Re: Boxing in Schools

[inventor13]

Will boxing ever be allowed back into schools ?
Amateur boxing is the thinking man's combat sport. To every move there is a defence and a counter move. The learning and practising of them is a fascinating business, and the hours in the gym just fly by. Not for nothing has boxing been called "chess with the fists". Indeed, there is a form of it in Germany called "Chess Boxing" (one round boxing, one round "speed chess", one round boxing, one round "speed chess", and so on for six rounds). However, in this country there is massive opposition to any kind of boxing, especially boxing involving young people (some members of the public even call it "child abuse"). Two major sources of opposition are the teaching and the medical professions. Many teachers believe that boxing leads to bullying and violence against women and that the martial arts are much "safer" and more "modern". The bulk of the medical profession believes that boxing leads to brain damage, and the British Medical Association is currently waging a campaign to have all boxing banned. There are over 800 articles condemning boxing and the injuries resulting from it published in medical journals around the world during the last four decades. Doctors nowadays take concussion very seriously, not just the traumatic concussion resulting from a K.O., but also the low level concussion resulting from moderate blows to the head incurred in routine sparring in the gym. Forty years ago, doctors would have seen a biff on the nose as just part of life's school of hard knocks. Today the technology exists to detect even the tiniest tears in the brain tissue of novices who have had just a couple of bouts. There is no doubt that medical opinion carries enormous weight with both parents and the educational authorities.
Derivatives of boxing such as "non-contact" boxing and "boxercise" have established a foothold in some schools as a result of ABA initiatives but are still met with opposition lest they should lure children into real boxing. They are indeed no substitute for real boxing since without sparring students cannot learn timing, but it is unlikely that real boxing will ever return to the schools unless it can be rendered "concussionless". How can it be rendered "concussionless" and remain real boxing? (Just excluding the head from the target area is no solution).
1. It must be recognised that existing safety measures are largely ineffectual. Headguards may offer some protection to the eyes and the ears but they do little to prevent concussion and nothing to prevent K.O.'s. Gumshields may protect the teeth and the lips but they do little to interrupt the transmission of the force of a blow to the brain. Modern gloves do a good job of protecting the hands but they do nothing to protect an opponent. Indeed they make harder punching then ever possible. Boxing equipment needs to be entirely rethought. The basic design of it has hardly changed since the early 1900's, although some more modern materials have been introduced. Attempts at radically redesigning it are not new. There is plenty of evidence, and I could say a lot more about it, but let's take boxing gloves for a moment. Surely in our space age, when science has produced protection for man in the most hostile environments, it should be possible to produce gloves which protect both wearer and opponent.
2. I admit that new equipment along these lines would make boxing largely a scoring game. It would therefore be vitally necessary for boxers to have a good level of skill in order to be able to score. There would have to be a great improvement in the standard of instruction offered in many clubs. Since the withdrawal of schoolteachers from amateur boxing many years ago, the standard of instruction has often been deplorable, and bored and discouraged youths have left clubs in droves. The statistics of this have never been disclosed. To hold youngsters' attention and prevent them from straying off to the many other sports on offer today, or even to boxing computer games where nobody has to raise a sweat, instruction would have to be thorough, systematic and imaginative. The teaching of defence would be a priority, i.e. for every minute spent on offence, two would be spent on defence. Sparring would be a must, but it would be strictly controlled so that it would be a learning opportunity, never a chance for "gym wars". Inventor 13.

[Darren]

Some interesting points here.

It is fairly clear that modern technology, knowledge and experience have shown that boxing can be a dangerous sport. The main inference being that the main objective for any boxer must be to KO the opponent, or give them a good hiding at the least. We rely on the fantastic coaches that we have in the ABA to ensure that their boxers fight even matches to avoid this. Inevitably more experienced boxers end up having a higher risk, and end up being a higher threat.

Is schoolboy boxing really very dangerous? We don't hear about many accidents do we? The chances are that our young boxers actually recover better than older boxers since their brains are still developing and growing. The synapses that get injured have a better chance of being replaced.

