So sad

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KeithA
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Re: So sad

Post by KeithA »

Malcolm wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:08 pm
Danny wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:58 pm https://www.fox5ny.com/news/boxer-jeane ... fter-fight

Zapata, from Mexico, suffered a series of power punches in the corner of the ring. After a solid uppercut, she seemed stunned near the end of the fourth round. A final right hook knocked her mouthguard out and left her unable to return to her corner after the bell rang.
Boxing should be illegal.
Heard a commentator say that to watch boxing was to witness murder in slow motion.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: So sad

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

KeithA wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:21 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:08 pm
Danny wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:58 pm https://www.fox5ny.com/news/boxer-jeane ... fter-fight

Zapata, from Mexico, suffered a series of power punches in the corner of the ring. After a solid uppercut, she seemed stunned near the end of the fourth round. A final right hook knocked her mouthguard out and left her unable to return to her corner after the bell rang.
Boxing should be illegal.
Heard a commentator say that to watch boxing was to witness murder in slow motion.
That's ridiculous, and they've never seen a murder, or are just speaking in hyperbole. Asocial violence like a murder is a completely different animal than a consensual boxing match, even with the exploitation, brutality, etc. Thinking otherwise is ignorant of what Boxing is, and what violence is.

It makes the arguments against Boxing a lot less convincing when they come from a place of ignorance, y'all need to educate yourselves a little. I mean you're not wrong on the brutality and such, and I'd even entertain an argument about it being illegal, but seriously.
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KeithA
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Re: So sad

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:25 pm
KeithA wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:21 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:08 pm

Boxing should be illegal.
Heard a commentator say that to watch boxing was to witness murder in slow motion.
That's ridiculous, and they've never seen a murder, or are just speaking in hyperbole. Asocial violence like a murder is a completely different animal than a consensual boxing match, even with the exploitation, brutality, etc. Thinking otherwise is ignorant of what Boxing is, and what violence is.

It makes the arguments against Boxing a lot less convincing when they come from a place of ignorance, y'all need to educate yourselves a little. I mean you're not wrong on the brutality and such, and I'd even entertain an argument about it being illegal, but seriously.
Maybe so...it's easy to dismiss the " exploitation, brutality, etc", though. I am a ex US Army Infantry Sgt., so I have seen plenty of violence. Putting poor people in the ring to bash each others brains in is barbaric in the extreme. :emb:
When walking, standing, sitting, lying down, speaking,
being silent, moving, being still.
At all times, in all places, without interruption - what is this?
One mind is infinite kalpas.

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Malcolm
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Re: So sad

Post by Malcolm »

TharpaChodron wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:13 pm
Malcolm wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:55 pm
TharpaChodron wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:49 pm I know a 13 year old girl who is boxing, she is also of Mexican-American heritage. I detest how dangerous and violent this "sport" is, but to her she feels it's empowering. She told me she goes to fight in boxing matches and says to herself, "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make progress." It is twisted that in order for some to feel they have some power, they end up being turned into "fighters", like Roman slaves/Gladiators pleasing the elites. It's always the poorest who find boxing as their way up, be it in Cuba, Mexico, you name it. Rich white dudes don't box. They don't need to.
My distaste for boxing began when I was in 7th grade, and some guys in Gym class were hassling me for having long hair (1974). The coach, a major asshole, gave us boxing gloves, and had us fight in front of the whole class. Needless to say, I more or less just kept my head down. It sucked. Also, all the guys on the football team sucked too. Hence my distaste for both sports.
For sure. I’ve never been fond of gym class and dumb jocks myself. Then you find out later in life that they aren’t all morons, they’re sometimes working class heroes, some maybe even Rhodes Scholars. But not Tom Brady, that guy is a douche.
I don’t have anything against football, other than the fact I would never allow any kid of mine to play. I also have nothing against boxers or football players. It’s the sports I object to.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: So sad

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KeithA wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:33 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:25 pm
KeithA wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:21 pm

Heard a commentator say that to watch boxing was to witness murder in slow motion.
That's ridiculous, and they've never seen a murder, or are just speaking in hyperbole. Asocial violence like a murder is a completely different animal than a consensual boxing match, even with the exploitation, brutality, etc. Thinking otherwise is ignorant of what Boxing is, and what violence is.

It makes the arguments against Boxing a lot less convincing when they come from a place of ignorance, y'all need to educate yourselves a little. I mean you're not wrong on the brutality and such, and I'd even entertain an argument about it being illegal, but seriously.
Maybe so...it's easy to dismiss the " exploitation, brutality, etc", though. I am a ex US Army Infantry Sgt., so I have seen plenty of violence. Putting poor people in the ring to bash each others brains in is barbaric in the extreme. :emb:
That's not entirely accurate first of all, second all, Boxing is a lot more than professional boxing, and has been around 100's of years, 1000's by some counts. It used to be a lot more brutal than it is today. It has a dark history, but not entirely.

