Have you ever wanted to do something and found yourself stuck on the first move? Or found yourself at a point in time you wish you could repeat over and over, but not sure if you wanted to? For me it was great to get to interview Geoff Thompson for Fighters magazine but what can I ask that has not been covered before in his books videos and in many interviews. I was like the person on the high diving board for the first time. All he has to do is jump but his feet and hands feel glued to the floor and safety rail. Time, places and people change your prospective throughout your life. From first reading Geoff's book Watch my Back and seeing the pavement arena videos he made with Peter Consterdine I wanted to meet these people. That was back in 1994 and from that time I have found his honest and frank insight about the reality of street violence in his books and videos has made many martial artists question the practicality of their art for the street.

Geoff maybe seen by many as bringing some truth into the fighting arts and others may see him as still a bouncer in a karate suit, and feel Geoff's ideas of what works in a real situation as just thuggery. But like so many names you may think of as teaching the real stuff like Peter Consterdine, Dave Turton, Jamie O'Keefe and Kevin O'Hagan. And like many a "Joe Blogs" who gets attacked on a Saturday night. The reality is out there and I for one want to see the problem not close my eyes to it. I hope I ask some of the questions you would like to put to Geoff but from so many I could only take a few.

Alan Charlton: Geoff to say you have a busy schedule would be an understatement so thank you for taking the time out to talk to me.

Geoff Thompson: It’s my pleasure Alan, thank you to you for the interview

AC: I would like to call this interview from bullied to bouncer to author, looking back, which of the three helped you the most with dealing with problems. Or do you see being bullied and being a bouncer no longer in your makeup?

GT: Well of course we are a product of our experiences, I am a walking manifestation of every experience I ever had, so I would have to say that each part of my life played its role in making me the person I am today. Probably the most pivotal period would have been the time I spent as a nightclub doorman because it moulded me, it hardened me and certainly it enlightened me. I have always said that if you can work the doors and come out in one piece there is no challenge in life that you cannot overcome. I would say that the door work made me. It was like my forging period. They say that if you want to temper a blade you need fire, you need a forge. For me the door was exactly that. It was a difficult time, your life is on the line every night of the week; three of my friends were brutally murdered during my time on the door so there is no exaggeration needed there. But, as I said ultimately I owe everything to that time. I wouldn’t like to do it again but I am grateful for the experience.

AC: Geoff do you find it hard to keep violence out of your life?

GT: No, I hate violence so I have no problem avoiding it. If people ring me or write to me or bump into me in the street and want trouble with me I have no hesitation in trying to talk them down, or trying to befriend them if possible. I have been in hundreds of street fights, thousands of violent altercations so I know categorically that violence is not the answer. 95% of my self-defence techniques are in the avoidance. I try to avoid, escape, use verbal dissuasion, I will loophole and posture - anything to try and avoid physical conflict. To me that’s the art; avoiding a fight. When you train in real arts, when you have developed the ability to kill - and you only have to spend a couple of years in judo or wrestling to learn that - and you are at the top of your trade you have a responsibility to try and avoid using those skills for the wrong reasons. Don Draeger said that we should be so good at our art, so potent that if we are in a room full of people, those people should be better protected because of our presence. Not just because we can protect them against bad people but also because they are protected against us - we are not going to damage them just because they make a mistake and perhaps step out of line. Being good at your art also means being responsible, it means not hurting people unless we absolutely have to. I see my art as being less about self-defence and more about self-control. You have to be so good that you can let people off, walk away with confidence. Look for humility in people; humility is the mark of greatness. The real fighters are the gentle people, they spend heir days being gentle and have no need to shout or holler or challenge or threaten others. Of all the human traits humility is the one that I admire most, especially when the person being humble has the ability to snap you in half. The best people I have met on the world circuit have been without exception the most humble.

AC: Geoff how do you let people off who have hurt you, and deal with all the emotions of anger and weakness after any confrontation.

