I am drawn to controlled violence, men who have trained themselves way deep into muscle memory where instinctive movements are designed to both dispatch and protect when triggered.I find Mixed Martial Arts brutal, artless, ugly, awful to watch. You may feel the same way about boxing, but where you see a brutal artlessness, I see grace and tactics, footwork, astonishing resilience, interior strength, superb conditioning, incredible courage.To do in the ring what it is harder, often forbidden, to do outside of it - to fight back, to pull it up from the floor and go for it because the alternative is to give in and that is no longer an alternative. It's the heart, not the organ but the soul of the person, his spiritual guts. In the ring to compromise is to lose.
Boxing is a passion of mine, about the only sport I follow, probably because it was something I shared with my father. Back in the fifties, from St. Nicholas arena, Gillette blue blades brought you the Friday night fights in living black and white TV, whooping at Carmen Basilio, an otherwise dogged fighter, who "blocked with his face." Other names from that time - all legends - Kid Gavilan, Sugar Ray Robinson, La Motta, Two Ton Tony Gillento, Emile Griffith (who beat an opponent to death in the ring because the guy, a Frenchman, called him a faggot)-so many guys out there half naked fighting their hearts out."You can run but you cannot hide", said the great Joe Louis. That's the part: you cannot hide. Everything you've got and haven't got is out there for the world to see. There is no one to help you. You either fight your heart out or you quit, and you do not quit. There is no time out. My favorite movie line comes from DiNiro as LaMotta after he's been beaten to a pulp by Sugar Ray Robinson. He's bleeding and barely able to stand, still up but hanging on the ropes. Barely able to speak but still defiant, "I'm still standin', Ray. Ray, I'm still standin'."
So.
Those Championship Rounds.
The final two of any prize fight: rounds eleven and twelve at the elite level. Dig in to the end. Fight with everything you've got. Leave it in the ring. Of course, there's that knockout punch, the one you don't see coming, but isn't there always?
I watched a prize fight recently - heavyweight championship - Usyk vs Joshua. Good fight. Why? Because it came down to the championship rounds, the final two, the two that need you to dig down deeper than you've ever dug before, the two where fights are won or lost. The bell has wrung. Round eleven.
Stephen Howard Foreman has been blessed. He's made it to the championship rounds. He's taken a licking but kept on ticking. Broke his nose. Got knocked out. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune - bring 'em on! Brought 'em on. To paraphrase the lady when she sang out loud, "He's still here." Yogi Berra chimes in, "It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." Foreman has two rounds left. So, now, what does he do? His physical powers have faded, but it's never really been about the physical, has it?
These are my championship rounds. What do I need to do?
The most overwhelming thing in my life these days is my feeling for my grandson, four years old, and, of course, never has there been another so bright and so beautiful.It isn't that this feeling is more intense than any I've had for my wife and children. Certainly, Jamie pole axed me the instant she walked through the door. My children have had me mesmerized since before birth. But love for Dorian is unencumbered in a way those never were. You meet the woman you will marry, and you hope she loves you back. Your children are born into this world, and their cries tell you how much they need you. But, an innocence attends my grandson. I only need to love him.
I see this awakening at this point of my life - this encounter with innocence - as a blessing. To feel so much that is so pure and good is an extraordinary thing, as much a miracle as any I know this side of the supernatural. That sense of wonder! At four score and nearly two years, I am reluctant to feel otherwise. So I focus on the moment, focus on the feeling when it's there, transfuse it, pack it away but not too far, able to retrieve it at a nanosecond's notice. Is this love, what it really is? If I could take this feeling and wrap it around all the things of my day - and keep it there - oh,the peace and exultation that would bring. To feel what I feel when I watch him sleep would mean that I had won.
No comments:
Post a Comment