Are we seeing a decline in schoolboy boxing? The last time I stuck a toe in the water there were plenty of youths in the system. I reckon we're doing ok, and there's no harm in understanding the risks of boxing - so long as we put them in context with the risks of other sports, statistically.

[inventor13]

Dear Darren, Thank you for your reply of the 22/3/2010 to my contribution of 11/3/2010. Thank you also for inserting the missing question mark in my text and for tidying up the area round it.

The injury rate for boxing is below that of many other sports, but one injury is probably the most serious of all when it does occur, i.e.injury to the brain. This makes boxing uniquely dangerous in the eyes of the medical profession. It is likely to occur so long as the head is the main target as a route to a quick or a decisive win. It is not for nothing that boxing has been called "basically a game of stun and run". Clean, skilled boxing ought to be the aim of every boxer, but even so it can still lead to an opponent being stunned or even knocked out : it takes only one good punch. And beatings do sometime take place in amateur boxing, especially when boxers are being egged on by a paying audience. The temptation to "let go" is irresistible and the borderline between boxing and brawling disappears.

You mention that there seem to be plenty of youths taking part in amateur boxing. Indeed there are some flourishing clubs, but amateur boxing today is a shadow of what it was in the 1950's and 1960's when it was a major sport in schools and colleges all over the country. There are politicians like Kate Hoey and Boris Johnson who appear to be be giving support to a revival of boxing but largely with the intention of using it as a panacea against youth crime. This is not the first time boxing has been viewed thus, and it does the sport no credit with the folk who have the power to influence its future. I believe that boxing has unique benefits to offer people, and if it is to avoid a future as just a minor martial art, it must get back into the schools, and to do that it has to overcome the objections of its chief enemies, the teaching and the medical professions. What boxers and the ABA think of boxing is irrelevant. What matters above all is what the medical profession thinks. (It must always be borne in mind that the medical profession carries enormous weight with parents and the education authorities). The doctors will not declare boxing safe until all the issues about brain damage have been dealt with to their satisfaction. It should be added that they strongly disapprove of schoolboy boxing because the developing brain is particularly vulnerable to damage. They also regard repeated light blows to the head as being almost as dangerous for boxers ("second impact syndrome") as single heavy ones .

Since it would destroy boxing to take the head out of the target area (as has been advocated by some people), we are left with an impasse as to what to do next, since the doctors regard existing protective measures as wholly inadequate. Hence my attempts to "think outside the box" by suggesting " concussionless boxing" and that boxing equipment should be completely redesigned. Since such twenty-first century equipment is unlikely to arrive tomorrow, perhaps a change in the rules might serve as an interim measure. Would it not be a good idea for successful blows to the body to score twice as many points as ones to the head ? There are other changes I could think of, but enough for now.

The situation of amateur boxing in this country is paralelled by the one in the USA. The AMA (American Medical Association) is against boxing, and so boxing has disappeared from American schools and nearly all universities and colleges. Everywhere boxing has been replaced by amateur wrestling which is now a major sport coming just after American football and baseball in importance. Wrestling is well dug in, and I doubt whether boxing will ever be admitted again. Amateur boxing survives in various clubs across the country. I suppose the Golden Gloves tournaments are a monument to a glorious past. In Britain, no other combat sport has usurped boxing's place, so the way back is still theoretically open. With the right changes, a few doctors might decide that the benefits outweigh the risks, and with a few more changes, more doctors might come to take the same view. Inventor 13.

[carol]

The school bell is ringing again. Boxing is back in fashion as head teachers turn from the more politically correct pursuits to re-employ the old-fashioned way of fighting the flab, restoring discipline and combating bullying.

The battle to get boxing back on the school sports agenda is spearheaded by an unusual pro-am coalition. It includes the new English Schools ABA president, the former general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, John Morris, Britain's leading professional promoter, Frank Warren, a former sports minister, Kate Hoey, plus Jimmy Wray, a former Scottish boxer who is now a Labour MP, and a 92-year-old Catholic priest, Father George Saintsbury.

