Archive for India

Cheryl Lynch-Gardner and the Red Brigade

Posted in Journalism, Kickboxing, Real Men with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2015 by Jarrod Boyle

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Blitz Martial Arts Magazine, Vol.28, No.11, November 2014

“The problem in India is not that there are rapists,” says Cheryl Lynch-Gardner, co-founder of Budo-Ryu Kempo. “[Here in Australia there are] Rape Crisis Centers, counseling; there is a system. There’s no damn system over there.”

Cheryl’s involvement in the martial arts has led to her from Sydney’s western suburbs, halfway around the world to teach self-defense to Indian women. It seems like a practical fix for a universal problem, but in the macro, Cheryl’s work is part of a widespread effort to turn the tides of history and culture, one person at a time. Continue reading

Desperate Romantic: My Life as a Stalker (A Lamentably True Story)

Posted in Acts of devotion, Love letters, Observation, Real Men with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 20, 2014 by Jarrod Boyle

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“If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy. Truth is, everybody’s gonna hurt you; you just have to find the ones worth suffering for.”

– Bob Marley

“Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…”

– Corinthians, 13: 6-7

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Sometimes it’s best to begin a story at the end. Which, in this case, was in the office of my psychologist. Continue reading

Maseh Nuristani

Posted in Journalism, Kickboxing with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2012 by Jarrod Boyle

International Kickboxer Magazine, July/August 2012

Maseh Nuristani is the most recent fighter to emerge from James Roesler’s ‘Ultimate’ Gym in Hopper’s Crossing, Victoria. He speaks to Jarrod Boyle about first fights, first wins, losses and all the things that make an up-and-comer aim for the sky. Continue reading

Love Letter

Posted in Love letters, Writing with tags , , , , on October 8, 2010 by Jarrod Boyle

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I remember on Sex and the City how Carrie Bradshaw was a big reader of the love-letters of ‘great’ men; I was inspired by this notion at the time. I looked up some of the letters, Beethoven’s specifically and was, well, disappointed. Not that I am a ‘great’ man (no one other than me seems to think so, anyway,) but I have always felt that this letter was one of my better efforts.

It’s strange to think that all my writing, all that work, can boil down to one single effort, much like a sprinter’s entire training life can be boiled down to that sub-ten seconds he’s tearing along that hundred meter track. But I guess that’s the thing; ordinary lives find their extraordinary moments for that finite stretch of seconds, or words, or moments.

So here’s mine. The girl is long gone; I’m certainly the better for it. But I remember being transfixed by a sorrow so great it could only be described as grief, and here are the thousand-odd words I wrote in the hope of transfiguring it into something more than a squalid agony.       

Continue reading

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