GT: Once you get the physical stuff off, once you have developed the ability to kill - and let’s not forget the martial art by definition means designed for war, designed to kill - you start to work on a higher plain, the cerebral and spiritual plains. Your training no longer consists only of just rolling around the mat, that’s the games, you have to start wrestling with your negative emotions, grappling with your ego, sparring with pier pressure. You don’t just walk away from people and let them off and not think anything off it. Of course it is going to play on your mind after the fact. You learn to cope with the emotional side of combat with practice. You practice. Every time a situation challenges you mentally you practice controlling your thoughts, you practice contemplation. Like for instance if I walk away from a fight the people looking on might think ‘Geoff Thompson has bottled it.’ In reality I have walked away because I want to perhaps let the antagonist off because he doesn’t realise who he is dealing with, and doesn’t realise that he is going to get badly hurt, he has no conception of what I will do to him if the fight becomes physical. He is working with less knowledge than me, so it is my responsibility to try - if the circumstances allow - letting him off. The hard part is walking away knowing that he thinks he has won, and the people looking on thinking ‘Geoff has lost his nerve.’ That’s where the real training begins, fighting those thoughts and controlling my mind, not caring what others think. That’s the real training, the rest is just decoration. This doesn’t mean that you allow people to abuse you, you should still stick up for yourself and defend your rights, but you don’t always have to use physical force to do that, you just need to communicate. That is the higher echelon choice.

AC: If you let them walk away aren’t they going to go off and do it to some one else. Don’t we have a responsibility to stop these people in their tracks?

GT: Who are ‘these people’ though Alan? We talk about these people as though they are inhuman, as though they are animals. These people are us, perhaps on a bad day but us non the less. The guy that cuts you up in the car, the guys that picks a fight with you in a pub, the chap that look aggressively at you across the bar, he is someone's daddy, some ones son, someone's husband and friend. We have to re-humanise ‘these people’. There is this assumption that if we don’t destroy every person that chances his arm with us. That they re going to go out and bash up some old granny as a consequence, and it’ll be our fault because we didn’t knock them out when they spilled our beer or passed a snide remark when we parked our car in their way. We cannot presume that, and neither should we. We are none of us Judge Dread; we have no right to judge someone’s whole life just because of one incident. I don’t know about you Alan but I made many mistakes when I was younger, and stepped out of line socially on more than one occasion, but I was never a bad person, I was never likely to take my young displacement to the realms of beating up old grannies or robbing the local post office. People should be allowed to make mistakes without us, as martial artists, feeling that we have to crown them for it just in case they progress to mass murderdom. We have no right to presume any such thing. The time to use your physical skills is when no other option presents its self.

AC: And then you would use violence?

GT: Then you would respond physically, but I would not call it violence. Violence is about intention it is not about action. If your intention is right it is not a violent act, even if you have to kill someone. It is only when you have bad intention that your act takes on the term violence.

AC: Playing devils advocate here, surely you are just playing with words Geoff. Violence is violence.

GT: I’d have to totally disagree Alan. A surgeon cuts you with a knife, his act is not to harm, rather it is to heal so his action is not deemed as violent. When a mugger cuts you with a knife his intention is to harm so his action is violent. If someone broke into your house and was about to rape your wife and daughter I think we can both agree that you’d be prepared to kill to defend them.

AC: Absolutely.

GT: Would you see that as an act of violence or an act of survival? In defending your loved ones using physical force would you consider yourself a violent man? Of course not. You just have to make sure that you are entirely justified, you have to make sure that you have no other option and that you are fighting for survival, not because some guy has offended your pride, or called you a name across the street.

AC: Geoff I would love to take you outside to workout with you for a few rounds, but I have cracked a nail. Do you still get much time for training?

GT: Thanks Al, it is very kind of you to let me off, my reputation would have been in tatters. I still train every day. I train with Wayne Lakin in judo, I train with my own instructors in catch and hook wrestling (at a secret location in Coventry) and I train on the bag and on the weights. I am also doing some yoga. Training is important to me it keeps me balanced.

AC: With all the fighting arts you have trained in do you wish you had been able to enter the ring on a professional basis? The reason I ask this is because some people I have heard say ‘Geoff Thompson if he's done all he said he's done why not prove it in the ring?’ or is the truth found on the pavement outside the chip shop.

