My whole life, I wanted to be a fighter. In my fantasy I have always been a long robed pugilist floating amongst the bamboo forest swinging my blade gracefully and kicking the shit out of bullies and wannabes. In spite of my years of martial arts training, and regardless of how good I looked in photographs and on stage, I had never been in a real fight. The closest I had ever gotten into one was 7 years ago whilst I was living in London, I bumped into a homeless tramp who promptly mouthed me off with a string of vulgarities. I turned around and gave him the finger and for that brief moment our eyes cross I swore he must have contemplated leaping onto and beating the crap out of me. I suppose it was the confidence in which I displayed my disregard for him that held him back.

I was 31 years and 1 day old exactly when I first experience in real terms how it feels like to be beaten into pulp. I went for my first novice Muay Thai boxing tournament naively thinking that I could win! Yet looking back at the 3 minutes during which I suffered a brutal beating I knew if the score of 10 was divided between Cassie Field and me, she would have scored 9 and I would have scored 1, and that 1 point must be awarded to me only and only because I left the boxing ring standing up.

That fateful morning, Keith (my Scottish instructor) and I arrived at St Albans Melbourne and caught up with Tim, and 18 year old boy in my gym who was also fighting that day. The Ultimate Muay Thai gym was crowded, busy with fighters warming up, weighting in for the tournaments, trainers meting out last minute advice. It has been 17 months since I started Muay Thai and by now I was used to the type of men and women that hung out in fighting events. Most men had serious attitude and gigantic tattoos all over, girls have long hair short skirts and thick make-up, drapping around their fellas like a limp mink scarf. Not quite the type of people I usually mingle with but I found them interesting and intriguing nonetheless. Tim was a large 85 kg Aussie boy of Philippine origin, very adroable, polite and eager to please. I told him he’s a very nice boy and should try and grow up a good fighter but a normal person – none of those ‘I’m so macho look at me look at me bullshit’. He assured me with great enthusiasm that he will never become a dickhead. I was pleased.

Tim went into the fight first. He was steady, calm and composed against his frantic, older opponent. He won the fight easy – we were so proud of him. The whole event looked like a walk in the park for him.

A regular from our gym showed up and said he came to watch the fight to support me! I was so touched.

There were 8 more fights between Tim’s and mine and by then I was trying very hard not to piss in my pants. I was mortified and tried every means to distract myself and ended up so successful in distraction I did not realised it was my turn to go up the ring until right the very moment before. No time to get pumped up with anger or aggression, I was up on the ring mind still full of rubbish and partly still thinking this was all for a laugh.

It only took 10 seconds before I realised how screwed I was. Reminded me of days of Chinese Martial Arts competitions when my instructor said that the quality of a participant is usually apparent within the first 10 seconds – that cliché definitely applied to myself in that match. The truth is I cannot remember much of the fight except Cassie’s gloves flying towards my face over and over again. Then she grabbed me by the neck and kneed the crap out of me, giving me a very bruised rib that is still hurting as I type. My life flashed before my eyes. I tried feebly again and again to hurt her but I was getting nowhere. The referee broke us up several times as he was worried that I was going to collapse, ‘If you don’t keep your hands up you’re going to get knocked out’. I wanted to say, ‘oh my gosh are you serious?’ but my sense of humour had escaped me at that point in time.

In the 30 second break between the two rounds, I stumbled pathetically back to my corner where Keith and Tim beckons. Neither of them knew what to say nor could they look me in the eye in fear of betraying what they were thinking – I SUCKED. Nonetheless, true to the style of team spirit they edge me on with their best capacity to lie (which really wasn’t too good). Then it was time to get hammered again. I hear Keith’s voice in the far distance saying ‘Hands-up!’, ‘Do this!’, ‘Do that!’ but I could translate none of that into action. I continued my act as a sitting duck being hammered by my opponent and in my mind I could only think of one thing – damn this really hurts.

Before I knew it, it was over. I fumbled with my hair wondering where the hair clip fell and right at that point in time the referee shouted out, ‘who’s hair tie is it?’

‘Ah it’s mine it’s mine,’ I jumped animatedly towards him. Everyone laughed. Well, at least I was entertaining as always. I grinned foolishly at the audience as the referee predictably announced Cassie Field as the winner.

And Keith, sweet dear Keith, bless him, must have felt awful watching me getting crushed like a bug. After the fight he went over to Cassie’s lot and enquired about her training background. He consoled me later to say that she was 3 kg heavier, way more experienced and truthfully much bigger than I was. We ended up agreeing that she actually have a really deep voice and was trying hard to hide her stubbles and Adam’s apple.

This pretty much summed up the beginning of my fighting career. I’d like to say what happened on the 18^th Oct 2009 will never repeat itself but I now accept the tragic reality that despite my natural aggression as a thinker and strategist I am hopeless in physical realm. In Keith’s words, I certainly could try to become the ‘hundred dollar baby’. J