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in that fact for me and my young friends: get to the rank of black belt and enhance your chances of living a life without the appendage of a criminal record.
    But despite his criminal activities and all the pain he had caused me, I had a grudging respect for Dalton. He was a man of his word and I admired his no-nonsense attitude to life that had made him a popularfigure in the
dojo
. His first brush with the law came when he was arrested for a crime that he had not only not committed, it was a crime that had never taken place. Even though he walked from the court a free man, the experience embittered him. This type of incident that had pushed Dalton toward a life of crime was happening more frequently. It seemed that every week someone I knew had a similar tale about a black man who had been wrongly stopped or arrested by the police. Experiences like Dalton’s had helped to spread feelings of distrust and a notion that a whole community was under threat. For men of my age it stoked anger and resentment and put a little spite into the techniques we practised. Therefore, rather than seek the help of the police, people I trained with increasingly took the law into their own hands. Following the actions of Jerome and Ewart when they rid the nightclub of trouble caused by criminal elements, there had been several occasions when the assistance of the YMCA karate club had been sought by people who had been either threatened or burgled. The club’s reputation was growing because of events outside of the
dojo
as well as those actions within it.
    Following a couple of
katas
as part of a warm-down session, the lesson came to an end with the two usual bows from a kneeling position. In Japanese martial arts there is the saying:
‘Rei ni hajimari, rei ni owaru.
’ It means that the training must begin and end with a bow. It is important for discipline to be maintained within any
dojo
, but particularly when it contains thirty-odd young men imbued with too much pride and too much testosterone. The bows at the beginning of every session signalled that we were entering another world, in which animosity and anger were to be put to one side; and within that period between the bows we were followers of
bushido
. The fact that it was a Japanese code also reminded us that our instructors were no longer to be considered our peers while we were in the
dojo
and that in some way they were merely echoing the strictures that had been laid down by the countless generations of martial artists who had gone before them. Consequently, we submitted ourselves to punishments that in any other context would have been unacceptable to us.
    â€œSome of us must think they don’t need to train,” Trog muttered as he walked by. There was an ill-founded air of superiority about Trog that got on everyone’s nerves, even those of the instructors – a coupleof times he had been taught a very hard lesson after questioning a technique that had just been shown to the class. But even in his pain he displayed a superior attitude, seeing his punishment as a demonstration of the effectiveness of a technique that the instructor now had his permission to show to the rest of the students. “Shut your big mouth, Trog.” I replied. “I wasn’t the one fighting like a pansy.”
    â€œWe’ll see who’s a pansy next time we spar,” the Trog said, in a vain attempt to save face.
    Leslie rushed past me on his way to the changing room and said something to me which I did not quite hear. I was too busy watching Ewart rebuking Clinton for his performance against Trog. Ewart made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he expected better from his younger brother. But talking was not enough for Ewart. He demanded the highest levels of skill and effort from everyone in the
dojo
– but particularly of those of us who were related to him. I felt uncomfortable watching as Clinton sparred with Ewart. I winced with each punch that