Reflections Phase 1

Throwing a good jab is a skill. Something that needs to be crafted punch after punch. Closing the fist at the end. Rotating the hips into the punch, stay straight, load it from the leg, so many little adjustments, so many countless times of repeating the same movement until hopefully, one day, it will be automatic part of your body’s movements. A connection of different cells in your brain being able to reproduce that jab as perfectly as possible time after time after time.

To learn that in the gym, we get told to do different drills. There is shadow boxing, exercises on the spot, the bags, partner work, partner work with pads, and partner work without pads, but the aim is always the same: learning and keeping a flawless technique while improving speed, and power and performing it under pressure.

It is this constant repetition of movements that fascinates me. Grafting - literally carving the essence out of a combination of different body parts that, in the end, have one name: a jab. Something that is recognised by other people more or less familiar with combat sports. A jab is for every person the same, regardless of the backpack you carry on your shoulders. There is nothing in that movement that creates distance.

In the gym, so many different people share space. They share sweat. They share screams. They share pain, and sometimes they share being very close to giving up. Within these moments of being close to giving up, these shared loud and visible elements, the sweat, the screams, the breath, and the pain, become the hand helping you off the ground when you fall. It is a form of solidarity, enabling us to push through, reach for more, and understand the possibility of improvement. It is a solidarity that is not spoken about. It is enacted between various levels of learning.

Everyone has different boundaries, different strengths, levels of fitness, and needs. But the willingness to sweat and grow creates a bond that sometimes goes beyond the gym’s walls. And suddenly, you realize, what a few months ago seemed hard, has now been replaced by something different that is challenging.

These are the things I have been thinking about when reflecting on Phase 1. The rules, the boundaries, the glue, the repetition; the gym’s rhythm home in an old factory, where the body in a different way is worked again. A space that has many functions: work, health, social, and home. And I am curious to explore them more while learning how to throw a proper nice jab.

Phase 1

Time as a strict measurement system is a product of the industrial revolution. Labour sold by the factory workers was measured in units of hours. Discipline and punctuality, therefore, became virtues that hold themselves up till today. As a teenager, I was introduced to African timing, to some, an excuse to many, and me a style of living that plays with this strictness of time although only applied in leisurely settings – another by-product of the industrial revolution. At the martial arts gym, I was introduced again to time (rounds) and timing (moves). While these measuring units were not entirely new to me, continuously hearing time was. There is always a clock counting the seconds within the gym, determined to be respected without exception, like the ropes of the ring. Thus, space and time play crucial roles in martial arts.

Phase 1 of intense data collection (336 hours in the field) finished on July 2nd 2022. The aim is now to analyse it. With the questions emerging from this process I would then like to inform phase 2 of the research. Data generated was through: mapping, participatory observation, formal interviews with the coaches, informal chats with coaches and members.

Material things