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Fortunately, I’d packed my gi , so all I had to do now was find a karate club to train with. It’d be good to find some new sparring partners, anyway. If you’ve sparred with the same guys for a while, you get to know how they fight, and you can predict their attacks. Swapping things around a bit would help keep me on my toes.
    I did a quick Google search on Jay’s computer and came up with a club that met in Totton Sports Centre. They met on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings—both times I’d be able to make, with the added bonus I could go along tonight. Cheered by the prospect of an actual social life, even if it was only one predicated on a mutual love of physical violence, I whistled as I shut down the computer.
    A quick microwave curry later, I changed into my gi and made my way down to the sports centre, which was a bright, modern building in a quiet cul-de-sac just off the Ringwood Road. As I parked my car, I thought a bit guiltily I probably shouldn’t be using it for a journey of only a couple of miles. Maybe I should do what Matt had suggested and take a closer look at the stock tomorrow. After all, if trade was always as slow as today’s had been, we could do with the custom.
    I negotiated with the chirpy young woman behind the desk until she agreed to let me through the turnstile, then made my way up to what was encouragingly billed as the combat room. The class hadn’t started yet, and brown and black belts were milling around, chatting and laughing. I introduced myself to them—figured I might as well get in a plug for Jay’s shop while I was there—and they pointed out the Sensei to me.
    Sensei Ray Cole was a 5th Dan black guy with a cockney accent and a wide smile, who pumped my hand with so much enthusiasm I was worried it might fall off. “Good to have you here, mate. Just fall in line and give us a shout if you’re not sure about anything.” He turned away to give a sergeant major’s bellow to the class. “Right you lot—line up!”
    As I bowed at the entrance of the dojo, the familiar smell of rubber mats and sweat in all degrees of freshness hit my nostrils like a back fist strike. I breathed in deeply. It was good to be home. The remaining tension rolled away from my shoulders as we went through the warm-up before moving on to basics. I suppose it’s a bit like meditation, in a way. You’re completely focussed on the techniques you’re practicing, and it clears your mind like nothing else can. I could feel myself gradually chilling out about the situation with my job, Jay, Kate and—yes—Matt. The problems didn’t disappear, but my sense of perspective reasserted itself. Jay would be fine. I’d get another job. Kate and I were never meant to be. Matt…
    Okay. That one was a little trickier, and I hadn’t quite sorted it all out in my head by the time we moved on to kata, which takes a whole different kind of concentration. Kata, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a sequence of around twenty or so predetermined martial arts moves, based on the concept of fighting off a series of attackers. It’s a little like a dance, if your idea of dancing involves kicks to the head and strikes to the gonads, which, for all I know, it does—it’s not like I’ve been clubbing much in the last few years.
    And then we went on to sparring, at which point a meaty hand descended on my back with bruising force and landed me with the partner from hell.
    My local sports centre back in London has a sign up saying “Martial Arts for All”. Which is all very well in principle, but in practice, in my considered opinion, there are certain people who shouldn’t be allowed within a hundred yards of anything that’ll show them how to beat the crap out of people even more effectively. And the bloke I ended up fighting with that night was definitely one of those people.
    You can tell them a mile off. They’re the ones who, when they go through their basics, give it 100 per cent power all