Why I Try To Box Like Pernell Whitaker

In June of 2016, the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and one my personal heroes, passed away.  Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest human beings to ever lace up the gloves, left us at the age of 74 after battling Parkinson's disease for decades.  Never has a celebrity death hit me harder.  His greatness inside and outside the ring simply filled me with awe.  Who else could have not only the boxing record he had, but have that record after being forced to give up the sport during his prime athletic years because he refused to fight in the unjust crime against humanity we call the Vietnam War?  My respect for that man was, and still is, limitless.

Yet my favorite boxer died three years later, in July of 2019.

Ali was my favorite person who ever boxed, but Pernell Whitaker was my favorite boxer.  While any serious boxing fan knows his name, few outside of the boxing world do.  As only a casual boxing fan myself, I didn't even discover him through boxing- I discovered him when UFC legend Anderson Silva was in his prime, dancing around punches as if he could read opponents' minds.  One night, inspired by Silva and in the mood to watch some boxing, I Googled "boxers with good head movement" to see what I could find.  I stumbled across a Pernell Whitaker highlight video.  The rest was history.

One of the best to ever do it.

Any of you reading this know me as someone who loves fight science.  You're probably expecting me to name specific nuances of his game I admire.  While that does sound fun, I actually wanna focus on something a little more broad here.  And something that even goes beyond the realm of boxing.  It gets into why I got into martial arts in the first place, and why I continue to train in the combat sports world as a martial artist.

Pernell Whitaker, if you're not familiar with him, was a master of defensive boxing.  Everyone remembers him for his amazing head movement especially.  It was how I stumbled across him, after all.  Unlike Anderson Silva, who could employ amazing head movement against MMA fighters during an early era with incredibly primitive boxing, Whitkaer danced around the punches of world-class boxers.  Most boxers who have highlight reels on YouTube have highlights of their knockouts; Whitaker has those, but he has even more highlight videos of him dodging punches like he was in The Matrix.

On a less flashy level, he also had crafty footwork.  He could change the tempo of his movement like nothing, which made it hard to predict how he might move when he wasn't punching.  Sometimes he exited an exchange by rapidly darting away, other times he strolled away at a leisurely pace.  Sometimes he pretended to stroll away, wanting an opponent to chase him, where he would then spring his trap and explode into a rapid-fire punching combination.  On top of his footwork, he also had a surprisingly strong jab for a southpaw, which he used to disrupt the rhythm of his opponents.  It was the combination of his head movement, footwork, and southpaw jab that together created a world-class defense that few fighters in boxing history have been able to match.

Trying to catch prime Whitaker was like trying to nail jello to a wall.

Okay, I guess I couldn't help my self, I had to talk at least a little bit about fight science.  But there's more to this than that.

I've been into martial arts since I was a kid.  I wanted to be like the Green Power Ranger, Batman, and Superman.  My parents enrolled me in karate when I was around eight; it was pretty generic US karate, nothing special, but I loved it.  I never continued it when we moved from Virginia to California roughly a year later, but I always dreamed about returning to martial arts in some way or another.  I wanted to be like Goku and Gohan from Dragonball Z.  In high school I started lifting weights, but I also watched a bunch of Asian martial arts films.  My favorite were the muay thai movies of Tony Jaa.  Shortly after I graduated high school, I found a studio that taught muay thai, jeet kune do (Bruce Lee's martial art), and kali/arnis (Filipino fencing with bamboo sticks and knives).  Since then, I have been training martial arts in one form or another almost my entire adult life.

The thing is, fighting goes against my nature.  I was a gentle, sensitive kid.  There's a reason Gohan was my favorite DBZ character; I wanted to be like Goku, but I related to Gohan's gentleness.  I don't like hurting people, nor do I particularly enjoy the sensation of getting punched or kicked myself.  While I get used to it when I've been training for a while, anytime I leave striking for an extended period of time and come back to it, I find myself deeply uncomfortable in sparring.  I push through it, but I don't enjoy it the way some people in the gym do.  It's simply not my element.

This moment helped define my childhood.