But feel free to continue the moral high-horsing. Like I said, having actually been in a Boxing gym (have you?) I know enough to know the moral and personal landscape surrounding it is much more complex than these simplistic claims - though I do acknowledge it can be brutal and exploitative - especially at the professional level. I'm not dismissing these things at all, but I actually know the history of combat sport and martial arts, so listening to you guys talk is vexing in some ways, for the most part I think you just don't really know what you are talking about. You're not entirely wrong with your moral objections, it's just that your impression of these things seems such a caricature of the reality that one wouldn't even know where to start in terms of explanation.

Secondly, if you've seen actual violence you shouldn't need to me to tell you what a hyperbolic, moralistic comparison it is to equate a consensual (and yeah, that part gets iffy with money involved the way it is) combat sport to murder. It's similar to listening to a right-winger complain about escorts leading to sexual immorality across the board or something. It's not that there's nothing there to criticize, just that the criticism is so cartoonish it is hard to take seriously.
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KristenM
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Re: So sad

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:57 pm
TharpaChodron wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:49 pm I know a 13 year old girl who is boxing, she is also of Mexican-American heritage. I detest how dangerous and violent this "sport" is, but to her she feels it's empowering. She told me she goes to fight in boxing matches and says to herself, "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make progress." It is twisted that in order for some to feel they have some power, they end up being turned into "fighters", like Roman slaves/Gladiators pleasing the elites. It's always the poorest who find boxing as their way up, be it in Cuba, Mexico, you name it. Rich white dudes don't box. They don't need to.
Despite it's reputation and the admitted brutality and exploitation that comes with the competitive aspect, for some kids Boxing is both a way off the streets and a significant source of discipline and long term personal growth, such as it is. Not all gyms exclusively turn people into fighters, it varies. There are plenty of gyms that have hobbyists, fitness people etc. attending them too.

But yes, these days an honest to god old school boxing gym is likely to be one of the least white places you can hang out, in my experience. Honestly that's a good thing sometimes and it makes me recall it even more fondly to read white Buddhists on an online forum talk about how it should be illegal :tongue:

While there's some truth to the criticisms here, y'all really have no idea what you're talking about if you haven't stepped into a Boxing gym and spent some time there, there are real positive aspects to it, though I don't think they make up for negatives generally. Professional Boxing and kids who wanna be champ is one aspect of it, as is exploitation and brutality, but it is by no means the only one, and there is a part of boxing that is pretty removed from professional aspirations.
Rich white dudes don't box. They don't need to.
Uh, Logan Paul. Sometimes they do. Mickey Rourke had a whole really dumb rich guy boxing "career".
Agreed. The kid I was talking about gets a lot of benefits from boxing. It takes a lot of skill, determination and discipline, among other things. It’s just so dangerous.

And I don’t know that Mickey Rourke is a good example of a rich white guy who was into boxing. He’s a wrong side of the tracks type who made good. But his face says everything.
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Re: So sad

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See my post earlier, Boxing is a dangerous sport, but people participate in more dangerous sports than Boxing pretty regularly. You have to separate moral reaction to it from the actual danger. It's substantial, but last I checked equivalent or sometimes even less than other contact sports - e.g Rugby, Football, etc.

Beyond that, if a person doesn't compete the safety level is completely down to the philosophy of the gym and the people training. There are some where people go all out, then there are some where most sparring is light and technical aside from competitors occasionally turning up the temperature.

Keep in mind, amateur competition happens at a bunch of different levels and is different from professional boxing. Again, I'd never let my kids do either, but I've 1) participated in a combat sport myself (Karate prior to modern rulesets, wouldn't have let my kids do that either the way it worked back then) and 2) done a reasonable amount of research on the risks of Boxing. I've also experienced both consensual fights and non-consensual violence in my life. Boxing is not non-consensual violence, and is not comparable, not even in mechanical terms.

I found that the risks of boxing seem substantial, but not in a way that particularly sets them apart from other contact sports - most of the reaction is down to people witnessing what they think is "violence" broadly, not to the safety data.

Anyway, the greatest risk is a busted body, failed dreams, and CTE risks.. so few people make it big. Whenever I would talk to the young guys in the gym I would try to slip in something like "well ya know, this can be great for you even if you never compete" and things like that, so that at least we were talking about the value of it outside of competition...but ya know, young people. ;)
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Knotty Veneer
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Re: So sad

Post by Knotty Veneer »

I don't know about the US but in the UK there are only boxing clubs in working class areas. Why is that?

I cannot believe that in a civilized society sports where participants are regularly knocked out or hurt to the point that they cannot continue are celebrated.

