"Do not punch the head! I want you to punch the body!" There was no bell, only loud pop music on a timer. When the music started he came at me with those two big 18-ounce gloves, growling like a cornered leopard, covering the distance between the edge of the training mat and me in a second. Sweat was dripping off his face, into the sweater he wore over his training suit, face pulled somewhere between a snarl and a smile, he started throwing straight punches to my chest.
This was Henk Pelser – trainer of champions – at his best. Growling and swinging fists is what he liked more than anything in the world. He was having a ball.
I remember the first day I met him. It was Saturday, 29 February 1992. I was at a martial arts tournament in Randgate, Johannesburg. It was my first competition and my coach of the time was a welterweight who held amateur national colours. He said: "I want to show you the heavyweight champion, so that you know what you'll come up against in the future." We walked outside to where a few fighters were standing and I saw him, chatting with a few friends about his world title challenge. I have never been so intimidated in my life by just looking at a guy. I've already been a paratrooper and saw men as mean as they come, but this guy had killer written in his eyes and you knew he didn't need a gun. I just walked past him, furiously shaking my head at my coach who was about to introduce us. What could I say; I didn't want to stare this guy in the eyes with both of us knowing that we'll probably meet in the ring. I was not in his league and still had to fight my way up from the beginners' level. About six feet tall and 200 pounds didn't make him the biggest guy around, but people moved out of the way wherever he went. He commanded the respect of even the most seasoned fighters.
To most, he looked a bit weird, always wearing brightly coloured gym pants and a tight T-shirt, sporting long yellowish hair and a thin beard that looked like a tweezed ponytail clinging to his chin. Some chuckled at him, but swallowed audibly when he looked them in the eye. In the fighting world, he was well respected. His life and upbringing was never easy one and it showed. He trained the only way he knew – hard. Coming from a humble background, he worked from a young age on machinery and in the mines and was a qualified shaft sinker. His arms resembled those of a lumberjack and I heard stories of explosions and mine accidents that broke his legs but never dented his spirit or fighting ability. When he was in the army, he would take bets that nobody could knock him down with those 60 milimetre mortar pipes. He tripled his monthly wages with the winnings. He was one hard nut, tough as old leather and quick as a whip.
One day, he was doing an endurance session in the gym when a few powerlifters, who were watching him, stopped him. These guys were national competitors in their sport and one was known for appearances in strongman competitions. He was the main man. "Henk, why are you running around this place, training like a madman?" "Well," Henk said, "I'm working on my stamina." "Yes," the main man said "we can see it will make you fit, but how hard are you?"
"I'm hard enough."
"Henk, I'll drop you with one punch to the body!" Now, Henk was rarely challenged, but this guy was about 120kg of solid muscle and dwarfed Henk. Henk said: "Okay, you can hit me and then I‘ll hit you. Take your TEN best shots," and Henk lifted his arms to expose his torso.
This powerlifter took a three step run-up and smacked his fist in Henk's abdomen with all his might, pushing him a few paces backwards. Henk just smiled and came forward again with his arms still lifted up. The powerlifter proceeded with a few run-up punches, hitting with all his power and started to get out of breath and ended up standing with his hands on his knees. Henk mentioned that he didn't take his full ten shots yet but the man said he's tired. Then Henk said that it was now his turn and the powerlifter just said "No f**k you, I've seen you hit that bag, no waaay!"
So now you may have a picture of Henk Pelser, but this would be the one most people had of him. The only problem with this picture is that it is only a small part of this man whom I grew to respect more than any trainer I've ever met in my life and I've travelled and competed in a few countries.
My trip to Henk went via a few coaches. The first coach was a fellow university student and dropped out, leaving us with a guy who was not interested in coaching as much as chatting up the female fighters. Another interim coach later I graduated to advanced level and could run the kickboxing gym and took over, opening it on new premises. I coached, but had to travel to be coached. I asked the chief instructor (I was still and amateur) of the organization to coach me and he agreed. But a few fights later, he stopped coaching amateurs and handed me over to his assistant, who after a so-so amateur career, took me to my first professional fight. In the meantime, I fought a few of Henk's fighters – with mixed results, losing a vacant provincial title to one of them.
