Your mate Noel

This is long so you may want to get some popcorn and a 'wet' and settle in for a while...

As Drew in Oz is able to confirm there are some crazy characters in Zen Do Kai's bad old days. The charismatic Bob Jones ran the style from the late 60's through to today and made a name for himself by using his karate and his army of black belts to provide security for almost every night club, venue, rock concert and band that toured Australia.

Traditionalist's hated him because in their minds he prostituted karate by using it to make money thumping n'ere do wells head's, and body guarding instead of flitting round at no touch tournaments with a fish bowl on his head. Love him or hate him though he produced some of the best fighters the country has ever seen both in the street and in the full contact ring.

In another post on punching power I said I'd write about one of my nemesis' who became a good mate so for those interested this is about my mate Noel (may he rest in peace).

I first met Noel when he came up from Melbourne to live at the dojo house (Bob bought a house in Brisbane so all the black belts would have a place to live and he would have a place to stay when he came up for instructional tours) He was tall, skinny, had one big thick eyebrow, a moustache that looked like an eyebrow that came down on his lip for a drink and stayed there and curly black hair like an afro.

He turned up in the dojo already a black belt from Melbourne and made his mark by beating the snot out of all of us. The funny thing was he only knew five techniques. He had a punch, a palm heel, a backfist, an elbow and a groin kick. Occasionally he'd also stick a headbutt into the mix but I never saw this much in sparring. His hips were tighter than Den Marin's (and that's saying something ) so he could never kick above the waist but it didn't stop him cleaning us all up. In fact the large scar on the back of my head is from him. We were sparring one night and he purposely lined me up on a post we had in that particular dojo. He did a big blitz and then footswept me so as I went down I hit the bloody post and split my skull wide open. Of course one wasn't allowed to stop so by the time the class was over an hour later it was too late to bother with stitches. Never knew it was there till my hair packed up and left me and everyone started asking me about the huge scar on the back of my bonce.

I asked him years later how he got so good with the individual techniques and he explained that when he first went to work on the doors at the Belfast Tavern he began by starting off every scrap with a jodan tsuki (traditional karate reverse punch). At first, he'd knock them backwards and maybe split a lip or blacken an eye. Eventually, he said, he got to the point where he'd hit them and start to see the eyes roll a little. A few more weeks, a few more scraps and now he's knocking them out and then eventually he's breaking jaws and cheekbones.

Now, a lot of people would just stick to that at this point but not Noel. In his words, he stuck that technique in his pocket and only pulled it out when he was in trouble. He began the entire process again with the palm heel, weeks of stunning people, splitting lips, almost ko's and then out they went.

Same process followed only this time with the backfist and then with the elbow. He tried lifting weights at the time to see if increased size would help but his metabolism was such that he stayed skinny.

I went on my first ever security gig with him. Punk Rock had come to Australia and a local promoter was hosting a local band. Our karate school was contracted to do the security so Noel roped me in to do the gig. I was about the same build and size at the time because I was only sixteen but it was a total eye opener. At first we walked through the show together but came out with slobber on our backs where the punks had spat on us (that was there thing apparently and wasn't directed at us per se) so Noel would send me on a head and walk through just behind me. Next minute I'd hear him kia - a blood curdling high pitched screech like an eagle launching off a rock - and I'd turn and he'd have one on the floor unconscious, be throwing one to me and then grabbing a third and tossing them out.

We did it like that all night long and had the cops outside with a paddy wagon taking on all those we dragged out.

Noel was always the black sheep of the Zen Do Kai family though because he was the most pragmatic. Yes, he'd belt people while bouncing and walked a fine line when it came to some of the nefarious stuff the others got up to but he was always who you'd go to for practical advice.

I found out years later that this black sheepedness was the reason they'd tried to get rid of him in Melbourne. When I was Bob's bodyguard and chief instructor to the style I heard about Noel's early days. Bob said he and the guys couldn't stand him. They were all club going fashion ponys with flared jeans, clogs and tight t-shirts being the mode of the day. Noel would turn up with his afro, one eyebrow and the satorial sense of a hobo...sometimes looking almost like Monty Python's gumbies.

The way to get rid of people you didn't like in those days, and students, so you could make room for all the new members trying to join (this was boom time folks, 300 people in the Saturday morning class) was to beat the shite out of them so they'd quit. Well, according to Bob they tried their damndest. Every night there'd be sparring and every night the black belts would single Noel out and go hunting. Bob told me one night he grabbed him by the gi with one hand and said "make me let go" Every time he couldn't, Bob would punch him in the head. They went two laps of the dojo like that and there was blood all over the walls. Bob figured that was it but Noel showed up again the next night lumpy head and all looking for more.

I heard other stories about him when I was in Melbourne. One of his underlings had got bashed at a party one night by a gang who heard he was learning karate. The kid came and got Noel who went back with him to find the whole house in darkness and everyone asleep. They were all drunk and passed out all over the furniture - a typical Aussie party eh Drew? - so Noel would start waking them up and belting them. Eventually others heard the ruckus and when they saw this mono-browed demon amongst them - pissed at being woken up to come sort them out - some of them opted to jump out the 2nd floor window rahter than fight him.

He had another thing that was funny. Whenever he'd be in a brawl he'd always scream out "break it up, break it up" while he was punching the crap out of everyone. That way, if the cops showed up, all the witnesses would say 'well, I don't know who started it but he was trying to break it up."

