Chapter 1 - Seeds of youth, unraveling the origins.
I return to my childhood, where I grew up as the son of a gym owner. Until I was thirteen and fourteen, everything was going well. My father taught various budo sports, such as Judo, Karate, Jiu Jitsu and self defense for the police, and had two gyms. We had a normal childhood and enjoyed vacations, tournaments in the Netherlands and abroad, and I spent a lot of time in the gym where I practiced Judo. I did well in this sport and was among the top national youth up to fifteen years old.
Until I was fourteen, I also did reasonably well in school, but then I lost interest. I started spending more time with Ceriel, a friend with whom I got along well. We fished a lot together in our free time, something I had been doing since I was young and which my grandfather had taught me. Ceriel was also interested in fishing and we spent a lot of time together. One day Ceriel showed up with a new haircut, a jacket and rolled up jeans, and Dr. Martens boots. I asked him in surprise what he was wearing and he replied that it belonged to the music style "Ska." He was a fan of the band Madness, and their music and style appealed to him. In no time at all, I had also bought spikes, a jacket with various badges and Dr. Martens at the local dump store.
It was 1981 and I had traded training for "being Ska. My father totally disagreed. He had an image of the ideal son who would follow in his footsteps and take over his gym. He wanted me to set the "right example," but in my adolescence I had absolutely no desire to do that. I was more concerned with my friends and their influences. My father was not happy that his son was walking around looking like an anarchist, even though he was a well known gym owner.
Meanwhile, school wasn't going well and I didn't feel like it anymore. My group of friends expanded to about five or six people. We secretly smoked the occasional cigarette and had moved on from Ska to the Skinhead and Punk era. I was wearing a leather jacket with the "Dead Kennedys" logo on the back. We were rebellious against society and called ourselves anarchists and punks. I went to school only when I felt like it, kicked at everything I thought was wrong and even ended up in the fences of the stopera in Amsterdam to protest a new city hall.
My collection of LPs and singles by punk bands such as UK Subs, The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Plasmatics, Dead Kennedys, Trockener Kecks and many more was growing. I was especially a fan of Johnny Rotten. I regularly went to gigs of these bands and had wild times in small venues with other punks. We often went to Leiden, Haarlem or Amsterdam and I smoked my first joints and regularly had to run from disco guys who wanted to catch us. I had stopped school and sports and smoked a little and drank a little, and played my electric guitar a lot. Together with Daniel on bass guitar and René on drums, we tried to make some punk music, but our youthful group of friends soon fell apart as everyone started to follow their own path.
I decided to follow my intuition and started looking for work. I had just turned sixteen and was soon able to work full time shifts at a brick factory a village away. But soon I realized that this wasn't everything, especially when I developed an inflamed pimple on my neck that became infected and had to be cut out by the doctor. I decided to stop working there and started acting more exemplary, wearing normal clothes like G-Star, Levi 501 and Nike sneakers. After my wild punk period, I started getting a little more involved in the local community of the village I came from, where everyone knew and met at the local soos, the Sunday afternoon disco and the Time Out youth center, which was a popular meeting place.
I had bought a Zundapp KS 50 and with the help of my friends replaced the cylinder and carburetor, as well as the gears and exhaust. This allowed the moped to go almost a hundred miles per hour. We often hung out at Time Out, a youth center for young people my age and older. In no time, most of us had a green bomber jacket and we formed a large group called the "Green Jackets." We met in public places with our souped up mopeds, such as schoolyards, Thursday night shopping nights, sororities and, of course, at Time out.
We were easy to recognize, all wearing green jackets and riding fast mopeds, either Kreidlers or Zundapps. We often went together to Boule Seven in Noordwijk, the black market in Beverwijk, or sought confrontation with the so called "Blue bomber jackets" worn by the boys from the neighboring village. We had big fights with them, and would meet in our village or in their village. There were also fights among ourselves in our youth center Time Out, but they never lasted very long. Usually it was over quickly and before we knew it we were back to playing pinball or foosball. Thanks to my background in sports, I noticed that there was a lot of respect for me. I'm not big, but when there were problems, I was usually the one who solved it.
My parents knew something about what I was doing, but obviously not everything. I made some money at the flower auction in Aalsmeer, so every morning at 7:30 I rode my moped for half an hour to work there. I could make quite a bit of black money there at a company with a lot of housewives making bouquets. I made sure the flowers were placed on the tables. As a sixteen year old in 1982, I enjoyed doing this and earned ten guilders an hour, black.
