I play chess and have boxed and done martial arts, although never together in the same ring.

I found chess more destructive than boxing — it serves little to no cardiovascular benefit, and can be hugely addictive. (Bullet chess and competition play can readily take over your life, and I've seen careers and relationships destroyed by it.)

The fittest people I've ever met have been boxers. Yes, the risk of head trauma and eye injury during fights is higher than even MMA (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26327287 ), and every fighter must weigh the risks of that with what they gain from the sport.

> Getting used to boxing means you get used to seeing violence and it

> doesn't hurt so much any more.

(1): Getting hit still hurts.

(2): Seeing people getting hit outside the ring hurts more, because you're more aware of what they're going through.

(3): I've seen boxing (and martial arts) restore respect in people and their communities; kids transformed from roaming the streets to training at the gym every day (not always in the ring; many days just working out).

It is easy to see two people knocking the crap out of each other in a ring and assume those exchanged blows embody everything the sport has to offer, but like many contact sports there are more positive side-effects than bloodied faces and the normalisation of savagery.

Right getting hit still hurts, but seeing somebody else get hit does not hurt so bad, once you start paying to go to see a boxing match. I'm not REALLY against boxing let people do what they want to do. But I think the viewpoint that it idolizes knocking other people out is worth bringing into the discussion. Ali was the greatest but even he suffered brain damage because of boxing I believe. And then Tyson was the greatest but he was violent even outside the ring.

Do you think Tyson was violent outside the ring because of boxing? I think due to his upbringing and history before boxing, I don't think it is the boxing to blame.

Tyson was robbing houses with shotguns before he'd ever entered a boxing gym.

The most common comments I hear from people who have become proficient at various types of violence are:

They experience less desire to assert themselves physically because they understand who they are and feel more secure in themselves.

They understand that you can’t really tell who is and isn’t worth getting into an altercation with just by looking at a person. There are a lot of very unassuming people who are quite good at handling themselves physically.

Out of continually confronting contained (often consensual) violence they develop a deep respect for what people, both themselves and others, are capable of. The idea of casually entering into real violence without good reason is not taken lightly.

My favorite part of [good] boxing gyms is that anyone who comes in there expecting to do violence quickly gets paired with the most seasoned opponents who put them back in line. These violent types then either never show up again, or get the hint and start playing nice.

Personally I like boxing because there's something incredibly confidence building about knowing that you can handle getting punched in the face and keep going. Very empowering.

It's a lot less unpleasant than most people imagine.

I wouldn't necessarily equate boxing with violence. They're relying on training, discipline and rules, not trying to kill each other.

Actually if it came down to trying to do real violence, I think a lot of boxers wouldn't be any more prepared mentally than anyone else. It's orthogonal, in other words. On the other hand the physical training lends some advantages in defending oneself (but also in grocery-carrying, train-catching and everything else).

I also wouldn't equate offensive hitting and defensive hitting. When it comes to defensive, what you say is true: "when the moment comes for you to hit someone in the face," it helps to be mentally prepared for it. That moment may arrive by someone else's decision.

Finally when it comes to self-defense, hitting someone in the face specifically (unless it's an eye gouge or something) is really not a good thing to do without padded boxing gloves on. Faces are bony!

In fact, competitive chess requires adapting a very merciless mindset and swapping empathy for "killer instinct".

In one interview - with Peter Thiel, by the way - current WC Magnus Carlsen was asked about Josh Waitzkin. (Waitzkin is a fairly well known and highly talented chess player, whose biography inspired the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer". He's left chess for martial arts since.)

Carlsen half-jokingly said Waitzkin hadn't succeeded in high level chess due to his insufficient killer instinct, which apparently made him settle for a "more peaceful" sport :) https://youtu.be/ZBnSU-LX1ss?t=1h2m

Or to quote former world champion Karpov, "Botvinnik, Korchnoi and Kasparov had to hate the opponent to play successfully" (Botvinnik and Kasparov = other WCs, Korchnoi was a close contender for the title).

Is that something we should be encouraging the youth to be good at? ;)

You are right chess can be harmful too. Those wasted hours studying and memorizing start-games and end-games and then as you say the hatred. Maybe it's good mental exercise but you might better use your time studying mathematics physics science or engineering and that way help yourself and others better.

Well I'm not exactly saying that (it sure might be, like anything that can consume your life)...

My tongue-in-cheek point was along the lines that just because a discipline doesn't involve punching someone in the face - unlike boxing, called out for it by the parent comment - doesn't necessarily mean it's not a brutal sport... in psychological dimension, obviously.

this is more than a little condescending towards boxers. thank goodness we have the blessed empath to show us the error of our ways.

hallowed be his name, let his gentle nature guide us to a more gooder future

> Getting used to boxing means you get used to seeing violence and it doesn't hurt so much any more.

I practiced thai boxing for many years and it may sound odd, but I don't really see boxing as a violent sport, no more than let say soccer. I've never hit anyone (other than on a ring) and never will, and I hate violence as much as most people. In the context of boxing I see hitting as a technical move.

