short history of a [non]fighter
the story goes that when poet/pugilist arthur cravan was in spain he worked really hard to get the former heavyweight champion, jack johnson, into a match. (johnson, a black american of the late 19th - early 20th C is a great & fascinating man in his own right & i would encourage anyone interested in the history of boxing, race discrimination in the united states etc etc. to read up on his life.) cravan claimed he was a boxer. the poet was a large man & well-built. he trained, kinda. but in his boxing life cravan only had three bouts & he got his ass kicked in all three. it is said when cravan saw the size of johnson he tried to get out of the match. the poet was way outta his league & knew it. but the fight commenced. johnson toyed with cravan for six rounds before knocking the poet out.
i am fascinated by the figure of arthur cravan who was more of a provocateur then writer of poems with his lectures on art often developed into drunken spectacles. but the dadaists loved him for his wild art. the great poet mina loy fell in love with cravan & called him COLOSSUS. cravan would remain loy's great love for the rest of her life. marcel duchamp, another great artist, & inspiration to the dude writing these words, was also an admirer of cravan.
cravan was a shitty fighter by all accounts. & yet, he made the persona of boxer into an art. i am reminded, for who doesn't bring his/her/they lives into any account of history, of my own love of fighting. i was a shitty fighter too. first time i boxed, in the front yard of my family house, with a friend of my father, i was smacked right in the kisser. i saw stars & i knew boxing wasn't for me. to paraphrase daffy duck, i am not like other people; to me pain hurts! but i was mad for the martial arts. i started with kenpo when i was 8 or 9 years old. later, i talked my parents into paying for lessons at the WAY OF JAPAN dojo studying shotokan karate.
when i say i was mad for karate i ain't kidding. not only did i train all the time but i studied the history of karate. i read everything i could lay my hands on about karate at large & the martial arts in general. to this day i have stubbornly clinged to a couple of martial art tomes. one is a history of the martial arts in popular culture. the other is a study in japanese chain fighting. i was hardcore. i could tell you the origins of karate from okinawa, te [meaning hand], including traditional okinawan weapons like the nanchaku that were developed in response to japanese occupation & repression of okinawa.
my favorite night at the WAY OF JAPAN was wednesday night. spar night. my sensei, henry, a short dude with thick black hair held in place by a bandana with a can of skoal wrapped in it, would invite schools of various styles, including kickboxing & kung fu offshoots, to our dojo. it was on! i loved it. but i am uncoordinated by design. i didn't like getting hit. that hurt. i am slow by default. henry, in contrast, was short [as if that was some sort of handicap!] but he was lighting fast & very skilled at fighting. he was astonishing to witness on wednesday spar nights. henry looked like he could star in his own martial arts movie as the hero.
& i wonder what might've been if i stuck with the martial arts. certainly, i'd be no hero or champion. i'm sure, like i am today, i would've discovered poetry. would i have made being a fighter a part of my persona like arthur cravan did with pugilism? kinda silly to think so. but what the hell. like marcel duchamp tells us, art is whatever the artist says it is, which was later developed into antipoetry by the likes of nicanor parra et al.
let me end with this memory. there was a student at WAY OF JAPAN who was perhaps a couple years older than me. i don't recall his name. but he was brilliant. grace married to ability. henry was such a charismatic teacher that he attracted & brought into his class martial artists of many styles, including like i mentioned earlier, kickboxing & kung fu. this young man tore thru the curriculum of shotokan in short order. very soon he was studying kung fu with one of henry's disciples. the discipline & practice of karate means you do katas which are a set of predetermined movements designed to mimic a fight. when done well a kata looks like a dance. this young man doing katas was brilliant. to this day i could watch traditional katas all freaking day.
but this young dude was a better fighter. soon he was competing in local events. mostly non-contact matches. i went to one of these competitions to watch him. he was magnificent. he won his division. he was with no doubt a champion. a little while later i fell out of that world. i discovered punk rock, girls, skateboards etc etc. a little later i found writing, & a little later still, poetry. & all those things i just listed, karate, punk rock, skateboards, drugs (even!), have made me the person i am today. i wonder what happened to that young champion. he was that good. at least to me. but like arthur cravan proved on the pulse of his boxing i cannot take a punch. nor can i give one either.
let that be my art.