I train for a variety of reasons.  To be healthy, to have a place of community, to have self-defense skills in my back pocket (or community defense skills, should I ever see something like a hate crime or violently angry fascist somewhere).  Perhaps the main reasons I train, though, is that I love both the science and the art behind fighting.  To be able to understand how fighting isn't about brute force, but about smarts and technique and strategy; a science.  How it's also about your own personality and creativity and ability to improvise; an art.  When I'm sparring, I'm not doing it because I want to hurt my opponent.  I'm doing it because I want to perfect my craft and learn a little bit about myself in the process.

What I love about Whitaker's fighting style is that it shows how fighting isn't just about how effectively you can hurt someone.  He knew how to go on the offensive when the chance came to him, but he truly created a masterpiece of the art of defense.  Of preservation.  Of diffusing aggression.  Not only that, but he looked so damn cool doing it!  From that very first highlight video I saw of his, I knew I'd found something special.  Something that showed me that it's okay to focus on making an art of diffusing aggression and keeping both me and my partner safe, rather than trying to get in as many shots as I can.

Don't get me wrong, I still practice my punches.  I still try to set up good offense in sparring.  I'd be an obnoxious training partner if I didn't, because it's that back and forth that makes sparring such a valuable method for learning how to fight.  It's my defense, though, where I truly put my focus.  And, while it may be a bit dorky to admit, I do try to make it look flashy and cool whenever I can, because what's training without a little fun?

Thanks for everything you taught me about what fighting can be, Pernell Whitaker.  RIP.

Why MMA Skews to the Right

Hey everyone, sorry I've been gone for so long.  While I've been busy most of this year, the real reason I haven't written anything for a while is that quarantine has done a number on my mental health.  It's nothing worrying/dangerous or anything, but it's been enough to take a toll and keep me from writing.  For reasons that I frankly don't understand, however (maybe because I non-ironically love the holidays?), it's been getting better lately.  I can focus more.  So here I am.

With that said, I've trained martial arts for over a decade now.  I've learned in a variety of styles and environments.  For the past half decade, though, I've been in the MMA and jiu-jitsu world.  I've been in practice alongside world class MMA fighters and jiu-jitsu blackbelts, as well as everyday people who just train a couple times a week for fitness and fun.

It's  been a great experience.  I've met plenty of wonderful people, and gained a lot from training beyond just getting in shape and learning how to fight.  Martial arts, at their best, offer are a place of community, a vehicle of self-improvement, a healthy boost to self-esteem, a place of mutual benefit where you help others beyond yourself, and even just a good source of straight up fun, an underrated human need for adults.

However, it's also unfortunately true that people in the MMA and jiu-jitsu world (the two overlap pretty heavily, so from now on I'll just say MMA, but I basically mean both) tend to skew pretty right.  To many reading who are completely unfamiliar with MMA, that might sound unsurprising.  What is interesting, I think, is that the reasons why can be counterintuitive, or at least surprisingly complex.  Because the average person in an MMA gym isn't a muscle-bound caveman who loves violence or a jock who hates thinking about anything other than their next protein shake.

What I plan to do here is list the main reasons the MMA world skew right.  For people in this world, I hope it can help articulate a lot of what you've probably observed and felt, but haven't been able to put into words.  For those outside of it, I hope this can serve as an interesting sociological analysis- especially because it can be applied to communities beyond just MMA.

 

PROHIBITIVE COSTS

When you join an MMA gym, you can only make payments in sacks of money like these.

This list isn't ranked.  If it were, though, this would still be the first item on the list.  The average cost of a jiu-jitsu gym is somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 a month.  Again, that's average, and depending on the area and quality of instruction, it can be much higher.  Most MMA gyms, meanwhile, start somewhere around the $200 a month mark.

That's not exactly something everyone can afford.  Because of that, the income bracket tends to skew higher than the average person.  Not dramatically higher, but enough that the average person at an MMA gym will be at least financially secure.  There will still be people who train who are just getting by, of course.  Until a couple years ago I was one of them, pinching pennies just to be able to afford training (I even quit one gym after they started requiring uniforms because I literally couldn't afford it).  But, that is the exception.