GT: I don’t teach competition Alan, I teach street, they are entirely different entities. I see little relation between the two. I have fought in competition, but I don’t speak about it much because it has nothing to do with self-defence, and it is self-defence not competition that I teach. I think that people automatically presume that I haven’t competed because predominantly I write about street defence. I don’t consider my self a competitor, not at all, I am not an athlete, but I have competed. Not a lot, probably only fifty or sixty bouts in the kung-fu and the karate. When I was in ModGa kung-fu I won their national weapons championships and was runner up in the national fighting final. I also fought against the USA national squad in America in karate. As I said I wasn’t a great competitor, but I did my share, but in all honesty I find the ring a totally different arena to the street I mean no offence when I say this, I admire the athletes we have in the martial arts and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t fare to well with some of the NHB fighters out there right now, but as I said that is not my arena, and in all honesty it is worlds away from taking on the violent minority in society that do not fight to whistles and bells. I have to say I find it odd and a little naive that people want me to prove my street fighting capabilities in the competition arena. I have been in thousands of violent affrays against maniacs who were trying to end me, literally end me, I have faced violence that frightened the Y-fronts off me, where you win fights but take on life-time enemies, you take on people that come to your house in the middle of the night mobbed up with petrol bombs, they phone you at 2am and tell you that they are going to murder your wife and kids, they turn up at your work at 6 in the morning with the metal bars and bad news, they put contracts on your knee caps, these are the type of people that do home visits when you are having tea with your mum. One of my friends was beaten unrecognisable in his own front room on a Sunday, while his pregnant wife looked helplessly on. He died three times in the ambulance before they could finally revive him. When he recovered he had to go and live abroad because his attackers wanted to come and finish the job. Three of my friends were murdered, one took a Saturday night base-ball bat over the head and died on the Tuesday, the other was shot through the head as he sat in his car and yet another took a knife in the heart and got kicked around the pavement like a coke-can by four men as he lay dying. When I was working as a doorman I am ashamed to say that I also brutalised many men, sent them home to their families broken, put a few on life support machines, knocked people unconscious and then kicked the very teeth out of their mouths as they lay unconscious, kicked them until my feet hurt. Real violence is having to have a weapon in every room of the house, even the toilet and under the bed because you are expecting a home visit. So please, when we’re talking about the difference between street and competition let’s keep things in context. To be honest Alan anyone that has been there will not need proof, they will know as soon as I speak that what I have to say is true, and for those that have not been there no amount of proof will ever be enough.

AC: Do you feel that most people are looking for the answers to dealing with street violence join a club in the hope of finding the answer, but are training in what is at best a ring craft?

GT: Sure, that’s what most people do. They train in tame martial art and then expect it to translate to a real affray where the opponent doesn’t give a monkeys whether you are a first dan or a second dan or even Desperate Dan. If you want to prepare for reality you need to recreate reality in the dojo, with all the spitting and swearing and ripping and posturing you get outside the chip shop. You need to recreate a real encounter right down to the semantic detail. 99% of a real encounter is dealing with threat on an emotional level and most arts just do not do that.

AC: You are one of the hardest people I have meet when it comes to your training is there one system that you feel puts you under the greatest pressure.

GT: I have trained in a lot of systems, the hardest and most demanding have been western boxing, wrestling, judo and Thai, I class these as very real arts. If you put these all together then of course you get NHB, probably the most demanding fighting art in the world. If I were to choose the one (or two) of these that put me most under pressure I would have to say wrestling and judo. When I trained for a short while in the Birmingham wrestling club I was completely out of my depth. It was only the fact that the lads there were gentlemen and that they took it easy on me that I managed to get through. It was a very humbling experience to be so utterly and easily beaten. This gave me the bug and I studied wrestling to a good level. Also in judo, I trained privately under Wayne Lakin for 2 years then full time in judo for 18 months under Neil Adams, one of the best ground-fighters on the planet. I was privileged to be invited into his international class and the lads there really looked after me and brought me on. But it was hard and many times I felt like giving up. When I took my black belt in judo it was the hardest grade I ever took, I managed to get it on the day but I struggled like mad. At one point I actually looked at my wife and said ‘I don’t want to be here.’ She said ‘shut up and deal with it!’ So I did, but, as I said, I passed but with some struggle. Very humbling again.

AC: I recently did a seminar with Darrin Richardson in Northern Ireland. One comment made by one of the people on the course had us talking all the way home and we are still talking about it. The person came up to us at the end of the seminar and said, "I would like to thank you both for a great day, I have had a great time and learnt so much. But I was so sacred about coming because people had said to me that I would just get beaten up on this course." Why do you feel people still have such negative views to what may be called reality training?

