A Fight Club To Ease The Pain

I caught an episode of Taboo on the National Geographic channel last night and saw a fight club that I'm familiar with - Gints Fighting Club. Gints Klimanis has been running this club out of his garage for a number of years and with him are a number of fighters who put their skills to the test in full contact fights. If you've watched Fight Club with Brad Pitt you'll know what I'm talking about. But in Gint's club they fight with knives, sticks, fists, and improvised weapons ranging from baking sheets to chairs to hoses. As you can see in the picture, people get hurt... bad. The show mentioned cases where fighters from other fight clubs have even died as a result of receiving a major blow to vital points.

I've been training in and teaching the use of sticks, knives, fists and improvised weapons for a number of years, but I've never tested my skills in this sort of arena. Other members in my organization have fought in full contact fights held by another group, The Dogbrothers. From watching the fights from last night's show and even some of the Dogbrother's clips, it seems that the fighters need a bit more training in the realm of defense. It is so hard to fight relaxed as your adrenalin is pumping, and you're nervous about getting hit - you get stiff. Another point is the ego factor. We get caught up in this ridiculous mentality of getting as many hits as you can (yes, even with no armor protection) while neglecting defense. And this is defense mainly in the close range. From what I saw in last night's show, fighters just want to clinch in the close range. Is that the best defense to use? Maybe for some, but not me. I may have not fought in these fight clubs but I've fought in the street and when you play on the street, you play for keeps. There's no, hitting with reckless abandon. On the street there's just the perfect opportunity and one nice hit to the throat and then run - you don't know if the attacker has friends nearby. They say there's no rules in fight club, but on the show there clearly was.

And this brings me to the title of my post. Yes, there are rules in fight club. Why? People have to work the next day, man! But it's like an event loop in computer programming - people have this instinctual need to act violent, over and over again. At work, you deal with crap situations and stupid idiots. You can't obviously punch a guy out at the office or risk getting fired. Go home, eat a bit, go to fight club, ease the pain of a most crappy day at work stuck in a cubicle dealing with ignorant, inconsiderate co-workers by beating each other up. With each other's consent, of course. And the loop begins the next day at work and so on.

Luckily, I don't feel the need to act out this way and prove my manhood. You prove your manhood by surviving each freakin' day anyway. If I have a really bad day at work, there's always Tai Chi. But to each his own right?

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