Dexter Gordon, Ph.D.
Camerial Minds
Is Your Boxing Oxymoron?
You may be paying attention to the wrong fight.
Posted May 03, 2021
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Source: Dexter Gordon/Pexels
Years ago, I watched a heavyweight boxing match between the undefeated Miguel Cotto and the unimpressive Bob Seppala. I enjoyed it; it was good entertainment, albeit from a cardiovascular perspective. Miguel Cotto enjoyed it immensely, and eventually I decided that all I wanted from him was to knock me down.
Years ago, I undertook a titanic task of learning to pay attention to the new kid on the boxing circuit. I made a pact with myself to only watch that fight if the new kid made a mistake. It was a lifelong addiction to undefeatedness.
I focus on the early bouts as if they were games. I recognize that Miguel Cotto dominated the upper-middleweight division of Muay Thai until he was 39-0; that he had dominated the weight division of boxing even before that; and that he won the hand of Miguel Benitez in high school.
But from the first punch to the body, the refractory part of the brain is always quiet. I wonder why Miguel Cotto didn’t realize that his much smaller right hand was getting irritated by the defensive switch he was watching?
Miguel’s coaching of the amateur class at Sant Pauley Beach, his insistence that his much larger left hand be left untreated, have led to many misdiagnoses of his entire body. He has had repair surgery for almost every part of his body except for his eye, which continues to throb despite his repeated application of the dry hematite patch. The scars from the surgery will last for the lifetime of the operation.
He uses an ışkurukumān instead of the traditional two-handed wrestling stance. This differs from the double-armed striking system in traditional martial arts. The Turkish artisan tradition is based on the two-armed wrestling style of traditional Turkish folk martial arts (known as Balzan).
I am interested in how this changes over time. I would like to research other examples of Miguel Cotto’s coaching and/or life experiences. Here is a recent example:
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Schaerer, M., Tost, L. P., & Kahn, B. (2009). Behavioral flexibility, emotion regulation, and social support: It is not passive referral but active referral. J. Appl. Organ. Proc. 2, 90-95.
White, R. (1991). The anthropology of religion and psychology: From theory to practice and policy. New York: Oxford.