Chapter 12 - Adding to the Family Tree while Flashing the Blue Lamp
In 2003 I left the Airport and took up employment with the Metropolitan Police as a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO). It was a new role and afforded me the opportunity to join a uniformed service like so many of my ancestors. Of course it also meant more shift work.
One good thing about the job (apart from the pay) was getting to do more combat training (even if most of it was crap and just an arse covering exercise) and getting to use the skills I already had for real. And it didn’t take long I knocked a guy out within the first month of being on the streets when he attacked some fellow officers.
I was also directly involved in major events like the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings. And I lost count of the amount of cordons I stood on, everything from cannabis factories to armed robberies and murder.
2003 was the year of only our third competition (we had visited Liverpool for one prior to this but the judging was awful and I was very disappointed not to place at all). The competition was in Luton and run by Robert Simpson and was the British Open event and included competitors from around the world. Zhen Wei did well and I won a first place and two second place medals.
In 2004 things really took off! March saw the club competing at the Southern Area Championships in Maidstone, Kent, run by the British Council for Chinese Martial Arts (BCCMA) and I came away with a silver and two bronze medals. Later in the year we competed in Milton Keynes at the National Championships for the BCCMA and I won medals in four events including two silver's and two bronze's. And this set us up nicely for the big event of the year and our biggest challenge so far The first European Kuoshu Cup in Neu-Ulm Germany.
We arrived in Germany on the Thursday competed for two days over the weekend and then flew home, after some sight seeing on the Monday. But obviously it was the Saturday and Sunday that was important to me and to the club, although maybe even more so for me as the team Captain.
The opening ceremony was (like the American Open) very upbeat with speeches and all the teams lined up by country. With ninety-five percent of the UK team being from the Zhen Wei Academy.
There was a really touching moment when Sifu Lu was given a birthday cake by Grandmaster Huang. And he was obviously touched by the whole affair and the attention.
The competition was another well attended affair and the home team was massive and expecting to do very well. But I don’t think they were expecting the onslaught from the British contingent that was about to wash over them!
I did my own humble little bit by taking two first places, a second and a third. I kicked off by winning the senior men’s weapon section using the daedo and then topped that off by winning the two man open hand form section with Ed against really stiff competition! And we were not so far from adding a second gold against a very large field in the two man weapons section (where we did a broad sword V spear form), eventually placing second. Finally I won a bronze with my display of Xing-i.
If you look at my photo taken with Ed (in the photo section) you can see how emotional I was. I can identify when I see sportsman, especially athletes, boxers and other martial artist's, celebrating a big win and on the verge of tears. It is a combination of years of training and putting in hour upon hour of effort, working through injuries, up's and down's trying to balance it with the rest of your life, work and family. Combined with that nagging doubt that you will never achieve what you think you are capable of and that all the time the clock is running down. And for me that last point was very important as I had just become European Champion at the ripe old age of 48!
To say the German’s were shell shocked was an understatement and was summed up by Alex, the event’s organiser’s, comment on the presentation of my last cup when he said something along the line of ’if I see you collecting one more cup there is going to be trouble’, albeit said in good humour. The results not only saw many individual successes but also the overall team cup coming our way, much to the delight of team coach Sifu Lu!
Althoughthe winning of the various competitions was great fun and (all joking apart) becoming European champion was really humbling, an event that took place earlier in the year over shadowed
these achievements. That event was being added to the family tree of Mizong kung fu when I and several other senior students were granted the privilege of becoming official disciples of Sifu Lu.
On 24th January 2004 Ed Hutton, Gary Matthew, Kevin Kilnminster, Wen Ting, Xun Dong, Spencer Attridge and myself became the first British disciples of Sifu Lu and 7th generation heirs to the system.
This took place in the house Sifu and his wife shared in Gidea Park and involved us having to write a letter stating why we thought we were good enough to become disciples. On the day we each handed Sifu the letter and a red envelope containing money. Sifu then lighted some incense sticks and called on the Mizong ancestors so that we could each be introduced to them. Each of us then kowtowed in front of the little makeshift alter he had erected, which, along with the incense sticks housed a picture of Sifu’s father.
One by one we greeted our ‘family’ ancestors and became part of a family tree that was just a little under 300 years old. But the importance of this day was more than just a ceremony, it also moved the burden of continuing the art of Mizong from Sifu’s shoulders to ours. Now upon his retirement or death we would become the next generation of masters with the sole right to teach the system in it‘s entirety!
Over the next few years the bond between the disciples and Sifu Lu became stronger and stronger. As with all such Chinese institutions we considered him our father and the other disciples as brothers and sisters. If someone was in trouble we gathered around to help. And when ever possible we got together for a drink and something to eat, most often at Sifu's with he and his wife cooking for us and providing a few beers, before sitting down to plan our next competition or how the club would run or just to hear some stories from Sifu.
I also progressed from patrolling the streets in Ilford to training new recruits at the central Metropolitan Police College in Hendon. My time in Ilford as a PCSO was an eventful one and set me up with a few good war stories for when I was teaching. And I will always be grateful to Sergeant Grahame Clarke who guided me through my tour of duty and who recommended me for promotion to trainer.
Just a little aside for some of the people who were not keen on the idea of PCSO’s. During our first year in Ilford Town centre crime reduced by 30%, there were no changes other than we were walking the beat where no one had before. And we were much more hands on than many people believed and that was without all the safety equipment the police had. In fact with some of us the police would happily stand back and let us get someone pinned down before stepping in.
OK I know, plenty of stories about crap PCSO’s or ones who had no idea, and we had both on our team too. Two got them selves the sack and another got nicked as well. But the others were pretty good and made a lot of difference to the local community. Moreover as a trainer I saw a lot of PCSO’s go on to make the grade and pass out as police officers too.
I also didn’t spend my entire time locked away as a trainer. I now had the opportunity to become a special constable and after my classroom input went back to Grahame in Ilford to complete my probation as a police officer.
I was now allowed to go out on patrol and ‘nick’ people a couple of times a month and get paid for it. But I joined the Arts and Antiques Unit at Scotland Yard under then head of the unit Sergeant Vernon Rapley. And had fun getting involved in art fraud cases and art theft. My first arrest for them was of a guy for a £15 million fraud.
Later I gained the rank of sergeant and was involved in some of the bigger events in London like the TUC march, Olympics and the riots. I also got to continue with my police self defence training too (whopee)
Anyway, enough of that and back to kung fu. Between 2005 and 2007 I picked up 15 medals at the National Championships, including winning and retaining the two man empty hand forms title and the two man weapons forms title at advanced level every year with my partner Ed Hutton. Not a bad achievement even if I do say so myself.
I mentioned before that excelling in the martial arts come with an injury cost. But this is even higher when you are training for competition with a partner. Over the years Ed and I have done more than our fair share of damage to each, mainly because we don't pull our punches or our kicks. But it was that attitude that won us so many titles.
Some of the injuries I can recall are, for instance, when Ed elbowed me and broke my ribs, when he slapped me across the collar bone and I collapsed and the numerous times he has smacked me in the face. On the reverse I have broken his fingers several times, split his lip and dislocated his finger.
Some of the injuries during competition were quite good too, like the time he cut my leg open with a sword and the time he nearly cut my spear in half and left me with a large cut down the middle of my head. But like I said we don't pull punches, just never think because something is a prearranged routine it is not dangerous!