The two most memorable moments I had with him were one, watching his 2nd dan grading. That's the 'blood grading'...30 rounds of free sparring, no protective equipment, full contact to the body and 'touch' to the head. There's no breaks between the rounds and a fresh black belt every round. Some of them underestimated Noel I thought, because he wasn't fancy and couldn't kick. One in particular, a powerhouse called Garth had Noel up on the makiwaras reefing in punches so hard I thought his ribs would crack (I found out later some did ) all of a sudden there was the kia again, and Noel running Garth back across the room with his thumbs buried in his eyes, through the audience and across the managers' desk where he pinned him and headbutted him. The whole room went crazy.

The other time was the brawl at the Capalaba Tavern where he told the group bugger off or he'd sort them. They were still debating how he was going to do that when he knocked them all out with only one shot each. It was freaky. I've got an alright punch but I've never been able to duplicate what the fooker did and I've never seen anyone else do it.

Later on Noel joined the Police Force where he rose to the rank of Inspector. He enjoyed the same rep in the Force as he did with us. Someone you could go to when you needed advice...someone you would call when the shit got heavy.

Years later while in homicide he cemented his rep with the Qld Police department as well. Prior to his joining one of the other legends, Tony Quinn (who would go on to body guard Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and run clubs in London) who was 7th in the world at kickboxing at the time, was running a club in the Valley. Tony was ejecting some bad guys when he's grabbed from behind by someone. Tony turned and buried his fist in the guys guts, footswept him and kicked him in the head. The guys mates were moving in and Tony started dropping them left right and center when one of them finally identified themselves as undercover cops.

Tony tried to apologize but the cops weren't having it. They dragged him down to the police station, gave him a lacing in the parking lot while tony was handcuffed, and then took him in for an 'interview.' During the course of the evening one of the detectives stuck his pistol in Tony's mouth, said there's a bullet in here for you, and one for Bob Jones, and the busted off Tony's front teeth with the barrel before pistol whipping him a few more times. To add insult to injury they charged Tony with assaulting the police.

So, years later, Noels rolled in late to a piss up for one of the officers leaving the force. Noel is sober, these guys have been going at it for an hour and the guy singles Noel out and says 'you're one of those karate fuckers right?" Noel said yes and so the guy launches into this spiel about the toughest fucker he ever met was this Tony Quinn guy. He proceded to tell Noel how he'd taken Tony's teeth out with his pistol and Tony hadn't so much as grimaced. No one saw the punch move apparently. Another cop mate of mine was there and said no one saw the bloody thing. This detective - who outranked Noel BTW - hit the deck like the proverbial bag of shite.

Many years later there was a huge riot outside Police headquarters and again Noel rose to the occasion. The Police Force had just been subjected to a Royal Commission due to all the corruption and bribery etc that was rife throughout. The aborigines, sensing the discord in the ranks and the disorganization as new blood was brought in to replace the higher ups going to jail, decided to riot for the right to have their records given to them.

None of the police, now under huge public scrutiny from media nationwide, wanted to step up to the plate and do anything and were relatively leaderless. Cameras were all over cops standing round as the aboriginals trashed cars etc. Noel was coming back from court and walked into the middle of it. There was a small enclave near the train station and two constables and a police woman were being given a serve by a bunch of about fifty of the natives. Noel grabbed his partner and said lets go (to which the guy told me many years later "aw shit, here we go again.") and waded into the midst throwing punches left right and center while the cameras caught the whole thing. Everyone in the city basically said thank christ someone did something which is when I think he became earmarked for inspector.

We had another scrap he and I years later. I'd gone into a Kung Fu school run by a local gangster/drug smuggler with my top student to watch a class (yep, this made the papers too). To cut a very long story short 75 of them (seven ranks of ten students and a few stragglers which is how I know) jumped us. Michael got his skull fractured with nunchakus early on and I was stabbed twice with a dagger and once with a sword through the back of the leg. I put 13 of them in hospital and ended up there myself with a collapsed lung and a bunch of sutures.

Well, Noel turned up while I was being sewed up, in his capacity as law enforcement, with an underling. I figured I'd stay schtum as to who got us so we could go sort the thing out properly with a bunch of the black belts in a few weeks so when he asked me what happened I told him a bunch of aboriginals had jumped us while training in a park wink wink. Noel then left and went on a rampage that night. Every time he saw a group of them he'd get out with his baton and wade into them 'bash my mate, would ya?" God he was mad when he found out it was the Chinese fookers and not the aborigines.

He came to see me in the States. He was over at Quantico for an International Police Training gig that lasted 3 months. He came down on leave one long weekend, still skinny, still with a monobrow. I thought maybe I could take him. It had been twenty years. I'd done Legion unarmed combat, got my Judo black belt, a ju-jutsu 4th degree, an Aikido sandan and instructors certification in FMA and I'd put on about 8 stone. I didn't stand a chance. He cleaned me up, and he cleaned up all my black belts as well. Fooker.

He was complaining about his back while down so we went to the chiropractor to get it sorted. It wasn't till he got home to Oz that he found out it was cancer of the liver and then some.

He'd been married for twenty years to a school teacher called Kerry. They'd tried all that time to have kids and finally given up and adopted a Korean boy called Jake. Kerry and Jake had joined him in the US and they'd all gone to Disney after the police gig was over.

Once back in Oz they thought they'd adopt a 2nd kid so Jake would have a play mate when Kerry finally got pregnant after 24 years of trying. Kara was the result...by all acounts a female version of her grumpy old dad replete with one eyebrow and all.

Noel died before her 2nd birthday from the cancer.

The funeral was amazing. I couldn't go (no passport) but my brother was there and said someone walked up to him in the street afterwards and said "did someone famous die?" stunned at the turnout which was over a thousand people and blown away by the huge police presence. Inside was most of the police force on one side of the church and all the karate guys, bouncers and parolees etc on the other. Sworn enemies at any other time, but all mates of Noels.

I shall miss him