As the training continues, so the door to an ever increasing world of new ideas, incidentals and curiosities, widens. As I focus my cameras on fighters in the ring, it is beyond the ring where the focus can de drawn. The context becomes the subject. But how do you film or capture context? Focussing on the periphery makes that the subject. My use of cameras in the gym is being restricted more as time goes on. Not for any reason other than due to the evolution and success of the gym itself. As more effort is put into the branding of the business, more events are taking place within that make my bandying a camera about less appropriate. The attendance of “celebrity” boxers (Nigel Benn, Michael Sprott, Danny Williams, and the future big names Wayne Alexander etc), increase the fear that the gyms own footage of these visits is diminished in value, or a lesser exclusive. This is down to the gym setting up a TV company, for whom I would like to do some work. So best behaviour is required, and a more selective use of cameras is paramount. As before, these are not people I want to upset. Nonetheless, I am filming, myself more often than I would like as I am incapable of controlling the focus of the footage while in the ring.
But it is the other research that is engaging me in a way that I was beginning to think was a black hole. But no more. I have unearthed a multitude of research avenues through my google searching that have introduced me to the writings of people, particularly in the states where boxing is seemingly more of a religeon, who have dedicated a large part of their careers writing books, papers and developing discussion, on boxing. I feel in a sense that everything I would have liked to have written, has been written. Rather than seeing this as a negative, or an intimidation, this is pushing me to look more through my own eyes and to learn from my consciousness. Quite aside from the fact that I no longer feel I am alone in my fascination, or that I am pursuing a one-sided conversation, shadowboxing with my own thoughts.
Joyce Carol Oates wrote:
“If boxing is a sport, it is the most tragic of sports because more than any other human activity it consumes the very excellence it displays, its drama is this very consumption.”
I believe, from my own experience, that it is time that is ones opponent in the ring, as it could be said about ones life. Enduring those 3 minutes in the ring is as gruelling as no other experience. To win, you must play chess. Your challengers weaknesses must become your strengths, likewise, the fewer weaknesses you have, the more limited will be your rivals advantage. Only he can win the fight for you. Paradox and Metaphor.
The ring must be the loneliest place on earth.
Shown below is the sacred Wrapping of the Hands!! as mentioned in a previous entry.