The organization to which we belonged, was called Ring Contact Fighting Art and was a whole martial arts system and incorporated both a knock-down karate system, which we called semi-contact, because it didn't allow full power punches to the head and kickboxing, which was called full contact, which did.
After obtaining my first dan, I mostly trained by myself while the coaches that I used were opening new gyms and running around. The net effect was that I was running out of coaches and in my first two years as a professional, I had only two fights. I kept busy with semi-contact fights and training fighters and some bouncers for my business. In 1996 I attended a semi-contact tournament in an open-air even at the Randfontein show. There were not many heavyweights there and when we weighed in there were only two people in my weight category, myself and – surprise, surprise – Henk Pelser. He was about 40 years old at this time. I saw him warm up and prepare for our fight. By this time, I have grown up a bit, have been bouncing a few years and faced a few heavies in the night club. My confidence was good and I decided to take the fight to Henk. When the bell went I wanted to kick him, but he simply punched me in the chest, so hard that I almost fell over. He punched like a bus! I decided to go into overdrive and bank on my fitness and speed and fought like a man possessed. I just went at him, throwing what felt like 120 punches per minute for the duration of the one-round fight. I won on points, but I never hurt him and he was just chuckling and having a ball. After the fight he came to me. "You must come and train under my wing." I was taken aback. "Really?" "Yes, who else is there than can train you?" He was right and we both knew it. So a week or two later, I took a few of my fighters and we drove the 90km to the smallholdings where he lived and farmed. He built his gym right next to his house.
There we met his fighters – a few national champs, one world title contender and a few provincial title holders in full contact and semi-contact. We met his wife and kids – all of them training and competing.
So there we were, all lined up in rows like a military squad to accommodate all his students, when a goose walked into the gym. It just walked in and ambled in between us where we stood spaced out. Henk just talked to the goose like he was Mother Hen "Come goosey, come goosey, just walk out. Yes, we are busy here, you can come back later." He went completely soft. The goose came in on several occasions over the next few months, as did his kids' little poodle. And he went soft when he worked with us. He never raised his voice in any way other than to be heard above the thumping pop music which we trained on. He had a very unique language and developed his own personal repertoire of expressions that he used appropriately and inappropriately, but he never cursed. I've never heard him curse that I can remember and he addressed women with respect, calling them ma'am and missus so and so.
And he laughed, all the time, loving to make jokes and loving to hear them – in the gym and out. His training sessions were tough, but he did everything with us. I've never seen a 40-year old with a more ripped physique. He never seemed to get tired and he challenged us all and could do more sit-ups than me (to my disgust) and would challenge everyone to their best performance. During this process he would cheer them on and when they achieve it, just say: "I knew you could. Next time, we'll make it 120. I know you can make it, it's in you." Henk made us amaze ourselves. I was in better shape training under him than when I was in the military as a paratrooper. I ran 10km in 35 minutes; could do 200 push-ups in sets of 50 and 2,000 abdominal exercises sets of 400. I could spar 20 hard rounds with rotating opponents – Henk being my opponent every odd round. We trained hard, sweating under the layers upon layers of clothing in the heat (his method for training under pressure) and wearing too much padding (for protection and weight).
He believed in us and when we saw the results, we believed in us also. We trusted him completely and he was very honest about whether we were ready to fight a specific opponent or not. His fighters rarely lost and his gym became notorious for producing quality competitors.