GT: I would say that their views are born through fear. They are uncomfortable leaving the safety of their own styles. But I think it is good that they feel apprehensive, even scared, because that is exactly what you are going to get in a real encounter - fear by the barrow load. You need to feel fear; if you are going to your club and you don’t feel at least apprehensive then you are not preparing yourself for reality. There has to be at least the danger of being hit or hurt, if there isn’t then you can hardly call it martial. The best way to deal with fear and learn to control fear it to feel fear. That’s why I always recommend contact systems, like boxing and judo.

AC: Geoff your days of standing on the door have long gone. Do you still look back on them with good feelings or do you still regret some of the things you did back then?

GT: I regret nothing. I am a walking manifestation of every experience I ever had, good or bad. I hurt a lot of people and that is unfortunate, but making mistakes is what enables me to teach with such emphasis, when I talk about the fact that violence is futile people listen because they know I have been very violent, people listen to the advice because they know I am talking from experience and not from hypothesis. My mistakes are what make me human and what makes my message Damascene. I had some good times on the door Alan, some fantastic times and made some wonderful friends, but there were also a lot of very troubling times that I would not like to revisit.

AC: What situation would you have to be faced with today which would make you use your physical fighting skills. Would you still hit first or do you feel with your high degree of fighting skills would be enough to help you deal with someone attacking first?

GT: To be very honest the only thing that works consistently in a real encounter is a pre-emptive attack. The blocks and traps don’t work in the context that most people teach. So if I was cornered I would do it the very same as I always did it, be first and hit very hard. What I would say though is, I have developed my avoidance and communication skills to a high level so I can avoid and talk down the greater majority of potential fights, and I have also developed the confidence to use escalating levels of attack if the circumstances allow. I am not naive though, I know that some situations start at a very physical level; at that point you have the choice, hit first or get hit, be the hammer or the anvil. You must choose; no one can tell you what you should do, they can only advice you of your options. I have renounced violence Alan, but given no other option I would do what ever was necessary to protect my right to this incarnation, or defend the lives of my loved ones.

AC: Geoff I remembered you choreographed a fight sequence for a play did you find that difficult only pretending to hit someone. I understand the fight sequences got some praise from Theatre critics, will you take it further by working in films?

GT: It was kind of a one-off deal. Me and my wife Sharon did the fight work for Hard Fruits, which was a West End stage play. We worked on it for about 6 months, training the actors up and working out the fight sequences. It was very exciting and enjoyable but very hard work. The actors were fantastic, and very brave. Both were at the top of their trade. Nick Woodeson has worked in Hollywood films, he was in The Pelican Brief with Julia Roberts, and Richard Hope won an Oscar for a short film he starred in. The whole play was full of fights, one fight scene alone lasted for 20 minutes in between dialogue so it took quite a bit of working out. It stretched me, but I like that. I would do it again if asked, but I have not pursued it, I am more interested in writing than anything else, so that is the area that I aim to develop most.

AC: What books or projects are you working on at the moment?

GT: At this moment in time I am on tour promoting the newly released paperback Watch My Back, it was in the Sunday Times Best Sellers last year in hard back so we are praying for good things with it. I am also promoting The Great Escape, which I wrote earlier in the year, and also my books Fear-The Friend of Exceptional People and A Book For The Seriously Stressed. If anyone would like to come along to any of the signings all the dates are at the end of the article or on my web page www.geoffthompson.com it would be great to meet you. I will be doing talks, like mini seminars, signing books, etc.

AC: Geoff when you wrote the book Fear the friend of Exceptional People, did you have any idea how popular it would be.

GT: I thought it might prove to be popular Alan because where ever I went the one thing that people seemed most interested in was fear. That’s why I wrote the book. There are a couple, of hundred thousand copies of it in print now, it has changes the lives of many people for the better, which is a great feeling. I have just re-written it and updated it.

AC: Many people have regrets; do things from your past come back to haunt you, if so how do you deal with them?

GT: Occasionally things come back to haunt you, especially as you learn more about life. As you grow in knowledge it is hard not to look back and judge yourself on some of the mistakes you made, especially where it concerns hurting other people. I don’t hang on to it though, I forgive myself for my past mistakes, I also pray to God for Her forgiveness, and then I let them go. The pages of the past are closed. Occasionally I bump into people from my past that I have hurt, I usually apologise to them - which takes them by surprise - I deal with the internal conflict by forgiving my self. All we have is now, so I bury the past and plant good seeds now for tomorrow.

