In defense of boxing.

[recovering_fan]

(Warning: this post is an honest analysis of human psychology, but some readers with a severe aversion to violent human aggression may find passages jarring and unpleasant.)

Hello World,

My views on boxing have altered considerably under the tutelage of a couple of my most learned friends from Blighty. I am now going to tell you all how I sincerely feel about the fight game, now that my views have been altered for me.

In another thread (http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... 215#p20215), ...

...fool that I was, I wrote:

I consider sports utterly pointless...

Then Najib wrote:

You have the right not to partake in sport and to live the life you want. But you are also going to have to bow to the knee to me in regards your views about boxing...

And he was right, and I had no choice but to fall a genoux before him. Here is my new and improved view on boxing, a sport which I consider a useful tool for helping some people fit into society:

Boxing can improve the character of two types of people. If a young man (or in rare cases a young woman) is violently angry and aggressive, boxing can help the person channel and control that anger. Why is it so much more effective a means to that end than is, say, some other sport? The reason is that in boxing you are allowed to "unleash hell" on your opponent. Are you an "angry young man"? Well, you are allowed to swing as ruthlessly as you like until you win the bout. The only consequence, unfortunately for you, is that he can do the same. And if you simply flail at him without thinking or planning you will get hit, and it is painful. Over time, you will learn to think and observe situations before attacking people. The fight game, say its proponents, will condition you to do so.

The second type of person whom boxing (or any other martial art) can help is the "defeated wife." For a good depiction of the "defeated wife", watch Joanne Woodward playing Eve White in The Three Faces of Eve (1957). I don't understand the learning mechanism as well in her case as I did for the "angry young man", but if she trains for fights at a gym, then the experience of hitting things and acting aggressively may make her more assertive in real life. I don't know whether in her case it as necessary to actually fight anyone, and the sheer act of hitting the trainer's glove may prove sufficient.

Boxing is also possibly the most intense form of aerobic exercise available.

Now these are my honest views on the subject. They are not views that Tajib forced on me. (That much was a joke.) They are my own views that I arrived at through reflection. If anyone wants to find fault with them, I would like to hear what you have against boxing. I will soon be starting a new thread to convince people why they should not waste time on watching or following the sport, even though it is worth pursuing as exercise.

--RF

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PS--Boxing is not for everybody. There are drawbacks...

(1) The sport could teach well-adjusted and mild mannered men that it is correct to hit people.
(2) Obviously, getting bludgeoned repeatedly may cause brain damage.
(3) Fighting and losing too often could hurt a shy boy's confidence.

[Fat Man]

I believe that learning the Martial Arts is so much better than boxing.

The Martial Arts teaches discipline, how to control one's anger and when people know, that you are into the Martial Arts, they will hesitate to fuck with you.

I know that if I were really pissed off at someone, but if I knew that he could break boards with his bare hand, or take a bow and break concrete blocks with his face, well, no matter how pissed off I might be with him, NO WAY am I going to fuck with him. I would have to be insane!

I may me crazy, I may be nuts, but I'm not that stupid or insane.

Also, people who are trained in the discipline of the Martial Arts are not going to go around bullying other people around. They are not going to use their abilities to intimidate other people, unlike most jocks who like to intimidate and bully people around through brute strength.

If you know Karate, and somebody tries to pick shit with you, all you have to do is warn that person that you're trained in the Martial Arts, and if they have any sense at all they will back down.

It's only when some moron still wants to pick shit with you, then a few good choice kicks is enough to convince them to back down, and then you won't find it necessary to keep on pummeling the sucker.

And you don't have to be really physically strong either. I wouldn't even mess around with a 90 year old lady if I thought she knew Karate!

I have heard of little old ladies trained in the Martial Arts beating the ever-living crap out of truck drivers!

Learning the Martial Arts is much better than boxing and you won't end up a drooling punch-drunk moron as you get much older.

That's my stand on boxing.

[recovering_fan]

I believe that learning the Martial Arts is so much better than boxing.
The Martial Arts teaches discipline, how to control one's anger...

Yes, but there are too many rules to follow in Karate (as there are in other violent sports like American football), and that may render it unappealing at first to someone who just wants to "let it all out". I have never taken Karate, but I believe it is the teacher who disciplines the students. In boxing, it is the sport itself that disciplines people, and it could be argued that the sport does a much better job of it than any human could. In boxing, the gloves themselves do a lot to prevent the fighter from hurting his opponent. He can flail away, but his hands are to some degree tied.

Also, people who are trained in the discipline of the Martial Arts are not going to go around bullying other people around. They are not going to use their abilities to intimidate other people, unlike most jocks who like to intimidate and bully people around through brute strength.

That sounds incorrect to me. I'm sure there are many bullies who are skilled in the Martial Arts.

If you know Karate, and somebody tries to pick shit with you, all you have to do is warn that person that you're trained in the Martial Arts, and if they have any sense at all they will back down....It's only when some moron still wants to pick shit with you, then a few good choice kicks is enough to convince them to back down, and then you won't find it necessary to keep on pummeling the sucker.

It sounds like you are assuming here that "might makes right", as long as that "might" consists of being skilled in the Martial Arts. Why would you assume, just a because a person has learned some new skills that allow him or her to hurt other people, that the person is now on the side of the angels? What if the person who decided to "pick shit" was the more skilled of the two in Karate?

My argument in favour of boxing was never about arming people with new fighting skills. It was about how the sport could allow certain individuals to channel and control their anger. It could teach the violent young man that there are consequences to lashing out at people. It could also help the submissive wife to release the anger that had been building inside her. Before she took up boxing, she might have dealt with her anger by bottling it up, by directing it inward, or by being masochistic.

[recovering_fan]

Incidentally, I have decided not to begin a thread about how much "smarter" chess players are than boxers (and other athletes). Strangely enough, attacking and dominating intellectual opponents no longer holds the same appeal for me now that I'm 30 as did when I was 13. Have I grown up, or am I growing old?

Then again, Fat Man, the sort nonsense you had to put up with in INTRODUCTIONS does require a response.