As unbelievable as it may sound, I got into my first fight at the age of five. A classmate of mine approached me as I was selecting my textbooks from this large, communal table, and suddenly snatched the book I had chosen. Without saying anything I turned around and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could, which caused him to fall on the floor and start vomiting. Needless to say I remember the incident very vividly, I even remember the feeling of his stomach absorbing my punch. Since then I've been in quite a few scraps, although I would classify very few of them as being significantly violent.
Other memorable incidents include a fight where I knocked out another man's tooth (which left me a weird hook-shaped scar on my hand), a fight where I got hit in the ear so hard I couldn't hear out of it for a week, and the time I fought a fellow hockey player and broke his collarbone as we fell to the ice. Playing hockey has afforded me the opportunity, or rather responsibility, to explore the pugilistic side of life. However, I've never boasted about my fighting skills, and adhere strictly to the advice my mother gave me after that first fight; "Never throw the first punch, but when you're in a fight don't let up until you're sure it's over."
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