my Real Journey has again just begun.
22 years in Martial Arts so far have lead me to this point. I can’t wait for the next 22 and the 22 after that………

My sincerest thanks to Peter Consterdine and the lads at the Thursday Class for allowing me to train with them.
My deepest thanks to Geoff Thompson for guiding me to this point over the past 22 years.

Stay Safe, Have Fun

AL

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