Boxingscientist

@threeoaks Thanks very much. I'm really glad that you found it interesting and/or useful. I couldn't agree more that consent is the key. Of course there are a lot of people who don't want to compete and that is fine. I was trying to explore why it is that some people do want to compete, despite being totally peaceful people in real life, and why the number of people who do want to has increased in recent years. The word "violence" is pretty loaded. It occurs only twice in my piece, both in connection with "bad toughness", e.g. "The sport not only encourages good toughness, but it also discourages violence (bad toughness)". I never thought of boxing as an example of violence, but rather as being just another sort of sport: a hard sport admittedly, but no more dangerous than rugby. It still surprises me that some people who oppose combat sports nevertheless support rugby. In my experience, rugby is at least as hard as boxing -you have no padding at all and when you get kicked it's with a studded boot, not bare feet. Anyone who thinks it's not 'violent' has obviously never played it. Apart from questions of equality (which I'm 100 percent for), I'm delighted that women now compete under the same rules as men. If a man defends the use of shin-to-shin kicks, or elbows to the head, he's likely to be accused of liking violence. But women can't be accused of being testosterone-laden brutes. The fact that many women are more than happy to compete under these rules has prevented combat sports being viewed as being nothing more than a display of male machismo. Despite the comment from Fighting Frog, I think that I'll stick to my conclusion "Contrary to what the spectator might think, you are really loving your opponent when you punch, kick or elbow makes them bleed, and you’d really resent it if they weren’t trying their very best to do the same to you." Well, I guess you are not loving them during the action. but the hug after the final bell shows the essential truth of that intepretation, in my opinion.

Thanks Fighting Frog for that thoughtful reply. I agree almost entirely. But in my experience of rugby. you are encouraged to put your opponents out of the game so I would disagree about your contention that the injuries are mere side effects. I'm glad that I'm not the only person who enjoys doing more than watching. I've been to live MMA only once and had to walk out after the person I was supporting lost. That was more because of the "fans" than because of the fights though. The skill and resilience of the contestants, male and female, was pretty impressive. I like your analogy with marathons. I suspect that a lot of people start running for fun and fitness, but after they achieve a certain level, they get drawn into competing. And the wonderful thing about marathons is that you compete with your own local group, not the people right at the front, so whether you take three hours or four you still get the excitement of competition. As Emma said, a lot of people start martial arts for fun and fitness too, but then find themselves drawn into competing just to see whether they can do it. That's surely just a sign that (many) people like to find something that's a hard challenge, and do it. That surely can't be bad.

I'm new here, and I'd love to get some reactions to my post on "Good toughness and bad toughness. Why combat sports are fun and good for you". (Emma kindly posted it on her blog.) It's my attempt to rationalize my love of combat sports with my dislike of violence. Although military metaphors are common in combat sports (and I've been known to wear camo shorts myself), the big difference is that you are fighting in the ring because that's what you really want to do. All thoughts are welcome.