Excerpt from - The Spy who Sank the Armada by David West.
Anthony helped Harrison clear the guns and swords away. They spread some more loose straw over the ground. Then Harrison led him to the centre.
‘Okay then, sir. Hit me.’
‘Where, and how hard?’
‘Anywhere you like, sir. And as hard as you can.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’
They began circling around slowly. Anthony crouched a little and had his fists raised, but Harrison stood upright, his arms hung at his sides. Anthony threw a punch to Harrison’s jaw but found himself gazing at the roof joists, flat on his back and winded.
‘… what. How did you do that?’
‘Wrestling, sir. It’s all a question of balance and mechanics.’ He helped Anthony to his feet. ‘You see, sir, you adopted a bit of a crouching stance and had your feet a little wider apart. That slows you down. I keep upright and my feet are shoulder width apart. Like this. If your feet are too close together, you lose stability. Too wide apart and you lose mobility. Now look at my feet. If you imagine a line drawn between my toes, then I am very stable along that line, but quite unstable at right angles to that line. It doesn’t matter whether one foot is slightly forward or back. Look at the line between the toes. The weakness is at right angles to that line. When you threw your punch, your upper body was twisting and powering forward behind the punch. All I had to do was step aside, grab your arm, and sweep your rear foot away with my right leg. Your weight was moving forward and off your rear foot. You were already twisting. You did it all for me, really. All I had to do was react quickly and attack you below your point of balance. Your momentum did the rest.’
Over the next few weeks, they fought six hours a day, every day. Anthony learnt a wide variety of throws, armlocks, holds, and strangleholds.
‘Now wrestling, sir, is what you do with friends, with people you like and don’t want to kill or cripple. If you aren’t too bothered with crippling or killing, then there are faster ways of stopping your assailant. It isn’t easy to fight several people at the same time, as you know, sir. So, for each move you make, one of your assailants has to go down and not get up again. Eyes, throat, knees. The knee is a weak point. Land a kick hard enough on a man’s knee and he won’t get up again. Spread your fingers like this, and land a jab with your fingertips, hitting both eyes, and he won’t see to hit you again. Chop with the edge of your hand like this into his throat, and he’s out of the game. Obviously we can’t practise this on each other. I’ve got a dummy made of sacking over here that I’ve stuffed with straw. I’ve painted the eyes and knee targets. I’ll string it up to the joist and we can work on those killer moves.’
Excerpt from The Spy who Sank the Armada by David West, available on Amazon
https://www.davidvswest.co.uk/
