Scott Radley: ‘It’s terminal now:’ Martial arts Hall of Famer Rick Joslin finds faith in the face of death

He wasn't always a guy who'd cry easily or quietly pray for random strangers as they walk past. Not his thing, really. When you're known as one of the toughest men in Hamilton, such softness would seem out of character. Even to himself.

Not anymore. So what's changed?

It's terminal now," Rick Joslin says.

Yeah, he's dying. The cancer that's gnawed at him three times over the past decade is back and growing, he says. This time there's no getting past it. The Hamilton Sports Hall of Famer who won three national karate titles before building one of the best-known martial arts gyms in the country - one that's trained thousands and thousands of Hamiltonians - now knows how his story will end.

Sad? Of course. But before this takes a turn for the maudlin, let's stop for a second and take stock. He has. This isn't just a gloomy story in the days before Christmas when people want to feel good. He'll be the first to tell you it's a tale of change and hope and optimism and beauty.

I'm not scared now because I have faith."

To really get why that is, and to understand just how completely his shell has softened, we have to go back to the late '60s.

In those days, a 17-year-old Rick Joslin was dipping his toe into biker gang life by hanging out with the Red Devils. It wasn't exactly Sons of Anarchy but people were intimidated. To be honest, that made it kind of cool.

He never got into real trouble. The worst he did was to drive over a police officer's foot one time when the cop wouldn't move out of the way. That earned him a night in the clink.

Was that his only night behind bars?

Oh no," he smiles. A couple times. Nothing big."

Yet even then he realized that if he'd stayed in that life, it would've led nowhere good. Fortuitously, a buddy in the group was taking karate at the Y. Joslin decided to tag along one time to see what it was about. That one decision changed the course of his life.

Within 18 months, he got his black belt. Right away he opened his first karate club at Scott Park High School and started training like a maniac. He talks about doing 8,000 crunches a day - when he had his appendix out a while back, the doctor told him he'd had to work to cut through his abdominal muscles because they were so tight - followed by 1,000 pushups and a 25-mile run.

That was our warmup," he laughs.

His focus had changed but the toughness hadn't. He could push himself to extremes. He could take a punch and a stiff kick, too, if you wanted. He could also deliver them. Always with purpose. When he threw one, it was sent with bad intentions. They were supposed to hurt. He had no remorse about delivering pain in competition. He was aggressive and angry.

I would say mean," he corrects.

Still, that anything-to-win attitude resulted in national titles. Then a kick-boxing team he led won 33 matches while losing zero. And by the mid-'70s, he had a growing gym on Concession Street that bore his name. Joslin's quickly became known around town as a place that'll teach you the ropes while toughening you up.

With his ripped physique and a fighter's nose that's been broken a few times but never quite set right, he looked every bit the part of a guy in charge of a venue like that.

He carried an aura that scared my friends," says his son, Jeff, a UFC fighter himself. He was intimidating."

Even as he aged, he could still walk the walk. Around 25 years ago , the manager of the Hamilton Bulldogs decided it would be good for his players to learn how to take care of themselves on the ice. So the entire roster came up to the gym to learn to fight.

During one of those sessions, Joslin turned to Georges Laraque - a six-foot-four, 250-pound behemoth who would become one of the NHL's most-feared heavyweights - and told him to punch him in the stomach. The big man wasn't sure he should slug a 50 year-old but after some assurances that it was OK, he delivered a half-hearted swing.

No," Joslin said. Hit me for real."

So he did. Whump. The teacher didn't flinch. Then he took his turn and ripped into Laraque's midsection.

Pretty sure he felt it," says Jeff, who was watching from the sidelines that day.

It was to this still-intimidating man that doctors delivered the message a decade or so ago that cancer had been found in his kidney. Surgery removed about a third of the organ and things looked OK. Until a couple years ago a new tumour the size of a baseball was found in his chest touching his heart. That, too, was removed along with a third of his left lung.

Once again he had hope for a recovery but growths were soon found in his chest again. Radiation shrunk them. But ...

Now it's gone live again and it's grown big," he says.

In a few weeks he'll have a CT scan and he'll find out how much time he has. He'd love a year. He has no idea if that's reasonable.

The entire situation could make him angry. Years ago such a turn of events probably would've. Not now. Instead, he's remarkably at peace. And he's happy to explain why.

He grew up in the church but left that behind years ago. Today he's back. God is central to his life. He prays all the time and has found comfort in that. He says he's now been given fresh eyes to see the loveliness in everyday things that once he'd ignore. And experiences he can't explain.

He was out for a walk one day and had just prayed as he often did when the whole side of his body inexplicably started to feel beautifully warm. It stayed that way for a while as he sat on a bench and wept.

He says people can think he's crazy if they want, but he knows it was God.

He was holding my hand," he says.

Telling the story takes a while because of the emotion that overtakes him again and again. The words repeatedly get choked back and the tears flow freely. The man whose hardened exterior once terrified opponents has now been entirely softened.

Not weakened. Softened. There's a difference.

He has to share this tale, he says. Not telling people about the most beautiful thing he ever experienced would be selfish. He's taught martial arts to over 20,000 students. This is even more important. He wants people to know. You can listen or not, he says, but it's true.

From that moment, I don't ask for any more miracles," he says. I've seen enough."

That doesn't mean he's given up. He'd love to recover. He'd be thrilled to find out the tumours have shrunk or disappeared. He's written goodbye letters to his children and ex-wife and friends to be delivered once he's gone. He'd love not to have them handed out. Yet he's accepted whatever will happen and he's prepared.

I'm so much at peace," he says.

And still tough.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com