Lightly Grilled

Martial arts guru Geoff Thompson used to get kicked around the playground until he wised up and got into karate. But when the shit came down he still felt that he wasn't ready to deal with fear. His answer was to front it out as a doorman in the toughest nightspots in the Midlands. In nine years he had 300 street fights and never lost one. Naturally frOnt visited the man at his gym, got him in an armlock and held a tape recorder under his nose. Here are the results... Describe the worst situation you've been in during a scrap.

When I got jumped in town by the Bell Green crew. There was about 100 people at a stag night and I got jumped by one then they all jumped me.

There was £3,500 worth of broken glass. I got stabbed three times by glass and how I didn't die I still don't know. It was shit scary. They were like a lynch mob. Every single person in that club was fighting. I didn't know where to turn next, I hit everything that moved. It was like the mass fight scene at the end of Enter the Dragon - but worse. People were lobbing glasses at everybody, throwing glasses at the ceiling so they shattered onto the crowd. I never hit so many people in one night or have been hit so many times. I did a lot of damage and suffered a lot. All but one of the doormen that were with me legged it.

After it had finished one of the guys that had started it walked outside with three of his mates. I followed him out and offered him square go. The doorman locked us out. Luckily, his three mates backed off. Then this bloke fell apart too. I learned a lot about people on the door and at times lost my faith in human nature. But then I realised I was dealing with mostly bad humans.

What makes blokes want to fight each other?Most of the violence in today's society is down to displacement. It can be displacement in a week or over generations. For example, Coventry where I live, was a large industrial town with lots of work, then all of a sudden that work dried up and that loss is displaced onto the next generation of people and they are unhappy.

People blame alcohol and alcohol is a trigger, but it isn't the reason for violence. We are living in a society now where there are more neurological stresses than ever before and the stress hormones and adrenaline has no behavioural release. They are often released in shows of aggression and violence. For instance, my wife upsets me and I take it out on a stranger who cuts me up in his car, or the boss upsets me so I take it out on my wife, she slaps the kid and the kid kicks the cat. It is usually a silly thing like a bump in the car or someone spilling someone's beer that releases a month's pent-up anger, so the attack is completely out of proportion to what's happened. It is like a pressure cooker waiting to explode. What would you recommend to people who have lots of pent-up anger?They need to find a release. That's the key and this is what nobody's talking about. You need to give the rogue hormones a release.

A tough game of tennis, rugby, anything hard and physical, but not something done against the will. If I send you out on a tough run you don't want to do that and it will only stress you more. Why do some blokes never grow out of wanting to have a go. Most leave that sort of thing behind in the playground. Do they watch too many Charles Bronson movies?There is about five per cent of society that needs some kind of battle and these people tend to end up in special forces, in security, that sort of thing, where their ability is needed. Some end up inside. Others change, like I have put my natural energy into writing and making my life better. I don't think the answer is fighting. People who are violent are often insecure, and they try and dominate others, but when stood up to their front often falls away. Does knocking a bloke out feel like the sweet spot of a football when the ball is smacked into the goal? Do you know when you have connected with a knock-out punch?Yeah, definitely. Knocking people out is an art in itself, but I have to say it is very scary.

I had 50 knock-outs in street fighting and believe me it is not worth romanticising about. Each time there is that fear that they wouldn't come round again. And the more scared I felt in a confrontation the harder I would hit them, so hitting people was a way of off-loading my fear. We used to call the knock-out punch our 'butter' punch because it felt like you'd hit nothing, like punching into butter. There was an art it to, but in the end I found myself trying not to do it because I didn't like the feeling of apprehension. It is ugly. You get a feeling of well-being afterwards, but that's the natural endorphins being released because you have dealt with the situation. Remember that's it an uncontrolled area; they can fall onto the pavement and sustain more damage. In your books Watch my Back and Fighting without Fighting , you talk of bluffing your way out of trouble. You actually con the aggressor into thinking he wouldn't want to tangle with you.

That's easy for you to say cos you've got karate grades coming out of your pockets. For normal blokes with no experience of rapid and frightening violence it is a different story. Should they stand and fight or scarper?Avoidance, escape, verbal dissuasion, loopholing - that is giving someone an honourable way out - or posturing which is going crazy and worrying your aggressor is the answer. The majority of situations can be avoided by simply not being there. We all know where the shit places are in the area where we live. Most people go into a bar and can sense when it's not right but still stand there and drink. If I sense trouble I leave, that's avoidance. If I see a gang coming down the street I avoid them. I don't antagonise them by walking through them. I won't be held in a potentially ugly situation by my ego.