Here boxing clubs in poor areas (and they are always in poor areas) promote the idea that it channels violence and keeps young people out of trouble but surely there must be other, better ways that don't risk brain injury??
Last edited by Knotty Veneer on Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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muni
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Re: So sad

Post by muni »

The first idee what comes up by me when watching boxing is: this is crazy. How many teeth will flow out, and what worse?

But then I heard there are people organizing boxing training in big cities for young frustrated ones hanging around on the street, being violent, having problems with the police and are said to become less violent by their boxing training.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/bl ... twaytostop
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Re: So sad

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Knotty Veneer wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:07 am I don't know about the US but in the UK there are only boxing clubs in working class areas. Why is that?

I cannot believe that in a civilized society sports where participants are regularly knocked out or hurt to the point that they cannot continue are celebrated.

Here boxing clubs in poor areas (and they are always in poor areas) promote the idea that it channels violence and keeps young people out of trouble but surely there must be other, better ways that don't risk brain injury??
Idk, maybe you should learn more about it before assuming you understand it?

Also, there is such a thing as safe training. It varies widely from gym to gym but #1 there is a big part of training that doesn’t involve punching a partner at all, #2 there are different intensity levels of sparring. #3 Some people never compete.

In short, if you’ve never done a combat sport you probably have a very skewed notion of safety around this stuff because you mistakenly think that the popular competitions reflect most people’s training, and don’t understand how the training works, nor the variety of ways one can participate at some Boxing gyms.
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Genjo Conan
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Re: So sad

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I used to play judo, with a little bit of BJJ and no-gi grappling thrown in. I think judo is probably somewhat safer than boxing, but I do have some chronic injuries as a result, and I think I suffered at least one undiagnosed concussion. I saw a few acute injuries in some of the people I trained with. And people do die practicing and competing in judo, from time to time. There's no way to make a combat sport perfectly safe.

That said, I agree with Johnny that combat sports are not nearly as dangerous as they're usually portrayed. Most training--like, 90+ percent--is about grooving in movement patterns, rather than trying to whomp the other dude. Even competition: a lot of people compete in combat sports, and most people come out of it OK.

Personally, I wouldn't let my kid play a striking sport, and I'd even feel a little iffy about letting her participate in a grappling sport, but playing judo was a very positive thing for me.
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Re: So sad

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If we had Judo in my town still, I would let my kid compete, but just like Boxing, you can get pretty good training without competing anyway, and often with minimal injury risk. In class sparring is almost always safer than competition, providing you have sane training partners.

Personally, I know a fair number of Judoka and I see the most common injuries being busted fingers and knees. I think there’s some risk of concussion from falls, but nothing like striking arts. Still, I think the risk vs reward for Judo is not bad, kids really benefit from it and IMO the danger is much less than a striking combat sport.

I have a couple of injuries from Judo that flare up from time to time though, and I only did it for a year or so. The worst injury I have sustained in 30 years of martial arts is a torn PCL, though I do think that I took some risky hits as a kid/teen in Karate tourneys, if I had it to do over I’d be safer.
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Genjo Conan
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Re: So sad

Post by Genjo Conan »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:44 pm
Personally, I know a fair number of Judoka and I see the most common injuries being busted fingers and knees. I think there’s some risk of concussion from falls, but nothing like striking arts. Still, I think the risk vs reward for Judo is not bad, kids really benefit from it and IMO the danger is much less than a striking combat sport.
I broke a toe, and I have some chronic elbow ouchies (that's the technical term) from grip-fighting, which is a pretty common complaint. No-gi grappling is probably easier on the body in that respect. The concussion was from training: we were practicing ippon seoi nage, and my training partner didn't rotate enough and dumped me on my head. I was able to walk away from it, but I definitely wasn't all there for a little while afterwards.

The acute injuries I've seen have almost all been blown knees: people trying to turn and plant, while being pulled/pushed/tripped/etc. But maybe 2-3 of those in some years of training. One broken collarbone.

I agree with you about the benefits for kids: I was extremely fortunate as a child to have a woman named Rusty Kanokogi as my teacher. It was only as an adult that I learned she was a legit badass. That was a great experience. My hesitation around letting my own kid participate in grappling sports is mostly my own parental anxiety, rather than a strict cost/benefit analysis (my kid shows no sign of being interested, so it's probably a non-issue).
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Re: So sad

Post by Malcolm »

Genjo Conan wrote: Tue Sep 07, 2021 8:23 pm
That said, I agree with Johnny that combat sports are not nearly as dangerous as they're usually portrayed. Most training--like, 90+ percent--is about grooving in movement patterns, rather than trying to whomp the other dude. Even competition: a lot of people compete in combat sports, and most people come out of it OK.
I have trained in Aikido and a little bit of Taichi.