In early 1983, I finally had a conversation with my father about our relationship. The conversation was about my future plans and how we would handle it. I would join him in the youth classes at the gym and for that I was put on the payroll for five hundred guilders. Because the youth judo classes started at four o'clock with the little ones aged four, five and six, I could also continue to work at the flower auction. I made an arrangement with my employer there to work until two o'clock, then quickly go home, shower and then go to the gym to clean the dojo, or rather, vacuum the mat.
We also made the agreement that I would get my first aid diploma and go to Rotterdam every week to get my fitness instructor certificate from Ellen van Maris and Berry de Mey. On Sundays I would go to Gouda to get my assistant judo leader certificate, after which I could teach at the gym under my father's auspices.
Besides these busy times, I still had another life with my Zundapp, friends, my first girlfriends, the hallway and fights. I was able to combine it all nicely and also got to know Edwin, a few years older than me and karate instructor on Thursday nights. He lived in a mobile home with a piece of land next to it where we went in our spare time and where I put on boxing gloves for the first time.
Edwin also had a comrade, Jack, and together they were quite notorious in the village. I felt like a fish out of water with them. More and more street fighters from the village came along and there was considerable amateur boxing with each other. Outside Time Out at one point this had also become a popular meeting place and more and more people came, including the girls from the village who came to watch us.
In the summer of 1983, Edwin told me that on September 23 there would be a kickboxing gala in Amsterdam with all the good Dutch fighters. He asked me to go along, and I loved it. I immersed myself in the sport and found it interesting and exciting. Meanwhile, the internship hours with my father at the gym continued and I had quickly obtained my first diplomas, including first aid, fitness instructor, sports director, assistant judo and karate instructor, and aerobic dance fitness.
I had an active social life and spent a lot of time with my friends and girlfriends. During this period, I also had a steady relationship with Lisa, a fun and pretty girl from a well known and notorious family in the village. Her father came from a large family with seven brothers and two sisters, who were not known as sweethearts. My father did not agree with me falling for such a person, but I decided to go for it and he just had to accept it.
On Friday, September 23, 1983, I went with Edwin, Jack and Ronnie to the Jaap Eden hall for a kickboxing gala, where, among others, Rob Kaman would be the first Dutchman to fight for a world title against John Moncayo. The street was very crowded, fortunately we had ordered four tickets in advance, for thirty guilders each in the stands. After being able to park the car about one km away, we walked in the crowds towards the hall.
Once inside, I stared my eyes out and quickly realized that the cream of the underworld was here, with drug dealers, pimps and ladies of light around me. As a 17-year old boy, I was an unknown in this world, but at the same time it felt like home. I was very comfortable among all the scum and awe in the room, where people from all parts of the country were present. People wore lammy coats, leather jackets and short skirts, and most were adorned with lots of gold. I was drawn to the excitement of this place, the atmosphere was charged yet fantastic. People from all over the country were present, from peasants from the east to Hagenezen and Rotterdammers from the south and the of course the race true amsterdammers. It felt like a mafia movie coming to life.
The ring announcer's speech began at eight in the evening to loud cheers in the Jaap Eden hall, where everyone from "This little world" wanted to see the big names of Dutch kickboxing fight. I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the crowd and the great atmosphere there. The matches started and it was a wonderful and unforgettable experience. I saw Peter van Os give up because of the Thai Payap Penchai's hard kicks, Fred Royers win on points against Billy Chau in a sparring match, and Rob Kaman beat the American John Moncayo with his rock hard low kicks. But the match that impressed me the most was Andre Brilleman's. I don't know if it was because of the great show at the beginning, the shorts instead of long pants, the Muay Thai fight with knees and throws, but the knee to the body that Andre placed perfectly, I still often see in my dreams. It was a beautiful KO.
After the evening it was crowded at the exit where the nearly ten thousand people had to go through. But despite the presence of many hoodlums, scum and the penoze, everything went quietly. It was a great night and I was sold on kickboxing. After ordering a videotape and sitting in the slow flow of traffic for an hour, we were finally on our way home. We discussed the evening at length in the car and I will never forget this amazing experience. Everyone was excited and we got home around two in the morning. I had a few more sandwiches because I realized I hadn't eaten anything all evening, probably because of the excitement and nervousness. In bed, I played the movie a few more times and felt the adrenaline rush again. The last thing I saw was a little light at the side of the curtains and early Saturday morning I finally fell asleep.
It seems that I was going through a rebellious phase in my youth, where I opposed the expectations of my father and society. I became interested in punk culture and dropped out of sports and school. I spent a lot of time playing music, fishing and hanging out with friends who had similar interests. Although this period of anarchy did not last long, it was an important phase in my life where I followed my intuition and gained new experiences. It seems that this period also helped define who I was as a person apart from the expectations of others. Could this period have influenced how I am in life today?