Besides the occasional bruises, rare broken ribs or black eyes, I've never injured myself. Most of the time, you practice with control and with various protections, wary of your partner level.

Competitions are more violent, but even there, there's a gradation. Fighters are matched by skills and weight, depending on their level use protections (helmet, shin guards), and the referee is there to stop the match if needed.

I also don't think boxing is especially 'violent' but people do get hurt. I used to box competitively on a college team (NCBA) and almost every fighter on the team above ~140lbs had had at least one concussion, with the frequency of concussion increasing with the weight of the fighter. The coaches took every precaution with headgear and sparring only with 20oz gloves, and official fights had doctors ringside, but the rate of concussions was still insane. The personality changes can be drastic in the short/long term and several teammates mentioned failing exams days after their fight. I really miss it but won't ever compete again because I'm afraid of the long-term risks. The ironic thing is, getting hit in the body always hurt less for me than a head-shot.

Headgear makes head trauma more likely by increasing the size of the target

That's true. I've also heard that it increases trauma by making a hit hurt less, because the fighter is able to keep going instead of being bothered by more superficial issues (e.g. cuts/bleeding).

That is essentially why boxers wear gloves. In no-gloves boxing, the head is rarely a target because it hurts the hands so bad. But the audience likes to see knockouts, sp gloves come on. I find it distasteful to design a sport around giving a person a knock on the head hard enough that their brain releases control over their body for a while.

Doesn't hurt that much if you punch correctly (and they don't teach that in boxing classes because you always wear gloves), but very dangerous if you don't punch correctly (as in broken wrist, meaning the fight is over for you - not a good idea in a real fight - and anyway you will be handicapped for several weeks).

But then, open-palm strikes are very effective and virtually riskless for the attacker. If you are good at it, you can at the same time strike the opponent's chin and put your fingers in his eyes, but here we are obviously way out of sport's territory and way into aggressive self-defense / violent street fight.

Isn't thai-boxing like Karate or fencing where you stop before you actually hurt the opponent, having shown that you could do it? Whereas in boxing there is no such conception of stopping before you actually hit.

Does boxing cause brain damage? This article says: "Almost certainly": https://www.livescience.com/1519-boxing-brain-damage.html

No, Thai boxing or Muay Thai is not a point fighting sport. There are knock outs. Kicks, knees, and elbows are allowed.

There's also forms of karate that allow full contact.

I boxed twice as an amateur, and got stopped in my second fight after my eye closed up (southpaw got a thumb in my eye is my excuse).

But I look at Thai Boxing matches with flying knees, elbows, etc and that recent video where a fighter footswept someone and then kneed them in the head on the way down and I think "Fuck that."

While muay thai does have point scoring, it is more like boxing where you score points for landing a damaging technique and do not stop on a point being scored. Funnily enough punches often do not score unless they cause considerable movement of the opponent as they are seen as less damaging than a kick, knee or elbow.

One area that is different to a lot of other sports is that fights aren't stopped for bleeding often as it is very common for thai style elbows to open gashes on the face. A lot of experienced fighters will have scarring around the eyes from getting cut with elbows.

That said in the west fights are split into 3 classes (4 if you include novice fights) C which has no elbows or knees to the head, B which has no elbows to the head and A which uses All legal thai techniques

For avoiding unnecessary brain damage, Turing's run-around-the-house chess sounds like a better idea to me, though I'm not sure whether many people have played it or what the rules really are. (Is there also a clock?)

The violence that is conducted by people who mutually agree to inflict it upon each other has nothing to do with the violence that is conducted upon those who have made no choice in the matter.

Perhaps empathy isn't so useful if you're lacking objectivity. Or perhaps failing to understand why people do the thing they dos means you don't have as much empathy as you think.

I enjoy watching boxing, but understand your point. However, the purpose of hitting someone in the face isn't to procure pain but to make the opponent lose consciousness (actually it's a lot more painful getting hit on a forearm). In a boxing match there's no hatred for the opponent, although some boxers need this to boost their performance, and no desire to injury or harm; it's just like fencing with hands in place of swords.

In many ways, boxing is one of the less violent sports around, both for those who practice and those who watch. I'm more of a football (soccer) fan than a boxing one, but if I had kids I'd rather bring them to a boxing match than to the stadium where they would grow learning that faking a foul can bring a penalty and the victory.

(Speaking as someone who sees contact martial arts as a perfectly (mentally-) healthy activity ...)

I've known several amateur fighters, and they all report that the decision to actually attack their opponent in anger is the hardest step for most people making the transition from training for fitness to actual competitive fighting.

Two of those people were exceptions, though: one was a junior lawyer whose approach to her first fight earned her the nickname "Basher", and the second a cleaned-up ex-gang member who used to fight for fun in bars.

I've often wondered whether Basher was merely applying the same mindset she learned as a lawyer to the ring.

> Personally when I see a boxing match and see somebody hit in the face it hurts me. I think that's called empathy.

It's also empathy to see someone hit someone well and feel the flush of success.

I'm not athletic, and have never been good at sports, but the very few times that I've done them and done well it has been exhilarating in a way intellectual pursuits never have been.