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Image by Joel Muniz.
In writing, boxing is often used as a metaphor. It shows heart, passion, intensity and anger. It’s a contradiction or a revelation. character and life.
Boxing certainly makes an excellent metaphor – in the ring, rigid constraints create intense struggle – but too often, treating boxing as a metaphor leaves writers finding meaning through it. Makes it possible. The research object is treated as a lens. Boxing itself doesn’t need to be seen.
in the preface to in battle, an anthology of American Boxing Writing, Colum McCann said, “The most beautiful thing about boxing is the life behind it.” This feeling reveals the rift. Looking at the act of boxing as a thing of the past is a way of finding beauty in what appears to be senseless brutality. It’s displacement-release.
Of course, there is also a beautiful life behind boxing. Some are ugly. But really, boxing isn’t a shell for something more substantial. Boxing is the whole thing. The most beautiful thing about boxing is not outside of boxing. Boxing is the most beautiful thing in boxing.
Too often we focus on the lives of boxers, trainers, sanctioning bodies, belts, records or pre-fight jokes. This wouldn’t be a problem if the fight itself wasn’t left unattended. When fights occur, results are debated, scores are debated, knockdowns and stoppages are criticized. increase.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule.Joyce Carol Oates about boxing A striking example of a book that deals directly with boxing. Might be the best book on boxing philosophy. It’s also journalistic. new york timesAt the time, the battles and fighters she dealt with were modern.
In her book, Oates establishes two key points early on. First, she doesn’t consider boxing a sport. And second, she doesn’t see boxing as a metaphor.In her words, “Life teeth Like boxing in many uneasy ways. But boxing is just like boxing. ” Boxing is a unique phenomenon. It cannot be reduced to a metaphor.
about boxing It’s not without mistakes. Ishmael Reed, in Oates’ work, draws attention to the racialized black man, the voyeurism of the black body. – her apparent obsession with and disdain for black men at the center of her research. This racialized obsession is deeply entwined with the business of boxing – that grown-up gun that consumes the sport and makes boxing and boxers a thing and a product.
Another major flaw in Oates’ book is what she seems to be conscious of. She Oates didn’t box.of Body and Soul: Apprentice Boxer’s NotebookLois Wacquant writes:
“…the rules of martial arts boil down to body movements that are fully comprehensible only when they are actually in action, placing them on the very edge of what can be intellectually grasped and communicated…of this ‘social art’. Science cannot be constructed. That is, it is, as Emile Durkheim defines it, “pure practice without theory” and does not undergo a practical initiation in real time and space. ”
Wacquant is correct. Understanding boxing takes years of regular engagement, training, and fights to understand what’s going on in the ring. Wacquant said he trained at a boxing club in Chicago for three years. This approach allows him to write about boxing with an understanding.
Oates’ analysis is deep and insightful, but it’s all done from ringside. about boxing A study of boxing as a spectacle. The empirical side of the fight is decoupled. Phenomenology is the exploration of phenomena experienced by voyeurs rather than participants. It remains a study of boxing as an object.
That said, Wacquant’s analysis body and spirit I am suffering from similar issue. Leon Culbertson says that Wacquant’s attempts to “apply a holistic approach to the study of boxing” in his study were not entirely successful. It’s the sum of all aspects of boxing.” It provides a snapshot of the elements about boxing and how they relate to it. Overall, his analysis lacks something essential.
body and spirit is a sociological study and consequently focuses on sociological relationships in the gym where Wacquant trained. Wacquant hides in a Chicago gym and his research focuses on black men fleeing life on the streets. He elaborates on socioeconomics and class. Again, this also puts the peripheral sides into the core.
Classes and socioeconomics are integral to the context in which boxing exists, but it is not boxing. Of course, the club ecosystem is essential for boxing, boxing Not club politics. Boxing is not about hitting bags and jumping rope. It’s not about finding friendship or sanctuary. boxing It’s a contained momentary struggle between fighters in the ring, that brief interaction. everything else is secondary.
of body and spirit, Wacquant studies pedagogy and the embodiment of technology. All that goes into the ring moment. These aspects cannot be separated. These aspects allow the moment to exist. As Sartre writes, “Boxing, as a sport and as a technique, is present in every moment of the fight, with all the human qualities and all the material conditioning (training, fitness, etc.) that boxing requires.” (20). However, certain spaces will appear when battles are fought. Boxing takes place in that space. Fragments of boxing exist elsewhere, such as habits, practices, and logic, but it is only in a fight that they converge into boxing.
Boxing is a fight to control yourself and your opponent. It’s a struggle for control of the battle. It is pure and full of heart. In the ring, boxers become one body and soul. Boxing is a fierce struggle for dominance. But it’s consensual, so it’s distinctly different from the struggle for dominance outside the ring.
Boxing is a situation abstracted from reality. Within the constraints of the battle, terms were agreed. Boxing is practice. Boxers establish control by incapacitating their opponents. This is not war. In war, says Clausewitz, there are no logical limits to the application of force. Boxing has it. A logical limit is clearly established. In fact, limitations – restraints – are what make boxing possible.
Like the sonnet, it is the form of boxing that gives it substance. Form applies any restrictions to boxers. There are obvious constraints – time, ropes and rings. There are also conventions, techniques, styles, and rulesets. Ultimately, all of these constraints exist within Boxer.
Within constraints, boxers try to maintain control of themselves and impose control on their opponents. Form creates space for practices to emerge that cannot exist anywhere else. Boxing is about mastering form.
Boxing is tricky. It’s subtle changes in weight, subtle differences in foot placement, tiny milliseconds between graceful slips and knockouts, shoulder rolls, subtle — imperceptible — analyzes and reactions. Move to action without dividing your thoughts and make your mind and body one. In its prime, boxing is the embodiment of will. It represents the pinnacle of human ability.
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