AC: What felt better getting your first black belt or getting on the Sunday Times best seller list?

GT: They were both great, but if I had to choose I would say that getting my first black belt would be hard to surpass, and getting my black belt in judo was hard to top as well, I shed blood for that grade. There was a massive satisfaction getting into the Sunday Times Best Sellers though because it proved my belief that we can do anything if we apply our selves. A former floor sweeper at the factory, an ex nightclub bouncer in the best sellers. It is exciting when you realise the ability we all have to create what ever we want with out lives.

AC: I have been to many of your book signing tours and have enjoyed the question and answer sessions. To help me out a little here do you have a favourite question from any of them?

GT: The best question I suppose is when people ask ‘what scares you the most?’ People expect me to talk about the time I got jumped and stabbed by a gang in Coventry or the time I had a contract put on my knee-caps and they were frightening, but the most frightening thing, the thing that scared me most was my own potential. Our potential as a species. The hardest thing for me was facing the fact that I could do anything I wanted with my life, go anywhere be anything. I had the creative power to change the world if I chose, we all do. And that is what frightened me most. Because once you recognise that it is down to you, that no one can stop you if you fully intend to do some thing, it’s scary. I had a fear of success, what they call the Jonah complex, a fear of fulfilling your greatest potential. Most of us look at what is out there and secretly we know we could do better, but most people never fulfil their dreams because they fear their own potential, they go to their graves with their best songs still in them, because whilst they recognise their own potential they also see that it comes with a greater responsibility, and very few people want to take that on.

AC: The tours must take a toll, on most you are talking for hours do you enjoy them and have you anymore planed?

GT: I do love the book signing tours, it’s a chance to get to meet with the people that buy my books and get feed back, that always helps me with further titles, it is tiring, on the last tour we did something like 32 cities, about 60 shops, but as I said I enjoy it. It is not enough these days to just write a book, if you really want to get it out to people you have to get out there and tour it, meet people, talk to the shops and then try and use the information you collate to improve the books and the writing. The next tour is now actually; I have listed the places that we are visiting at the end of the article.

AC: Geoff you are an avid reader if you found yourself trapped on an island what 3 books (not including Peter Consterdine Streetwise) would you like to have with you and why?

GT: I would take the Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, one of my favourite books, I have learned loads about the magic of intention and visualisation from this book. There is also a classic called The Richest Man in Babylon (can’t remember the author, sorry) that I would take because it teaches you about life and about giving to others. It is a great book. Finally I would take Solo - Nanga Parbat by Reinhold Messner, it is a fantastic book about Messner climbing a mountain in India. It is a fantastic perspective book, I learned loads from it. Books are my mainstay, I am a massive reader and I invest a lot of money in books because knowledge is one of the two great powers (the other is love).

AC: If you feel unsure about something or a route to take in your life who do you ask for advice?

GT: The first person I ask of course is God, She never lets me down, ever. Once I ask God the information I get often comes through people. I ask Peter Consterdine for a lot of advice, he has really helped me to grow over the years, he has been around forever (he is two years older than water) and is very wise council for me. I love him very much. My mum is the person who has guided me most in life, she is a fantastic woman, I don’t quite know where I would be without her. And of course Sharon, my wife, she is quite a bit younger than me, but very wise. I trust her, I trust her intuition, I seek her council about people, she has an innate ability to see good and bad in people, so if I am unsure about someone, whether I want to work or associate with them, I ask Sharon her opinion.

AC: Where do you see yourself in 5 years time and what goals do you hope to achieve?

GT: To be honest Alan I am already very happy where I am, I still have goals of course, I want to get my film on at the cinema, want my stage play to be performed in London etc but they will come in their own time, when they are ripe and ready. Goals are very important, we need a destination, but it is important to be happy where you are on the way to where you want to be.

AC: Geoff thanks again for talking to me I sure the readers will enjoy reading this interview but some maybe sticking pins in me for not asking some questions. If that is true then they should get along to one of your book signing tours.

GT: Thanks for a great interview Alan and for taking the time out for me, I appreciate it.