My Boxing Coach: Mister Hamilton

By Grandmaster Willem de Thouars

Some of my students asked Uncle Willem about the roots of his boxing. In 2022 he wrote this for my class: the story of Mister Hamilton, the boxing coach who trained him as a skinny, half-starved teenager in a Dutch military camp after World War II. I have only fixed a few typos. The voice is all his.

Guru Colby Bock

Some of my disciples made a special request for me to write about the Dutch-English boxing coach I had, in a Dutch military camp way back in 1946. My mother, younger brother and I and my two older brothers Maurice and Paul were reunited with our Father. Through the efforts of the Dutch Corporation my father worked for arranged our family's reunion in Thailand. We met there for the first time our Uncle Ventje, and many others to include also Willem Reeders. Ventje and Reeders were always together and always plotting something. There were 6 of them challenging a bus load of Thai boxers but Dutch MP restrained any further actions. We were together living in a Dutch military camp. While most found leisure time right after the end of the 2nd WW, were the British gurkhas still doing military training. In fact they had helped under a British special forces major to retrain a group of ex prisoners of war to get ready to recapture Dutch positions in Bali, Lombok, part of Sumatra and Java. The British major gave them the name of the Red Elephant Brigade or Cadja Merah. I saw those men from which some were my own uncles for their last training and were ready to be shipped out. It was hard for those men right after their infamous Burma Railroad experience having to train like special forces units. They came from one war and having to go back to another one.

Paul and Maurice began their first Serak training under Uncle Ventje in the Dutch military camp and were learning Serak in barracks. Some of the men who were the barracks' residents were scared to complain about the noise of Serak those two men were making teaching my two brothers. Paul and Maurice were tossed around like bags of potatoes. I declined the Serak training and from the little of martial arts I knew, I noticed the slender built Dutch man ring sparring his training partner another big Dutch man. I was overly impressed with the slender Dutch man who could jab someone's head several times to follow up with a left and right hook to the body as quickly as he started to jab. His footwork was incredible moving around making his body weight light like feathers. I understood then that Mister Hamilton was a middle weight class ring fighter. I was more attracted to learn from him for me badly in need to learn real martial arts. Because I was a skeleton figure for a teenager trying to recover from my undernourished war years and very weak. He knew Reeders and Ventje and were together at the Burma railroad tracks. Training under Mister Hamilton was a true reality check, and he was jabbing me softly to train me in how to take a punch first. You may do all the martial arts but against a good boxer who moves around like a ballerina dancer with fast jabs and powerful body punches could be hard to counter. Especially the old style boxers like Mister Hamilton who fought in his time sometimes 35 rounds at 2 and a half minute each round, take a lot of endurance.

Some people in the camp to include Reeders and Ventje were saying that my boxing coach did not want to fight them was a total lie. Because Hamilton could jab faster than Reeders or Ventje could unleash their elbow strokes or fast poekoelan punches. With stamina and endurance against a ring fighter who knew in how to take punishment but also double his retaliation of a good ring fighter would be impossible for a Serak practitioner to win one round. I do not care how good the kuntao or silat. My boxing coach taught me to finger jab many times on a hanging cotton bag filled with dry sand. He would toss the bag in the air and I had to observe the blow coming at me. I was hit in my ribs and lower stomach several times until I got educated to find a sufficient way of ducking rather than blocking. I am still grateful to my boxing coach for teaching me dirty boxing, it had helped me to overcome my limited understanding of realism. Because a good boxer in combat outside the ring could kill someone with one punch of knowing also the sensitive parts of the body. He also uses his knee butts to counter. And boxers also know in how to short shin kick. I respect all arts but respect good boxers more. And even Paul and Maurice were believing the big lie story that my boxing coach was afraid to fight Ventje or Reeders. From my learned experience and having observed them all, I knew it then who really could come out a winner. Mister Hamilton was always a kind but silent man with not many words but he remains my idol beside Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano as some of the fastest counter punchers. Another of my idols is also the old Sugar Ray Robinson. He was like a ballet dancer with some of the quickest hand patterns knocking out an opponent in an instant. I know I may not be the best of teachers but from what I know is to keep training for better health.

By Oom Willem de Thouars, another paatje from America.

Want to train in the art Uncle Willem built? Kuntao Silat de Thouars classes meet Thursdays at 6:30 PM MT in Louisville, CO, and live online. Visit ironfiremartialarts.com to get started.