The Apprenticeship of Boxing

by Mark Brimblecombe  [Tuesday 7 August 2007]

This morning I received an interesting email from Herbert Nelson (Lower Hutt) about boxing training. I’ll reproduce his comments here later if he allows me. Anyway, this reminded me of something which I think is relevant for boxing trainers, that boxing is a craft best learnt in the apprentice – master relationship.

Some years ago when I was doing my Ph.D. research I came across the writings of Michael Polanyi, a scientist turned philosopher in the 1960s. Let me quote some relevant sections from his book Personal Knowledge...

An art which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists. It can be passed on only by example from master to apprentice...

It follows that an art which has fallen into disuse for the period of a generation is altogether lost... It is pathetic to watch the endless efforts – equipped with microscopy and chemistry, with mathematics and electronics – to reproduce a singe violin of the kind the half-literate Stradivarius turned out as a matter of routine more than 200 years ago.

To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyse and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the the imitation of another. A society which wants to preserve a fund of personal knowledge must submit to tradition.

Connoisseurship, like skill, can be communicated only by example, not by precept.

So what does this suggest about who are the best boxing trainers here in New Zealand? That they must themselves have been apprentices to masters at some time, and are now themselves masters of the craft. Also perhaps... the best trainers are those that get into the ring and spar with their apprentice. Perhaps we should take this one step further. Our top boxers will be those that spar and learn from the master boxers who are currently champions. What do you think?

Read the excellent article about Dick Dunn by Jim Flack of the Wairarapa Times-Age (Click here) Dick said...

"If I'm going to teach a boy, I'll get in the ring with him and put the gloves on. I'm ready to perform with him. It's not good enough to tell a boy how to do it, you've got to show him."

Dick was 72 years old when he last got in the ring and sparred. Getting in the ring is the only way he could teach boxers an "awareness of danger".

"You've got to know when a fella's going to punch."

Feedback/Comments

“...exactly the right ingredient. A boxer will only do it right if he wants to please the coach. If he doesn’t care, he is sure to fail unless he is made of extra-ordinary self drive, which is only for the few.” – Paul McSharry.

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