[Thai]

It should be teach properly. Core concepts should be taught first.
I think It's physical, an energy and a form of discipline. Most of top boxers are NOT violent.
So if we are going to teach it at schools , they should learn real value of boxing. muay thai training camp thailand

[inventor13]

It is time I answered the last two contributors to this debate, "Carol" and "Thai".
"Carol" first : real boxing is not making a comeback into schools. What has happened is that a few schools have signed up to ABA of England initiatives to reintroduce boxing by way of "boxercise", which is boxing training without any contact in the ring, as a way of getting something of boxing past the opposition of the medical profession, most teachers and most parents.
There is an awards scheme for children who pass various boxing-related tests at a silver, a gold or a platinum level, but there is no free sparring and no contests. It is rather like teaching someone the highway code and how to drive a car only so long as they never do anything as dangerous as driving on a road. The ABA's hope is that it will attract children into joining ordinary ABA boxing clubs outside school hours and on their own initiative. There is no doubt that the ABA cannot rely on traditional boxing if it is to survive. "Boxercise" and "non-contact boxing" represent attempts to create new markets and sources of income for its activities. It is up against severe competition, even in the schools, from various forms of the martial arts. The ABA states on its website that it has 822 clubs at present. The Amateur Martial Association (one of the largest umbrella organisations for the martial arts) claims to have 127 clubs, most of them set up in the last ten years, not over the last 120 years as with amateur boxing. The martial arts are growing at a much greater pace, and the AMA claims that there are now 95,000 practitioners, many of them in unregistered or private clubs. There is also the latest craze for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA, or "cage fighting", as it used to be called). "Carol" mentions a high-powered alliance of figures from both the amateur and the professional boxing worlds heading a new drive to get boxing into schools : John Morris of the BBBC, Frank Warren, the promoter, Jimmy Wray, ex-boxer and Labour MP, and Fr George Saintsbury, formerly head of the Schools Amateur Boxing Association. Jimmy Wray is no longer an MP, and Fr Saintsbury died in 2006.
There are further problems for boxing in schools. One is the difficulty of getting enough able coaches, given that the schools' P.E.profession is so much against boxing. Getting good coaches is also a problem which besets many amateur boxing clubs. The training schemes for coaches by the ABA hardly inspire confidence : the course for the highest level coaching qualification requires only two weekends of training. Another problem is that boxing, to be enjoyable, requires a lot of careful teaching and high levels of fitness, and in the overcrowded timetables of many schools, where there is a desperate need to prioritise the raising of academic standards, and other sports also have claims, boxing may not get the time it requires. It is interesting that in another section of this website ("Coaches' Room"), the general drift of the responses to the question, " What do you think about boxing in schools ?", is that the reintroduction of boxing is now impossible ; protest groups would make too much of a fuss.
Now for "Thai": I don't think Muay Thai boxing would be any more acceptable in British schools than boxing. I certainly think that boxing (of any kind) should be thoroughly and properly taught. I also wish that the problem of concussion could be overcome. It is the most dangerous of all sports injuries and is now a real problem in rugby as well as boxing. And boxing's image needs to change...it should no longer be so "inner city" and associated with teenage delinquents. Inventor 13.

[inventor13]

Further news which will disappoint all lovers of boxing. A report in the USA states that 25% of all professional boxers suffer from detached retinas. The most famous case was Sugar Ray Leonard some years ago. It is said that this condition can be cured much more easily today, but it is still dangerous and treatment does not have a satisfactory outcome for everyone.
The cause is not only a heavy blow to the eye; it is also the concussive shock wave resulting from any strong blow to the head. It is becoming a problem in rugby as players get ever bigger and stronger, and tackling ever more damaging. The rugby authorities try to ameliorate this by modifications to the rules. In boxing, nothing changes. How often does detachment of the retina occur in amateur boxing ? Well, records (if they exist) are not publicised, and teenage boxers going to hospital are not newsworthy events, unless they fail to come out again. I have knowledge of several instances of detached retinas. Oh, if only the concussion problem could be overcome ! It seems that the only answer is a complete redesigning of the equipment used in boxing, principally gloves and headguards, as put forward in recommendation no.1 in my first contribution of March 18th to this debate (see above).