That means most people training are relatively comfortable.  And of course, the more well-off you are, the more you tend to lean right.  Despite all the silly think-pieces about the white working class supporting Trump, in 2016 it was wealthy white people who helped tip the scales for Trump (and even votes for Hillary and Biden are, in their own way, votes for the right, though that's a different blog post).  Ultimately, the wealthier people are, the more selfish they tend to be.  They oppose policies that redistribute their wealth because they are focused on their bottom line.

Again, people who train aren't rich, but they're generally comfortable enough that wealth isn't a serious concern.  Because of that, even those who think there are things that are unfair about the world generally don't look toward income inequality.  They usually only see things through a cultural lens.  Those that do look at economics are usually one of those middle class folks who are convinced it is actually the poor who are making them miserable.

 

HARD WORK DOES PAY OFF

You've probably seen things like this on the Instagrams of countless "entrepreneurs" online.

This is the mantra that can lead people in any sort of fitness pursuit to the right, even if they're doing something that isn't cost prohibitive.  Most people get the bulk of their world outlook from their material and social environment, and their lived experiences in that environment.  As human beings, we are always trying to make sense of the world around us by interacting with it, and we absorb lessons in those interactions.  When you're in a pursuit where consistency and hard work pay off, you internalize that lesson.  If you're not careful you apply it to other areas, even if there are more complicating factors in those other areas.

And it really must be stated that consistency and hard work are key in skill development, whether it's combat sports or anything else.  You don't need to start out with any particular physical attributes to get good at combat sports if you're consistent and hard-working.  Yes, some people might be more athletic, strong, fast, or otherwise advantaged, so starting point and pace of improvement may vary.  But no matter who you are, you will get better if you keep training.  After a couple years, anyone can be decent.  If viewed properly, it's actually a very egalitarian fact- no one is a failure.  If you give them time and care, and let them grow, anyone can rise to the occasion.  Anyone is capable of something if given the opportunity.

Viewed in a less healthy way, however, it can instead reinforce the "well, I've worked hard and I'm doing great, so anyone suffering must be lazy!" mentality.  Because while hard work does have a direct correlation to improvements on the mats, it doesn't have the same correlation to economic success, since there are so many things that go into it that we'd spend all day here if I tried to cover even a fraction of it.  But, just to mention one big fact as an example, having rich parents is a way bigger indicator of wealth than smarts (and even then, "smarts" often comes from having parents than can afford to fill their house with books, hire tutors, pay for private school, etc).

So, at the end of the day, without critically thinking about how "hard work" brings different results in different arenas, a lot of people simply boil things down to "hard work=success."  Because they're usually comfortable financially, it becomes very easy to transmute that lesson over to the idea of socio-economic status, too.

 

MALE INSECURITY

You're probably assuming this is a parody stock photo I found.

Nope! This is a completely sincere photo from a professional fighter.

It's probably not surprising that male insecurity brings a lot of guys to the gym.  This is likely the least surprising entry on this list.  That said, I think there's some stuff worth exploring here.

First, we need to dispel the myth that male insecurity and alienation are inherently reactionary/regressive.  When male insecurity and alienation are rooted in sadness and lack of healthy connection, what we might call healthy solutions (connecting to others, working through your emotions, normalizing male vulnerability) can help address it in a positive way.  We on the left need to do a better job at offering that remedy (once again, another post for another day).  I've had many male training partners tell me in secret how lonely they feel, how they feel like losers, how they hate seeing what their bodies look like in the mirror.

It's when that insecurity, alienation, and sadness are transformed into bitterness, entitlement, lust for dominance, and other such gross traits that it becomes reactionary.  In MMA, the trait that's generally embraced is toughness.  To an extent, toughness- as a way of taking what life throws at you with grace and doing your best to keep on keepin' on despite those obstacles- is a good thing.  But in MMA gyms, it usually goes more extreme than that.  Often the mantra is "don't be a pussy" and it's all about goofy, hyper-masculine posturing.  It's also extended to things beyond the gym, including one's worldview.