Aikido came in useful, in defending other people. I never personally needed to use Aikido to defend myself.

Tai chi, on the other hand, I did not like, or least I did not like the instructor's approach, who insisted on connecting all the movements with a blow and its effects on an opponent. It turned me off to Tai Chi permanently.

Tibetan martial arts are more straight forward: wrestling, archery, and hacking away at enemies with swords. No pretension towards subtlety or art.
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Re: So sad

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Malcolm wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:55 pm My distaste for boxing began when I was in 7th grade, and some guys in Gym class were hassling me for having long hair (1974). The coach, a major asshole, gave us boxing gloves, and had us fight in front of the whole class. Needless to say, I more or less just kept my head down. It sucked.
Barbaric! Was that in Texas by any chance?

Such experiences led me to study martial arts.
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Re: So sad

Post by Malcolm »

tingdzin wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:06 am
Malcolm wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:55 pm My distaste for boxing began when I was in 7th grade, and some guys in Gym class were hassling me for having long hair (1974). The coach, a major asshole, gave us boxing gloves, and had us fight in front of the whole class. Needless to say, I more or less just kept my head down. It sucked.
Barbaric! Was that in Texas by any chance?

Such experiences led me to study martial arts.
Western Massachusetts.
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Re: So sad

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I got the shit beaten out of me and was forced into fights pretty regularly as a kid and teen. Been through a few muggings, and I’ve been randomly shot at.

Martial arts helped me channel a lot of that baggage. I’m not sure I would have been able to deal with stuff the same way if I hadn’t been training. It also taught me that there is often a big difference between the violence that comes with young male pecking order stuff, and the violence that comes from actual predators. Those categories can overlap, but they aren’t the same.

Personally, I would way rather see a kid who is going to be fighting anyway and lives in a terrible environment put that energy into a combat sport, and spend time in the gym…even with the downsides and risks, which vary greatly as mentioned. Depending on where they grow up, it might very well be a marked improvement.

Sure, some counseling and a more stable life with better choices overall would be preferable, but judging poor people for doing boxing is just…..ignorant of context. Go ask some old timers what they got out of the gym, some of it is quite positive, mixed in with the ugly stuff we’ve been talking about.

I’m not advocating Buddhist get into boxing or combat sport by any means, just saying, different people have different sets of choices and what may seem like purely ugliness or brutality from a particular perspective might have some very different meanings from another.
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Re: So sad

Post by SilenceMonkey »

Malcolm wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:08 pm
Danny wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:58 pm https://www.fox5ny.com/news/boxer-jeane ... fter-fight

Zapata, from Mexico, suffered a series of power punches in the corner of the ring. After a solid uppercut, she seemed stunned near the end of the fourth round. A final right hook knocked her mouthguard out and left her unable to return to her corner after the bell rang.
Boxing should be illegal.
It's like chicken fights. But with people.
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Re: So sad

Post by KristenM »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:41 pm I got the shit beaten out of me and was forced into fights pretty regularly as a kid and teen. Been through a few muggings, and I’ve been randomly shot at.

Martial arts helped me channel a lot of that baggage. I’m not sure I would have been able to deal with stuff the same way if I hadn’t been training. It also taught me that there is often a big difference between the violence that comes with young male pecking order stuff, and the violence that comes from actual predators. Those categories can overlap, but they aren’t the same.

Personally, I would way rather see a kid who is going to be fighting anyway and lives in a terrible environment put that energy into a combat sport, and spend time in the gym…even with the downsides and risks, which vary greatly as mentioned. Depending on where they grow up, it might very well be a marked improvement.

Sure, some counseling and a more stable life with better choices overall would be preferable, but judging poor people for doing boxing is just…..ignorant of context. Go ask some old timers what they got out of the gym, some of it is quite positive, mixed in with the ugly stuff we’ve been talking about.

I’m not advocating Buddhist get into boxing or combat sport by any means, just saying, different people have different sets of choices and what may seem like purely ugliness or brutality from a particular perspective might have some very different meanings from another.
Have you seen the movie “Fighting with my Family”? It’s about WWE wrestling so not exactly the same thing but it’s actually a very funny and endearing movie, imo. Much better than I thought it would be. I didn’t mean to sound like I was belittling the poor or anyone who boxes, sorry if that is how it came across.
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Re: So sad

Post by Malcolm »

KristenM wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 1:36 am
Have you seen the movie “Fighting with my Family”? It’s about WWE wrestling so not exactly the same thing but it’s actually a very funny and endearing movie, imo. Much better than I thought it would be. I didn’t mean to sound like I was belittling the poor or anyone who boxes, sorry if that is how it came across.
Young Rock is kind of fun, if you are bored.
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