One of his fighters was a man who was not what you'd call a natural athlete. In fact, this guy had great trouble punching straight and putting combinations together. His body didn't want to do what he told it to do, but his determination was unmistakable. Henk saw this inner strength and knew that physical repetition was all that was needed. Both of them worked on it with tenacity. This man would stand in the corned of field practicing his kicks and punches while Henk was on the tractor, pulling the plough up and down the rows, shouting at the student to keep it up. This went on for hours a day, many days on end. Well, that man became national middleweight champion. It took a full commitment from both of them and bore fruit in terms of the top prize. How many coaches would do that?
There were people from all walks of life, miners, mechanics, the unemployed, school students and then some. He never turned anyone away and nobody left. This tough, scary looking man became the dearest person to us all. A few miles away lived an old man with his five year old grandson. Where the parents were, I don't remember, but this old man died and the kid had nowhere to go. That was for about an hour or so and then Henk collected him, packed all his things and put him in a room with his son. "This is your new brother and this is your new sister. I'm Henk and you can call me Henk or anything you like." People who met Henk after this summary adoption never knew that the kid was adopted, since he treated and loved the boy like his own.
Nearby, on another smallholding, lived a family with a father that was a little too fond of the bottle and weed. He kept sending his 18-year old son to buy liquor and was stoned a lot. Physical abuse was the order of the day and his one friend at school, who happened to be Henk's eldest son, found out about it. This was during the final matriculation exams and the kids needed all their concentration since this was the ticket to university, a job and life. Henk pitched up at the smallholding in his truck, told the kid to get his clothes, books and anything he liked and put it on the truck, since he's going to live with him for the next two or three weeks until the matriculation exams have finished. Henk stood there, fists balled, not taking his eyes off the father and said: "You're not coming near him until the exams have finished and if you ever abuse him, or make him buy your liquor, I'll come and knock your block off, hear?" Neighbourly love in action.
This was Henk. He was not wealthy, but had enough to live and feed his family. The strange thing is that whenever anyone needed money, Henk would give it to them – never expecting it back. When I decided to move my kickboxing gym, he drove all the way to the town where I lived and helped me with it – giving me the needed equipment until I could afford my own. When I wanted to make a comeback to fighting after a four year sabbatical, he drove 100km to me in his minibus two to three times a week, bringing training mats to train lay on the floor in the garage to work out on.
He never lied to us and when I was in the ring, I never felt alone. His voice was always there, giving instructions. He never coached from the corner, he did everything with us. He took me to the national professional heavyweight title. I went so well prepared and with such confidence that the results shocked even those who followed my fighting career. When you won, he would say that he knew it was in you and let you bask in it and if you lost, would comfort you and lay out his plan of how to recover from it. Whenever a judge seemed impartial at a competition, Henk would be all over him like a cheap suit – whether it was his own fighters or not – because he disliked unfairness. He would never let you fight if you weren't ready. Unlike most coaches, he cared more about the fighter than the money and more often than not, he didn't take his entitled cut from my purse.
I have been coached by some of the best coaches in the world. Some of them knew technically more than Henk, or were better connected, but nobody cared more than Henk, nobody built confidence like Henk and nobody could pull the absolute best out of me like Henk did. I trusted Henk more than anyone of them. Henk cared. He cared for his students inside and outside the ring. He shared so much of himself that, sadly, it impacted his marriage. This was the only thing that I could see really scarred him. He went on, as we expect a fighter to do, and we went on. I retired from fighting and pursued a corporate career, but Henk's impact stays forever. We still chat from time to time on the phone. After all these years, he still calls me "sensei" and I can't bear to call him anything but "shihan". He is still out there near Johannesburg, coaching and I hope he's stopped fighting as he should be over 50 now. However, I would not be surprised if the old fighter would still give a few young chaps a run for it. I'm just concerned that a young buck may hurt him, since he'll probably take "anyone at anytime" and his body may not agree with his spirit.
This is to you old fighter; May God pave your way and may the seeds of care that you sowed, return a great harvest to you. Salute!
Your student,
Kobus Huisamen
June 2008