See, while training in the gym does help with self-esteem, there's still a lot of insecurity.  Especially for the men who don't otherwise have a lot of friends or a successful dating life.  So they try to find something to cling onto, and when "don't be a pussy" becomes your main source of self-esteem, all of a sudden your worldview becomes dedicated not to what is ethical or kind, but to what makes you seem masculine.  That's why so many people in the MMA world cling so hard to being anti-feminist, pro-gun, and every other "masculine" outlook.  They're scared, deeply anxious men who think projecting an aura of toughness will soothe their insecurity.

There's a long list of ways this harms other people, but it rarely even works for the men who engage in it themselves.

SELF-DEFENSE CULTURE

The best way to avoid conflict is simply to look like Brock Lesnar.

You're walking the streets late at night.  You're alone.  You pass by a section of the sidewalk with a flickering streetlight.  All of a sudden a couple "thugs" come out of nowhere, trying to rough you up.  They're predatory animals who want to take advantage of you.  Do you really wanna be in that situation and not know how to defend yourself?

That is how self-defense is often marketed to people.  This despite the fact that, not only do the twelve leading causes of death in the US (which account for more than three quarters of all death each year) have nothing to do with violence, but if you are killed by a deliberate act of violence, it's way more likely to be someone you know.  So unless you're part of a demographic that faces ridiculous amounts of violence, like Native American women or trans women, or you live in a particularly dangerous area, don't worry about learning to fight.  Your best form of "self-defense" is to jog, eat your vegetables, wash your hands, drive safely, and be on the look out for bad signs from people in your own life (and if you are in an abusive relationship of some sort, please remember it's not your fault and you deserve the help to get out of it <3).

As we discussed above, though, people who train are relatively comfortable, and also usually not of an identity at risk for violence.  They still, however, have this image of fighting "thugs" in a dark alley (which isn't helped by the fact that mainstream news loves over-reporting on violent crime or that a generation of politicians adapted a "tough on crime" rhetoric that made violent crime sound way more likely to occur than it actually did).  Because of that, there is a reactionary paranoia that brings a lot of people to the gym.

Mixed with what I said about male insecurity above, this also leads to an interesting phenomenon where people in MMA gyms love talking about how they protect women and children, and would kill child molesters or thugs in dark alleyways if given the chance.  It makes them sound both manly and virtuous, so what's not to love?  Yes, it may sound a bit extreme, but it makes them sound extreme in a way where they're badass and protecting the vulnerable!  They're like the Punisher, and anyone speaking against them is just a soy beta male who isn't willing to do what it takes!!

Except for the fact that sexual assault is a huge deal in the combat sports world, and a lot of these same people who posture about killing predators are nowhere to be found.  In the jiu-jitsu world in particular, it's become an important topic of conversation (and make no mistake, it happens in other arts, they're just not talking about it in the open yet).  Things are changing because some people are starting to take notice and do something about it, but many others (including some at the top of the sport) are either ignoring the problem or contributing to it.  One piece of shit, blackbelt/instructor Ricardo de la Riva, had the gall to kick out all of his female students after a one talked about her sexual assault.

Because self-defense culture is inherently about using violence against strangers to solve problems, it's unable to address the actual problems that people are more likely to face on a day to day basis.  Including in our own community.

 

WRAPPING UP

Two fighters embracing after a fight, because sometimes this sport can be downright wholesome.

Like I said at the beginning, training in combat sports has an immense number of positives to it.  Even those of us on the left can find our own values entrenched in a healthy MMA gym: cooperation, respect for consent, and solidarity.  It's just a matter of the culture and teaching approach of each gym.  They can be beautiful places of mutual support with the right foundation.

Almost any gym is an odd mixture of progressive and reactionary traits, but unfortunately the reactionary elements usually outweigh the progressive ones.  But, as you can see in some of those write-ups I posted about sexual assault in jiu-jitsu, there are some people leading the charge to make combat sports more egalitarian and inclusive.  Personally, as someone who hopes to be an instructor someday, I want to do everything I can to be a part of that.

In the meantime, though, it's important to ask ourselves why things are the way that they are, both in the MMA world and the world in general.  Whether you agree with all, none, or some of what I said here, I hope it's at least been thought-provoking.  Because identifying problems and then working to solve them is the only way things get better.  And a better world is, in my opinion, within our grasp.

Thanks for reading!