I will go and drink or eat somewhere else. Ego is the keyword. It's territorial. Why would you want to protect a space at a bar, when it could mean protecting it and losing your life? That's bullshit. We should starve the ego and that will get rid of a lot of the problems in life. But it's a strange thing; if we walk away from a situation we are seen as cowards and if we fight we are thugs. Both bring extra stress into our lives. We should base are actions on intuition not what society thinks. Do so-called masters of martial arts criticise your practises and thoughts?I've had loads of criticism, but nobody kicks a dead dog do they? If you stick up above the crowd people will criticise; if you don't want it don't stick your head there. I now look upon criticism as a positive action that helps me learn. I don't allow it to get to me. People tell me they have transcended violence, but they've never had a fight outside the chip shop, and I don't believe you can transcend something you've never experienced. You can go around it but it's still there. Most of the martial arts are stylised and won't work when it kicks off in the street. But they can be adapted to work and that's what I am saying in my work.

There are a lot of linear techniques for fighting in alleys or flying kicks for knocking an opponent off a horse. They are not designed for piss-slippy club floors or crooked pavements. Do you think bouncers or doormen deserve their bad reputation? No. I think people see five per cent of doormen and then they throw a critique on them and you cannot do that. It's like me giving you a 1,000-page novel and saying, 'Read ten pages and tell me what you think of it'. People usually come into contact with doormen because they have done something wrong. Or they might see a doorman whack somebody and they automatically draw a conclusion. They never think that that man has a wife, girlfriend, children, or that he may also be experiencing fear and that his aggression is a way of expressing that fear. You have people on the door who can communicate and others that can fight and that's why they work as a team. What some don't understand is that doormen are prepared for violence every time they work and if you step into their world by being aggressive or violent, they are setting you up for a knock-out as you speak. Doormen risk their life and liberty every night they work.

That's not an exaggeration: two of my friends were stabbed to death while working the door and a few friends are banged up. If more clubs practised your Animal Day (full-contact sparring) theory they wouldn't have to go on the door would they?No. They would be more confident. When you know what you can do you don't feel like you've got to prove it all the time. But there's a tendency in controlled martial arts to be on a high pedestal, but inside not knowing if they could really handle it. That insecurity makes people want to have a go to test themselves. That can be taken away in the Animal Day concepts. You don't think to yourself, 'will this work'? You think, 'I don't ever want to do this on somebody because it will hurt them badly'. The ultimate goal should be, 'How can I let this guy off without hitting him'?

The training we do goes to knock-out or submission. We do aggression therapy where we scream and shout obscenities at each other. My students are prepared. If I swear in the hall some may think that's bad etiquette, but if you are preparing for war you've got to make it as real as you can. If you had to pick one martial art as an effective form of self-defence, what would it be.Number one would be Western boxing because nearly all altercations begin at punching range and it is the most clinical punching system on the planet. If I had to pick two it would be Western boxing and judo or wrestling. Three and it would be Western boxing, judo and Thai boxing.

Would Bruce Lee have kicked Tyson's butt?No. It's all down to environments. Don't get me wrong, Bruce Lee is a hero of mine and was way ahead of his time. He has done a lot for the martial arts but in my opinion Lee wouldn't have lasted against a good amateur wrestler that understood kicking and punching. Judo and wrestling are the best kept secrets in the martial arts. OK you've gone too far Thompson, dissing The God Lee. You and me outside now.Ha, ha, ha, why do want to shag me? box outGeoff Thompson is a fifth dan in karate and first dan in Judo and a coach in various other systems of wrestling and martial arts. He is currently writing scripts and books to add to his already large catalogue. So don't give him any lip. He is also a contributing editor to Men's Fitness. boxout/WIN*****frOnt twisted Geoff's arm and got him to give up ten copies of his cult book Watch My Back - the story of his nine years working as bouncer in the rough spots of Coventry - as prizes in this easy competition: all you have to do is write your name on a postcard and send it to frOnt! The first ten out of the bag get the book and the glory, so get scribbling.