Yesterday I had my last stick fight in Baltimore, spending most of our meet as matchmaker and second. Sifu Tom Clark brought a pair of light "whip sticks" for Charles and I to go at it with. After Craig, Damien, Erique and Charles went at it I fought Damien with machetes and Charles with the stick. After the machete bouts Damien complimented me on my improved mobility and then pointed to the younger men, saying, "I can see why, you have to deal with these guys!"

Damien, Craig and Erique went out onto the floor in heroic, confrontational postures, wading in to the danger zone where they knew a stick was coming with bad intentions on it.

Charles, on the other hand, glided around like an evil genius, picking shots, delivering punishment and escaping unscathed more often than not. The occasional clinch was achieved by his muscled up targets, resulting in some payback on the floor.

So, when my time came up, I saw it as my job to try and move with Charles and did seem to have slightly better mobility than him. However, when we exchanged, the lighter sticks—which I wanted so that I could last longer with him—highlighted his superior reflexes and he consistently outscored me 3-to-2. Soon enough his mobility nullified mine and we exchanged and grabbed sticks, whereupon he kicked my in the gut and got the disarm.

For our second bout I had no other objective other than hitting him as hard and as often as possible. I ripped into his thigh and knees and hips [his thigh looked like ham slice in the dressing room]. To enable my goading of him via this wicked pain, I put my left hand in a high boxing guard and he savaged by forearm and bruised my fingers through the hockey glove as I ripped into his thigh.

Then, what was needed was arranged and the dish served, arriving smoking hot.

Sick of taking leg shots, Charles came in on me, goose-egging my forearm with a power shot and letting the stick drop below my elbow. He then ripped a rising diagonal smash into my spleen. I felt my guts burn against the inside of my spine and fell with searing sensation alongside the right flank of my abdominal wall.

I feel lucky for having finally been taken out with a spleen shot, which had not happened to me in 650-odd previousl engagements. But what really felt good was being gotten rid of intelligently by a fighter I have coached since 2004. The burn of rattan was permeating the mat. When we retired to the dressing room Charles informed me that he had taken too many hits against Craig, and needed me to come up with a drill to fix this. He also said, "Power really is everything. It just changes the game. I tried breaking out all the bells and whistles, but these guys hit so hard I had to fall back to the number one [forehand]. Any time I diverted from that I ate something in return."

That's a good stick fighting meet: everyone got banged up, won, lost, inflicted punishment, found a weakness they need to correct and sauntered away to fight another day.

I will post video of this as it comes in.