I wonder if there is a streak of violence coming out in me...first rifles and now boxing. A friend of mine invited me to see some amateur boxing in a basement of a church and it sounded so seedy and wrong, I simply couldn’t resist.
It was hard for me to see someone hitting (and kicking) another person. The bloody nose or swollen eye for entertainment felt morally wrong. However, the crowd, made up of mostly white former frat boys now “professionals” probably in law or finance, wanted more blood. When there was a 5-10 second lull in the violence, I’d inevitably hear, “What are you dancing or fighting? Come ONNN!”
The most surprising aspect of that whole night was the civility in the ring. Boxers shook hands with each other after the fight and then would shake the hands of each other’s trainers. One Thai boxer did a little ritual praying while his opponent waited respectfully for him to finish. The physicality and grace of these fighters was impressive, their bodies trained for months for this one night. I’m taking an artistic anatomy class now, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to see the various muscle groups as they ducked, punched and kicked. Hello Serratus anterior and Sternocleidomastoid! (Yes, I know I’m a geek)
And how could I forget, the requisite scantily clad women who walked around the ring holding signs for the round count. One in particular walked with hips swaying, tossing her long brown hair. The men went wild. One aging frat boy kept on yelling, “Call me!! Calllll meeee!” while holding his hand to his face like a phone. Um, even if she could somehow telepathically get your number from that, she wouldn’t call you. Just a thought.
After becoming numb to the violence and done with observing the stellar crowd around me, it was actually very boring. Incredibly boring. Oh, look he got punched. Oh, and now the round is over, it's the sexy girl again, the guy's asking her to call him again, now the boxer's eye is almost swollen shut and a doctor's looking at it. Yawn. How odd that a night of violence can induce such tedium.
After a few hours, I managed to slip out into the bitterly cold night glad this little experiment was over.
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