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Fight Club For Real
Speaking of Chuck Palahniuk and the idea of creating new societal meta-narratives, here’s a pretty interesting article on CNN about some high tech workers in Silicon Valley who are engaged in a real live version of Fight Club.
I’m curious if anybody else out there reading this has been or is involved with a group like this, or has heard of any through friends. I have two stories, neither of which I participated in. One was in college, back when I was still hanging around art school after dropping out. Two friends of mine had this conceptual art class, and they decided to train all semester to fight each other. It was pretty awesome. The bare-knuckle match took place under this overpass in an abandoned industrial area of Baltimore. It was illuminated by a ring of car headlights and was nothing like the way fights are in movies or on tv. Another friend told me that him and some kids in college (who he described as mostly nerds or dorks) started a fight club at their dorm. But they discontinued it when non-dorks (ie, “meatheads”) started showing up and seriously whomping nerd ass. Or something like that.
Anyway, going back to this article on CNN, they put forward some “expert” opinions in it that really piss me off:
Men involved in fight clubs often carry bottled-up violent impulses learned in childhood from video games, cartoons and movies, said Michael Messner, a University of Southern California sociology and gender studies professor.
“Boys have these warrior fantasies picked up from popular culture, and schools sort of force that out of them,” he said. In these fantasies, “The good guys always resort to violence, and they always get the glory and the women.”
It’s stuff like this that shows me college professors don’t have the remotest clue what they are talking about. This idea that boys pick up aggressive tendencies because of games, movies and cartoons - I mean that’s just so absurd. That’s like saying that lions learned to kill gazelles by watching Animal Planet at the zoo. The fact is that humans - most especially boys - have in-built tendencies towards aggression. It’s just a damned survival instinct. If anything, what we learn from culture is how to suppress these feelings and sublimate them into acceptable outlets such as tv, games, etc. And if these eggheads had actually *seen* the movie Fight Club (or read the book - which I didn’t) they might realize that both the danger and allure of forming a fight club of your own is that it frees you from these decades of restrictive cultural programming, connecting you to a more pure raw form of self.
Or at least that’s what I took away from the movie. I’ve never been in an actual fight myself. Which I’m actually kind of sad about, honestly.
Another prof quoted in that article:
There is also a sadomasochistic thread running through underground fight clubs, said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York.
“Real-life fight clubs are the male version of the girls who cut themselves,” he said. “All day long these guys think they’re the captains of the universe, technical wizards. They’re brilliant but empty.
“They want to feel differently. They want to get hit, they want to feel something real.”
Speaking of brilliant but empty, I mean… shit. You’d think these guys who sit around all day poo-pooing everybody for being sadomasochistic chimps would be the first to be able to understand the need for people to feel something real.
See, and this is my point exactly. I wouldn’t be sitting here getting so riled up about a damned news article if I had a more normal natural outlet for my aggression. Maybe I should start challenging these professors and people serving up soul-deadening opinions to real life boxing matches, and then all our problems would be solved (while a whole host of new ones would crop up).
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June 4th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Hah! I’d love to join in on THAT fight. These pseudo-scientific professors really don’t bother me though. Their assumptions about humanity are as frivolous as they are rampant. I would, however, love to create a fight club . . .and I’ve often put forth the idea with my friends and acquaintances, none of whom seem too keen on the idea. I guess it destroys a comfort zone that few people are willing to let go of. . .but I love the concept of there being a physical outlet for my natural aggression that a lot of people could engage in and enjoy on some level.
And sex doesn’t count, because it’s much easier to get into a fight with a stranger than it is to have sex with one.
June 4th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
As far a “fight clubs,” as someone who’s done jiu-jitsu, muay thai, and wrestling, I have to ask, “what’s the point?” It’s just not that shocking; when you’ve actually been knocked out from a kick to the solar plexus, it seems kind of amatuer. I would probably still be spending time on the mat if I didn’t work so much.
Regarding sex and violence, I was thinking, you know how Ken Wilber calls it “skin hunger?” I suspect that we also have the urge for “blood hunger,” though it’s not as potent a drive in most.
And yes, those professors need to get de-brainwashed, preferably by a judo instructor with mad ugly cauliflower ears.
June 5th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Its called KRAV MAGA
or more generically WWII combatives, Close quarter combat training, etc. Of course I like my own system the most, but…
The way people practice military combat systems is differnet from the way people train in karate, except for jiu jitsu and muy thai it seems like the way most MA instruction is structured people don’t really go for it and so there is zero risk of cracked ribs, knocked out teeth etc. and thus no chance to feel the adrenaline rush and learn what actual fighting is like
which is short and nasty with no rules, the name of the game is disable and flee ASAP, not score points!
June 5th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Veering way off topic, thanks for the shout-out to Krav Maga, Max. If I ever get time and room on my list, i’m looking into it. It’s all about how you train. Do you go live or not? Can you go live? If your sensei only teaches you secret death-touches no one has ever used, ineffective hand-to-throat air-chokes, and groin pulls, no. If on the other hand you study techs designed to disable and opponent and use full-force boxing drills, rather than “overload their chi! Dim Mak!” crap, you can go live every goddamn night. You just look like shit afterwards, and have to explain why you have rope burn across your face at work. And women love the cauliflower ears (knocks on wood).
The only problem with this is that there are no girls in the class, which is good because I don’t like hurting them. But I remember being in Rio, walking up the stairs to the fourth floor of the gym to train, and I’d see a capoeira class full of gorgeous women… then I walk up to the next floor, and it’s all tattoo’d chests and biceps.
Preach it, brother!
June 8th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Hey Null
There’s no dim mak in Krav, its basically just a cross between western boxing and wrestling, MMA style. No pressure points beyond the obvious, like if someone has you in a bear hug, put one hand on their chin, grap the back of the head by the hair with the other and give’em a neck crank … simple mechanics
yeah in sparring we tap out on the mat and wear gloves and teeth guards and groin cups when striking, other than that its about 50% force… your head gets hit a lot, hard, so its real, you get banged up.
girls do krav too, same-sex groundfighting though, no girl wants some dude’s sweaty ass in her face
yeah brazilian jiu jitsu they gracie brothers single handedly revolutionized that style, amazing shit, krav teachers always say never ever go the ground with someone who plays BJJ if you can avoid it!!!! LOL