© Marc Wickert
www.knucklepit.com
published in Fight Times

Danny Hattersley first became involved in self defence when his uncle Mick saw that young Danny was being bullied at the ripe old age of four, and decided it was time for the youngster to learn some boxing skills. So in the company of his uncle, Danny wandered down to the Turner Police Boys' Club in Canberra and enrolled in 'box and tumble' classes, which were a combination of boxing and judo.

Whilst at school, Danny was able to make some pocket money of an evening, stacking kegs at a local club in Canberra. Due to a peculiar law in Canberra at the time, doormen were not allowed to physically remove under-age drinkers from licensed premises. However, minors under eighteen years of age could be employed to work in licensed clubs. And a loophole in the legal system did allow club employees under eighteen years to dispel other minors from their premises, so at sixteen and a half, Danny's bouncing career unofficially commenced.

After his family moved to Sydney, Danny's first real introduction to violence was in 1984, when he was about thirteen, and happened to attended a motor bike swap meet with his cousin at the Viking Tavern, in Milperra. This incident went down in Australian history, when two rival bike gangs had a gun battle, and became known as the Milperra Fathers' Day Massacre.

"It was friggin' scary. I don't remember much of it, because I was so young at the time. Basically, everything was going fine, and there was no indication that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. Then a gun went off, which ignited a whole big drama. Guns started going off everywhere and people started hitting the deck. My cousin and I were behind his bike and it got shot as did the guy on the other side of my cousin. I think he was wounded in the shoulder. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion. Bullets were flying, people were screaming, and confusion reigned supreme."

Meanwhile, Hattersley began training under Hakuda Ryu instructor Shinjo Ninamoya in Japanese Ju Jutsu at Clovelly. "Hakuda translates to willow tree, indicating the strong foundation combined with the flexibility of this style of Ju Jutsu," says Danny.

He officially started bouncing at a local hotel when he was seventeen. "It was actually a pretty mellow place – a good intro to the trade. From there I was working the doors at Kings Cross strip clubs and Parramatta night clubs which were more challenging."

Many of the incidents Danny became involved in occurred whilst he was escorting strippers to their cars at the end of some hot-blooded performances. Unfortunately some patrons didn't know where the curtain fell. "You'd be accompanying the ladies to their cars and you'd get hit up in the alley by guys who wanted a piece of the ladies. After you got the girls safely away you'd then deal with the trouble makers."

Hattersley moved house quite a bit in his younger days and eventually relocated to Stevens, Queensland. But his loyalty to Shinjo Ninamoya was remarkable. "I used to travel to Sydney three times a month to attend classes."

Meanwhile, Danny's bouncing career continued up north. Looking back, he says most of the scraps he's been in have been fairly extreme – like having people pulling knives on one another and then having to disarm them with bar stools.

"You just go in and smash them. You have to get in there and do the job. If something is handy you use it. You hear the unrealistic myth that your black belt is going to save you. But in the real world it's not like that. We had a lot of guys working with us who were black belts, but only a few were good operators, because they had actual fighting experience."

Danny regards boxing experience as one definite prerequisite for door work. He favours a mixture of boxing skills for the upper body, and karate experience for the lower body. Danny feels that ideally, if you have the footwork and punching ability of a boxer, and the kicking power of a karate practitioner, then you're well on the way to making a good doorman. And he's also a strong advocate for including grappling skills in one's repertoire.

"It's the age old thing. I've worked with probably seven guys who've claimed to be world champion kickboxers, but there are thousands of champions who can't fight for a pinch of salt. In the ring they can fight because there are rules, gloves and refs to pull them apart. And they all behave themselves. Basically, you have a whole new generation of people selling the dream that if you have a black belt then you are the safe one.

"Pick any weekend and go to a martial arts tournament, and you're going to see prima donnas dancing around, thinking that they're capable. And they'd probably all beat the hell out of me in points fighting. But do they actually have a hard enough fist, so that if they hit the skull, would their fists break? And can they take a real strike? That's why I like contact arts where you actually break tiles and bricks – you experience the impact. If you happen to break your knuckles doing it, then you know what that feels like too."

Danny is concerned that it's too easy to get a black belt these days. He says that when the UFC tournaments began, everyone became aware of the weaknesses of regular martial arts, because they were now seeing fighting where full blows and head shots were allowed. Danny recalls how many styles responded by adding the words 'full contact' to their advertising, although it wasn't actually full contact being taught, but rather, a marketing ploy.

"You've only got to look at UFC – which is 'as real as it gets' or as real as they can let it get – in the beginning you had judo, karate, kung fu, savate, tae kwon do, kick boxing, ninjitsu, jiu jitsu…you had a whole lot of disciplines. Now there's jiu jitsu, wrestling and some ground and pounding. They're all that are left. And the same thing has happened: everybody has suddenly introduced grappling to their marketing."

Danny would like to thank his wife Sarah and son Jian for their support and pay tribute to Jim Casey, Peter Ogilvie, Bob Jones, Les Smith and Norm Cowie for being martial artists who have influenced him.